Why I Use ACES For VFX! (And Maybe Why YOU Should...)

[@jMcWill781]

This is the ACES explanation video I've been waiting for! Thank you very much!

[@AlfieVaughan]

Haha! Glad I could help 😁

[@AlfieVaughan]

PLEASE READ I realised recently that you need to set your output transform when rendering from Resolve to ACEScg, not "no output transform" in order for it to be exactly the same in Nuke. This is ONLY for rendering the shots out as EXRs from Davinci Resolve. The rest of the time I leave it on srgb for proper viewing. Also, a quick note for everyone terrified by the millions of colour spaces from the drop down list! I've spent the day deleting all the pointless colourspaces from the ocio.config file so it's slimmed right down to the main 9 you need for using in Blender. The adapted file is available to download for free on my Patreon (link in description). It's a public post so everyone can access it. Hope that's helpful!

[@rr24creations]

this is a huge lifesaver

[@marioCazares]

Thank you for making this. You and Jacob are awesome for explaining these things in detail. I don't like trying to explain repeatedly why I use this workflow so maybe now those who don't get it will get it now? You also condensed everything so well with a small amount of words. Great tutorial!

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thanks a lot Mario! :)

[@CatalinPascaru]

Really well done! You really packed a lot of info in this video. I appreciate that you've given some examples, along with common issues and their solutions. Also, keep up the great work, your renders and your videos in general are very good!

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thank you Catalin! Glad you liked the video :)

[@rc116987]

Excellent brief about ACES color switching between tools, Thanks keep do it

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thanks!

[@NOTMYSCENE]

Holy!!I was waiting to know about ACES

[@stephanec3436]

Brilliant ! Very complete. I was just wandering why you have choosen nuke instead of fusion for compositing as fusion also have good feedback and it’s part of resolve which would simplify the workflow ? The ergonomy ? The quality of the tools or because it’ is THE standart in the vfx industry ?

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thanks! Its because I started working for a VFX studio about 4 years ago so I had to learn nuke when I started as it's the most commonly used compositor in the industry. Ive used most compositors for a bit. I've tried fusion briefly, I used after effects for ages, I've used the blender one a bit... And nuke just seems to be the best in my opinion!

[@Dhanuzkrish]

I heard the word ACES today and i learned all about in this masterpiece

[@AlfieVaughan]

Haha 🤣 Glad this was helpful. It's the way forward for serious VFX for sure

[@lucascarracedo7421]

Nice video mate!

[@AlfieVaughan]

Lucas! Haha thank you 😁

[@lollysawant]

great explanation bro , hats off

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thanks! :)

[@Zaqariyah]

Just one small question: Why dont you use fusion for compositing? Thank for helpful video!

[@AlfieVaughan]

I've heard it's good but I'm a professional compositor and we all use nuke at work. In my opinion it's the best compositing software around at the moment. And also I know it extremely well at this point! It's not worth me changing

[@Zaqariyah]

@@AlfieVaughan so how about to make video like "professional VFX artist tries to compose in Fusion". I think it's very interesting and important for poeple.

[@AlfieVaughan]

Not a bad idea! I'll give it a go

[@VFXDobleC]

@@Zaqariyah i like this suggestion!

[@nothingimageworks]

I have a question. This may have been explained in the video but I missed sorry. My question is as follows. I’ve set up Blender so that it renders in Linear ACES AP1 (I don’t know if that is ACES CG, CC or CCT). In Nuke I have it so that it reads a Scene linear file it looks way to dark, and the view transform is default, the project settings are set up so that the working space is Scene linear. When I export it it instead looks to bright, though I don’t know if I exported it as an Matte painting or Scene linear. What am I doing wrong? Thank you for this video. It was very informative but my issue is kind of specific.

