ACES linear workflow using OCIO in After Effects

[@staffanhermansson]

Jag har plöjt igenom ett gäng med OCIO-tutorials men alltid fastnat på något otydligt, din räddade mig. Stort tack för denna!

[@kristianivanov2049]

dude. i even started reading about color spaces and all just because i couldn understand why cant i fix my burned pixels when working with ases and even watch couple of tutorials and videos. just now i learned to add an adjustment layer and apply ocio to it. thanks man

[@redsnow936]

Omg i cant believe i did it! research, after 2 years strugling what Aces is and how to use it in my workflow with rendering software, finally done. Thanks you very much bro!!!! this is absolutely excellent tutorial

[@bobbihansel]

I keep coming back to this every time AE does an update, thanks Jacob!

[@bobbihansel]

And I'm back here again - thanks again Jacob!

[@rtheawesomegm]

thanks, this is so cool! the only problem is when i take it to media encoder, it goes all washed out and bright again, do you know how to fix this?

[@oumoumad]

fnordware has released an OCIO plugin for photoshop too, would love to see a tutorial on how to do an ACES linear workflow in photoshop too.

[@hyperbolicfilms]

Very helpful, thanks a lot! Had a few minutes of panic when the colorist asked that the VFX be delivered as log.

[@alexgd6161]

Hahaha same...

[@stefangaillot1561]

I was looking for an introduction and this is a great find. Thank you Jacob.

[@rudybraylen9325]

I guess it's quite off topic but does anyone know a good website to watch new movies online ?

[@kazimison3562]

for some reason OCIO download option is not there anymore :( ..any idea?

[@lightthirst2807]

THANK YOU, I Have another question ,how to compositing optical flares in aces workflow?

[@severaleffects]

The link in the description unfortunately doesn't work anymore :( I haven't had any luck finding this plugin online, do you know where to find it?

[@TheKlausau]

Do you guys still have acces to the Sample OCIO Configurations Files? I am not able to download them.

[@smoothparishioner]

what an excellent tutorial and thank you for taking the time.

[@pixelationindia]

Hi firstly thank you for a brilliantly created video, Sadly Im not able to find the profile aces profiles page...it says page not found when I go to download it

[@activemotionpictures]

This has been an amazing walkthrough video. Thank you very much for sharing this information.

[@filip4785]

Thanks a bunch for this from a fellow Swede! I have an issue using this workflow where the blacks get crushed on export (possibly clipped whites as well). I have it set up as in the tutorial with the OpenColorIO on the footage and an adjustment layer with the reversed process. I then export to a prores (tried both 422, 422HQ and 4444) with "preserve RGB" checked. Shouldn't this result in a file that is more or less identical with the original file or have I missed a step somewhere along the way?

[@steilvorlageDE]

Hi, I work with CS6 :) and in my Working Space there is no ACES. Where can I get the profile for that and where do I have to pu it in? Thanks!!

[@benz.1730]

Hello Jacob, thanks - isn't there meanwhile an update?

[@lexxandera]

Rendering via media encoder seems to be broken with aces. Am i doing something wrong? I have to render via render queue to get the correct image result.

[@UltimoApache]

Thank you so much for the tutorial! I'm just wondering... if all the color management is happening through effects and OpenColorIO plug-in, and we are disabling color management for all the footage that we are importing, does it matter to set a color space in the project settings? I'm going to do some testing, maybe we can just turn off color management from the beginning.

[@MarcoHdzCalvo]

A great piece of info. thanks!!

[@rokuthekiller]

Oh thanks for this tutorial, I finally understood the pipeline for ACES and its importance in live action compositing, thank you very much!... As you might already know, AE now has OCIO integrated, still I have some doubts and I hope you can guide me here... I am exporting .EXR files in ACEScg for color grading those heavy vfx in DaVinci... but I would like to ask you how would you do an ODT file which is not that heavy for those scenes that don't have too much VFX compositing?... I'm thinking on exporting those scenes in 4444XQ (in Trillions), but should I send them with an output color space in ACEScg too? Or do a Preserve RGB? Or maybe use OCIO plugin and change ACEScg to its native Log? I'm a little bit lost in this final part of exporting, thanks!

[@AhmedKhaledFX]

So Helpful , Thanks Jacob.

[@resilientpicture]

Awesome man, thank you for this.

[@technetproduction]

Hi, which output profile in "Color profile converter" should I use when dealing with arw (sony mirrorless camera raw format)? In the Interpret footage -> More Options window I only get those profiles : Adobe Color, Landscape, Portrait, Standard, Vivid.

