Silverwing Quick-Ish Tip: Finally Aftereffects Native ACES

[@karlhendrikse1843]

3:41 To hopefully complement your "dangerous half-knowledge": ACEScg is smaller than ACES2065-1 because it's designed for component-wise multiplication of RGB colors during rendering. If you multiply a green light with a green material, you want a super-green result. If you do that in ACES2065-1, you get an extremely, ridiculously green result - so green it's often imaginary, completely outside the horseshoe. That type of RGB-based lighting calculation where you multiply the two Rs, the two Gs and the two Bs tends to push colors towards the primaries, as saturated colors are multiplied together. Any color that isn't completely neutral will, in the limit, become pure red, green, blue, cyan, magenta or yellow when multiplied with itself enough times. The color space in which the multiplication is done controls where those r/g/b/c/m/y destinations lie. ACEScg is a tradeoff where the primaries are (hopefully) far enough apart to allow for wide-gamut rendering, but (hopefully) close enough together to avoid producing over-saturated (or just plain impossible) colors when multiplying. Note that its primaries are still imaginary - it doesn't completely prevent impossible colors, but that's part of the tradeoff. So in summary, if it weren't for the RGB x RGB lighting calculation done during rendering, ACEScg wouldn't exist at all. It's not related to display technology.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey Karl, very nice seeing you here. This is super helpful. Thank you so much for putting the time in to write and answer here to clarify the ACEScg spare more. I will pin your comment to the top so more people can read it!

[@ThomvanVliet]

I would very much love a full walkthrough of your compositing workflow!

[@DJ_RIGGERZ]

i would also love this

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much Thom. Its basically the same what I did in Fusion Studio. Seems like some people are interested. So a video on that topic is a high possibility!

[@johntnguyen1976]

Yes...same!

[@Dan1066]

I would happily watch it as well

[@chronoxofficial]

Second that🙂

[@jacksimcox]

Your tutorials have saved my life when it comes to render passes and aces

[@SilverwingVFX]

Oh wow. What a compliment. Thank you very much for your great comment. That´s so great to hear 🙌

[@denissalenko9089]

Wow, thanks. Instant improving of my renders!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Fantastic to hear that. To great renders and a great color workflow 🙌

[@lightning4201]

ty and yes, I'd like to see the full color correction video. ty again!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much for your nice comment. Noted. There will be a tut about it. I just don´t know when 😇

[@hellochristhompson]

Thanks so much Silverwing! I'd absolutley love to see the full setup and how you achieve that beautiful bokeh and chromatic aberation. Your macro shots are next level.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thanks so much Chris. I have planned a Tut about the Universal Camera I use to get the Bokeh. The comp in AE would be very similar to the video I made about it in Fusion Studio. Just utilizing slightly different tools. Always so nice to hear people like my CGI 🙌

[@polystormstudio]

Well that was a quiet release. Thanks for sharing this!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Ha ha yes indeed. I just noticed it because I wanted to set something else in the color settings.

[@drnz]

Thanks so much for sharing this, finally starting to understand the ACES workflow

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thats great to hear. If you have any questions, feel free to ask 🙌

[@MariusParaschiv]

Thank you for the comprehensive tutorial! I would also ask for a full walkthrough of your compositing workflow, please. Thank you so much!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you for your nice comment. I am happy to say there will be a walkthrough of my comp workflow in AE. Just not sure when 😇

[@FLXD]

Yes!! Thank you, Raphael!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you 🙌

[@3dvfxprofessor]

This is a very compact and clear explanation of the essential knowledge. I hope that more and more artists start to understand the principles of color management and start to use the advantages of a linear workflow. DWAA/B is using a jpeg compression but you will not see a difference to the uncompressed files. We use DWAA and now DWAB for our productions without any issues.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much. Yeah I was skeptical about DWAB when I picked it up when it was introduced a couple Years back. But I never had problems with it. Not once. It holds up remarkably well.