[@AlfieVaughan]

It should be set to ACES CG for rendering. AP1 is its own thing. So ideally you want to work in aces CG for all the post work so it looks the same across blender, nuke and your editor etc. Double check your colour space in the write node too. Definitely don't export in matte painting. Keep the whole lot as Aces CG otherwise there will be colour shifts

[@nothingimageworks]

@@AlfieVaughan Thank you very much 🙏🏼

[@nothingimageworks]

@@AlfieVaughan I've for quite a while now tried applying all of the theory but for some inexplicable reason the diffuse passes still look darker than how they look in Blender (if I just look at the passes separately). Could I contact you at Instagram or someplace so I could send some screenshots?

[@AlfieVaughan]

Sure! My Instagram is @alfie_vaughan_

[@charles_wren_films]

This is really interesting. I’m a Nuke user who’s avoided ACES up until now. Really need to make the switch. Towards the end though, when you compare the Nuke comp to the original plate, you mention that the colours are exactly the same, but they’re not. The red jackets hanging behind you, and also the blue box just on the right edge of the frame, all look off. Is this down to something you adjusted in Nuke? Or are those colours somehow off?

[@AlfieVaughan]

It was a mistake I made in the video. You have to set the read node in nuke to aces2065 so the colours match on the round trip. I missed that step in this. If you do that they're identical :)

[@charles_wren_films]

@@AlfieVaughan Ah, that makes sense then. Thanks for the quick response! It’s hard knowing where to start with all the ACES stuff.

[@AlfieVaughan]

Tell me about it 😂 took a lot of personal research and trial and error which is why I wanted to make this. To try and help a bit!

[@DGFA-]

Hi, one step I do not understood. Why not to use output transform for exporting video to exr? In what a colorspace it would then be exported?

[@AlfieVaughan]

I think if you don't turn it off it does t export as linear so it does a double transform instead which doesn't look right once you view it in nuke or blender. This is the way to do it so the colours are identical for the whole round trip through all the softwares

[@NOTMYSCENE]

ACES good one👍 Why the pitch became high when You say 15 in beginning Is this mic problem Or you added it yourself

[@AlfieVaughan]

It's text to speech 😂😂😂

[@NOTMYSCENE]

@@AlfieVaughan 😂😂

[@briskryant1286]

Which version of nuke do you use?

[@AlfieVaughan]

I'm using nuke indie 12.4 :)

[@manoojmanoharan9854]

So If I have to download a footage from internet. How can I know what's the default colorspace and if possible can you make a video on how to uses ACES on a footage which is downloaded

[@AlfieVaughan]

It depends on the camera. It's probably pretty safe to assume it's sRGB unless it's from a fancy camera then it might be in some kind of LOG profile

[@jitheshtechtutorials3028]

Bro what you used for thor vfx with blender

[@AlfieVaughan]

I used Nuke and Blender if that's what you mean? :)

[@jitheshtechtutorials3028]

@@AlfieVaughan thank you bro

[@Ecceptor]

Ty for this. I have a question. Procedural textures/Color in blender is linear right? do we need to change them to ACEScg first?

[@AlfieVaughan]

Procedural textures don't have a colour space, they're built from the nodes in blender... Do you mean seamless?

[@Ecceptor]

@@AlfieVaughan I see. Sorry I hv another question, do you grade render pass in nuke using cg or cct?

[@AlfieVaughan]

Do you mean the colourspace? All renders should be ACEScg

[@Farisdaniiel]

Great video! 1 question, Im about to color a small commercial in resolve that has vfx in it and the vfx artist has already done his vfx. Now Ive never graded any shots that has vfx nor does the vfx artist knows how to pass it to me but i do believe his not working in aces color space.. Can the vfx artist change its color space to ACES after he has done the whole vfx?