[@posebukse]

Why do you convert back to slog3 instead of staying in aces all the way until your conversion to rec709?

[@JacobDanell]

The production lut we used for this shot had a LUT that expects slog3 as the IDT, thus converting back to slog3 before applying the Look lut

[@jnicolas77]

Hi. I have two questions about the installation because I haven´t be able to install it. First: Do you have to create the "Color/Profiles" folders? And second: Do you have to copy the whole "aces _1.0.3" folder or just the content?

[@benz.1730]

Question: Is OCIO a solution, to get the same colors for web as shown in AE ?

[@prinsenlive]

Great tutorial Jacob!!

[@ejazmehedi]

Thank you for the in-depth tutorial Jacob! Had a question- once done with all the VFX/compositing, what settings do i use to export the file (with CG) in LOG? Do I turn off any of the layers with OCIO plugin?

[@JacobDanell]

It deoends on how you want to deliver your vfx shots. Ether you can render it as lin ACES of if it's shot with, lets say, slog3, then I mostly convert back to slog3 in the end so the vfx shots looks like the original shot.

[@ejazmehedi]

@@JacobDanell I'm currently working with Slog3 footage and after completing the CG work in After Effects i'd like to render out the same Slog3 files to grade in Da Vinci, do I apply another layer of OCIO plugin on the top of all the layers before exporting?

[@nilbandTV]

It's fairly straight forward: If you've set up the color management as Jacob described it here in the tutorial, you should have your linear comp with the two Adjustment Layers that convert first to LOG then to REC 709. If the Adjustment Layers are set to Guid Layers AE will ignore them, if you render it out. So if you want to have your footage again in Log, make the LOG conversion Layer a normal Layer again and add the comp to the render queue. By default AE then uses the working color space ACEScg and that's fine. Make sure you render out with AE and not the Media Encoder, I've gotten weird double gammas when using the Encoder. I've also had some weird blackpoint problems when I rendered an ALEXA LOGc YUV clip to DNXHD RGB and I only got the blackpoint to stay the same when I switched back to render in YUV again. I hope that helps!

[@ejazmehedi]

@@nilbandTV Thank you so much for the reply, I'll give this a go soon and let you know!

[@ejazmehedi]

@@nilbandTV Another question - do I grade the exported LOG files as usually or do I have to change the color space on Da Vinci Resolve too?

[@brennur3731]

This is really cool but whenever i export like this my video has a bunch more noise than the viewport and the exposure is cranked all the way up

[@TimKouCreative]

Having a tough time getting my Element3D animation to ouput in ACEScct. I'm doing effects in E3D for Eva1 footage, and nothing is matching properly. Help?

[@JacobDanell]

What colorspace are your textures in? Try ser the input in OCIO to genericRGB

[@s76motiongfx68]

THANKS!!!

[@Alexey_Petrov_Studio]

Thank you for tutorial! Can you or someone share old version (1.1) of open color plugin fo ae?

[@runawayneko6856]

Thanks for your sharing. Would like to know if there's any ways to convert Blackmagic Raw footage using this workflow in After Effects? Since I can't find any Blackmagic IDT for now. Thanks!

[@LeonSanginiti]

Hello, thank you for this well done tutorial. I just have one problem. The footage I am working with is Black Magic 4K shot on the Pocket 4K. The footage is in BCC RAW, and I don;t see an "input" that matches BCC RAW...what do I do? Thanks

[@TheKlausau]

yes please. Same question here!

[@arthur.batista2324]

THX so much man!!!

[@danielhartmann475]

Thanks so much Jacob! Was trying to figure this one out!

[@jonathanhowells4923]

Anyone else have trouble unzipping the "Sample OCIO Configurations" from OpenColourIO - I get corrupted messages... I tried a few different apps to uncompress the zip and .tar.gz, but same problem - corrupted - unable to extract. Any suggestions?

[@SalaJPN]

nice, thanks, i didnt get it when you introduced the Tap function (search like function) to type the effect you want to apply, what was the plugin Name?

[@JacobDanell]

FX console by Video Copilot

[@SalaJPN]

Thanks!