[@AlfieVaughan]

Yes it can be changed but it would be quite a bit work. The look would change a bit so it would need tweaking. I'd probably recommend just sharing ProRes files in rec709 to keep it standard if you can't switch to ACES

[@lukasbieri]

Thank you so much for this, Alfie! I posted an in-depth question a few minutes ago, but the comment unfortunately somehow got deleted. Is there some way I can get in touch with you directly? I would be really, really glad to hear your input on this, as I am having a small issue that just drives me crazy. You seem to use the same workflow as I intend on using, so your help would be highly appreciated! Thank you for the helpful workflow video, you definitely earned a new sub :)

[@AlfieVaughan]

Glad you liked the video! Yeah feel free to drop me a message on Instagram and we can chat :)

[@visualcamrix8472]

can you please please do tutorial for how to work flow with blender and davinci while footage shooted in green screen, tutorial for adding VFX in that i guess it will help others, well thankyou, i hope you will think about this.

[@AlfieVaughan]

Check out my blender nuke and davinci workflow video

[@stilmotionpicture]

I don’t have Resolve yet.. Is the Aces built in to software? The free version?

[@AlfieVaughan]

It is, yep! I used the free version with ACES for 6 months before deciding to buy resolve studio

[@PrashanSubasinghe]

Very informative!

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thanks Prashan!

[@richalexander1138]

The latest DaVinci update messes the first steps I’m using and srgb looks super dark in aces transform. Not sure what’s going on

[@AlfieVaughan]

You mean when you set srgb as the output transform in the settings?

[@richalexander1138]

@@AlfieVaughan I'm working off of Red Monstro footage where I need to camera track a shot. I go to Color Management and change to ACEScc and it converts the RedLog to what appears to be Rec709 however it crushes everything. What would you recommend for prepping the footage to nuke in which I can deliver the client the final as RedLog for them to color grade? OR is this something I have to work off of ACES/Rec709 and deliver as Rec709? Appreciate it.

[@AlfieVaughan]

It depends how you want to work really. ACES and also the davinci colour managed workflow will both read the metadata of raw footage and automatically convert them to your output transform in the settings. If you want to deliver the log back you can select the clips and choose "bypass colour management" before exporting so it doesn't do any transforms. However I wouldn't recommend doing that as it's not good for VFX to work in log. What all the VFX studios I've worked at do is convert everything to ACES CG and then provide those EXRs to the colourist and they grade using them instead of the log. It's possible to do a transform from ACES CG back to log before sending it if they really want it but I dont think it gives a perfect result going back

[@richalexander1138]

@@AlfieVaughan this is a huge help, thanks! Been pulling my hair over how to tackle these shots lol

[@AlfieVaughan]

No problem!

[@AliNaserGFX]

very cool video thanks I hope all software developers do better workflow for ACES

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thanks! They're slowly getting there. After effects just got an update to allow it to use aces

[@charlesbrain5535]

hi any link to download the overscan addon for blender 2.9

[@AlfieVaughan]

Check out my VFX workflow video from a couple of months ago. There's a link in the description :)

[@Kava.imfree]

Hey, really helpful video! I've seen a lot of material regarding this topic, but you're the first one to explain it in human language ;p Anyway, I'm very new to all of this, but decided to level up my game and finally learn ACES workflow. The only part that I'm confused about is Nuke - it feels like an extra step and I just have no idea what that step is for... could some one please explain what was the purpose of transferring files to Nuke? (p.s I've achieved satisfactory results with my test run totally avoiding the nuke part and basically rendering everything in DaVinci and Blender, and for my non-professional eye everything looks good, but it seems that I'm missing something. Somebody, please help ;c )

[@AlfieVaughan]

Glad you liked the video! You don't have to go into nuke if you don't want to. You can also use the compositor in blender or fusion which is within resolve. The point is just that after the 3d renders are done in blender they need compositing before the shots are done. I use nuke because I work at a VFX studio and nuke is software we use there as professionals for compositing. It's far superior to blender and fusion and when you're doing big shots on commercials and films you want to be using the best tools!

[@Kava.imfree]

​@@AlfieVaughan Thank you very much for such a quick response! If in simple terms: excluding the Nuke from this workflow - will work, but with Nuke the results will be more accurate, and color correct - if I understand that right? And if you're not too bothered to explain me one confusing moment I would be very grateful. So, at 6:22 you're converting EXR that you've rendered thru DaVinci to JPEG using Nuke. Why not just render JPEGs thru DaVinci? Is that because of the "color space -> default (matte-paint)" option in Nuke? Is DaVinci not capable of rendering matte-paint JPEG? And if I'm skipping Nuke part in my workflow should I render in EXR or JPEG in DaVinci for Blender? To be honest I did both and didn't see any difference except for the optimization part, but I'm worried that I might be missing something due to my inexperience. If you would be so nice to explain that to me - I'll be the happiest man alive 🥺. Thank you, kind sir.

[@AlfieVaughan]

There's no real difference between the results of using nuke Vs resolve. So no, there wouldn't be a colour difference or accuracy difference like you're saying. A good artist could get great results from both. It's mostly down to preference and in my case, what the studio I work at uses too. As for the jpegs, I do it in nuke because that's after I've scaled the footage down from 4k to HD and also exported the plates as ACEScg. You could also do the same thing in resolve as an extra step. I'm just more used to doing it in Nuke. But again, no real difference. Either way works

[@Kava.imfree]

@@AlfieVaughan Damn, such a great service you guys have around here. Never seen someone answer that quickly in KZbin comment section, especially 2 times in a row, under the video that is like... 3 years old. Anyway, thank you very much! As promised I'm now the happiest man alive 😄. p.s Will keep working hard on my skills!

[@AlfieVaughan]

@Kava.imfree hahaha 🤣 I get notifications on my phone for all comments so I reply pretty much instantly. Happy to help 👍

[@OfficiallyOToole]

What's the path for macOS when going to the folder for ACES?

[@AlfieVaughan]

Right click on the blender logo in your dock and then click "show in finder". It should show up and then right click the blender logo in finder and click "show package contents". Then in the resources folder once you go in there it's the same as this video :)

[@OfficiallyOToole]

@@AlfieVaughan 5:01 Where do you download all of those files? I can't seem to find a download button.

[@AlfieVaughan]

@@OfficiallyOToole Try the link again now. I updated it to a page that's easier to download from. Click the green code button and then download zip!

[@lollysawant]

hey can u tell how i can convert it back to slog3 ?

[@AlfieVaughan]

You could set the output to slog 3 in the project settings

[@sauravchoudhury6023]

Do you make music too

[@AlfieVaughan]

I do yeah :) I have a music channel but it's much smaller than this channel

[@corgisunion5511]

Cool

[@AlfieVaughan]

Thanks :)

[@blionart]

Do you are a compositor? Or just vfx artist?

[@AlfieVaughan]

I'm a compositor at The Mill for my actual job but on KZbin I'm more of a general VFX artist because I have to do everything :)

[@priyabrataacharya7814]

Bro please make a video on how to make Harry potter spell effect in blender. Please please 🙏🙏🙏

[@AlfieVaughan]

Ok! :)

[@priyabrataacharya7814]

@@AlfieVaughan thank you bro

[@engridmedia]

Davinci wide color gamut is another

[@AlfieVaughan]

Yes I've seen that recently! Haven't tried it for VFX workflows but I've used it to edit my videos. It does a lovely job with the SLOG footage from my camera

[@plaknightgames4231]

Wait....This werent 15 minutes xD

[@AlfieVaughan]

I rounded up haha. Originally it was but I cut out about a minute of rambling throughout the video to slim it down a bit :)

[@caffeinatedteddy2110]

why not

[@suracutsandartsxFilmyslice]

Second comment bro

[@AlfieVaughan]

Nice one! 👊

[@suracutsandartsxFilmyslice]

@@AlfieVaughan ❤

[@QuantayPeoples]

so basically don't use ACES if you're not using it professionally to avoid headaches.

[@AlfieVaughan]

I guess so. There's no really any need to unless you're doing lots of intense colour work. But I'm a professional soooo.... 😜

[@joedaddy6845]

1st

[@AlfieVaughan]

Ayyyyy ✌️