[@fabioapelbaum8840]

Hi Jacob, thank you, very useful. I am trying to apply it to my footage but Im uncertain what to choose from OpenColorIO in AE... the footage I am working with was shot on a RED camera, Red Dragon Color 2 - Red Gamma 4, but when I look into the configuration, only shows under RED Input - RED LogFilm and Linear. Could you please guide me in the right direction? thanks

[@JacobDanell]

You need to change your footage to RedLogFilm. To do this you need to right click your footage in the project panel and then go to Interpret Footage -> Main. In the bottom you press More Options. In here you can change your footage to RedLogFilm under GammaCurv.

[@fabioapelbaum8840]

Thanks! I will try it tomorrow. After I've done the change, and assuming everything is working correctly, I add my effects and then when Im ready to export the final, what format and specs should my output be to make sure it transfers the full range?

[@JacobDanell]

If you convert back to RedLogFilm you can export to any format as you wish as no highlights or shadows will clip. You can render to ProRes or CineForm. If image sequences are ok, render to Tiff or OpenEXR, both lossless. If you render out ACEScg, render to OpenEXR as it can hold floating points (colors brighter than 1 and darker than 0)

[@fabioapelbaum8840]

Thank you once again! One additional question. A part of the edit was done in chroma key, and once keyed I will be taking it into cinema 4d to insert the cast in the 3d set so it can cast the reflections... For this, I am exporting the keyed clip as an EXR sequence using zip compression, would that be ok? Also, when rendering the clip with the 3d background in cinema 4d, it will export linear as sRGB... how should I approch the change in work spaces?

[@JacobDanell]

@@fabioapelbaum8840 EXR is ok. To be hinest I'm not the best when it comes to 3D renders, but the material I have gotten have bin rendered linear and I just place it without any OCIO conversion and it have blended perfectly. If your footage looks wrong in AE, add OCIO to the 3D render and go under Utility and test sRGB linear as input and ACEScg as output, maybe that might make it look more correct. One thing I forgot in the video! When you render from AE, under output profile, go to color management and select preserve RGB there also, else your footage might not look correct. I will add it to this tutorial in the close future.

[@muhamedflugaj9240]

why dont you just set the working space to none in order to net uncheck display color management everywhere, I think that you can work with aces even if your working space is set to none!?

[@Terry_Williams]

thanks

[@abramovcgch]

Thanks man! 8 dislikes, I guess, still works in sRGB pipeline with big box monitors

[@salemabduhu]

my color management tick box is grayed out. any Idea why is it so?

[@dwainsouth3562]

Same here. I tried finding a solution online but nothing helps

[@AeBlues]

it is explained on 3:28

[@cinemapsychospod]

Question, how would this workflow work for keying, precomp together, create a matte from the converted footage than combine with a duplicate between the adjustment layers?

[@kaczorefx]

What exactly is the point of this? If you DON't "preserve RGB" on the source footage, and keep View-Color Management enabled you get the same result, you just don't have to juggle all the effects and adjustment layers. Everything you did is technically correct it's just that color management is there to do it for you, isn't it?

[@lesterlauritzen]

The advantage to turning it into an ACES linear workflow is that effects will react to your footage correctly, such as the highlight blooming from the lens blur effect he demonstrated in this video. The ACES workflow is designed to put all footage, from any camera or 3D software, in the same color space for consistency and accuracy. More of a scientific approach to doing your effects. But the amount of time it adds to the piepline really only make sense and is most effective for important larger projects, where there needs to be consistency from one artist to the next throughout a pipeline. It is extremely helpful when trying to match 3D renders to live action footage, and definitely saves time there.

[@tubelator]

Sorry but this is sooo much work with all the added plugins and workflows. Why can’t ae do an easy import and fix it all automatically. So stupid. Imagine doing motiongraphic project with 100 rgb assets. Vector assets and some aces 3d assets. So hard. I will just stick with rgb renders and workflow.

[@JacobDanell]

For motion graphics I wouldn't recommend using ACES but go with srgb instead. ACES is more for live footage/cgi, things that should look like real life. Also in the latest version of AE there is now a beta version where they have implemented ACES directly inside of AE :)

[@darviniusb]

Sincerly this is to unreliable and confusing to work with in Ae. Not to mention you really have to know what you do. If you pass the project further to others to work on the comp, a small mistake and your project collors are fked up. Plus the huge hit you get in performance with Ae set to 32 bit. Untill Adobe does not optimize Ae for multicore and does not do a proper implementation of OCIO, this is cool but not for a (my case) daily Ae production pipeline.

[@JacobDanell]

You hit the head on the nail. A robust 32bit workflow with OCIO should be one of AE teams higher priorites if you ask me. I have had to move to Fusion for bigger comps just because of this sadly