[@neilcopland6082]

As usual, you continue provide the most easily digestable and clear explanations of complex topics . I very much appreciate it and would love to see a more in depth explanation of how you would do an ACES comp in After Effects. Thank you.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey Neil, thank you very much for your kind words. I appreciate that you find my content interesting and easy to understand! Also thank you for your request. Duely noted 🖊️

[@MaxPospelkov]

Finally, native support was made in Adobe and now we don't have to bother with these config files. Thank you for the detailed description of the workflow in AE!!!))

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much for your nice comment. Great to hear it helped!

[@fgarciaish]

Thank you Raphael! Your timing with these gems of information are impeccable lately. I was trying to sort out the workflow and thought to myself “hopefully there is a Silverwing tut on this soon”. This was extremely helpful. 🙏🏽

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey Francisco, thank you very much for your comment. Fantastic to hear that you found it useful 🙏🙌

[@bobwalmsley1]

Brilliant tutorial as always

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you yo much. Great to hear that you found it useful 🙌

[@bryndj]

Thank you! Really helpful! Would very much appreciate seeing your ACES grading workflow!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you Bryn. Appreciate that you like it. Also thank you for your vote 🙌

[@RogerKilimanjaro]

incredibly helpful, thank you Raphael 🙌

[@SilverwingVFX]

You are very welcome. Glad you like it!

[@BunkerMountain]

Always producing top tier tutorials! Danke!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much James, so glad to hear that 🙌

[@johannesstahn2974]

Great Tutorial! Yes please, show us the complete silverwing grade inside of ae.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much for your comment and for your vote.

[@billr.2210]

Thank you for the video. Very good.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Oh thank you very much. Super nice to hear that 🙌

[@billr.2210]

@@SilverwingVFX You're very welcome. I like that compression tip on the EXR (DWAB). Unfortunately, I am not sure where to find it in Redshift, if it even exists...

[@SilverwingVFX]

​@@billr.2210 Hey there Bill. Are you working with Redshift in C4D. If yes, the compression should be there in C4Ds outputs. But also via the direct outputs through Redshift.

[@billr.2210]

Thanks I will check in a bit!

[@sethrichardson6042]

Compositing workflow video would be amazing for this also

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much. Noted!

[@henningricke]

Brilliant as allways!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much 😊🙌

[@cars103]

great again! thank you very much!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you for your support!

[@3dfischvisualisierungen584]

Großartiges Tutorial, wie all die anderen auch! Ich würde mich über ein color grading Tutorial sehr freuen, da habe ich nur gefährliches Viertelwissen.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Danke Dir für Dein nettes Kommentar. Ich hab das auf jeden Fall vor. Ich weiß zwar nicht wann genau. Aber es kommt! Grüße und eine gute Zeit Dir!

[@hloshak]

Thank you for this Silverwing!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much 🙏🙌

[@igobyzak]

Great tutorial! And thanks so much for the shout out! 💙

[@SilverwingVFX]

Ohhh! Nice seeing you here and thank you for your videos. They have been really helpful!

[@stophnerf]

Mantis shrimp are appreciative of the extra colourspace that we can't see, thanks ACES

[@SilverwingVFX]

I understand that reference 🙌 👁️👁️

[@ThomvanVliet]

Also, I love that you provide the full context and "mistakes" someone going a workflow like this would make. The other ACES version in After effects, the "show all" when rendering, etc. So many tutorials just show 1 path so whenever there is a slightly different version or update in the software that tutorial gets broken. Also why is it that Adobe designs its software so horribly when it comes to color management? Why have the show all button there in the first place?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much Thom. I try my best. I am certain that there are much more pitfalls users can fall into. But since I did not use it for too long. I just use the ones I fell into ha ha. About "Show All" not sure why it´s designed in that way. Maybe its an oversight. Maybe they expect the user to continue the ACES pipeline onwards to editing (so no conversion is needed) Time will tell if it will stay like that of change. At least we know where to find the hidden gems.

[@chronoxofficial]

Very nice tutorial, as always! It would idd be very interesting to see your workflow, but with multipasses in aces, especially with light passes! Anyway, keep up the good work!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much for your nice comment and your vote. There will be a video on the workflow. It just might take a bit to produce. Cheers and a great weekend to you!

[@shunfu5143]

Good job, Thanks

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much. Glad you found it useful!

[@edmungbean]

I'm sure someone has pointed this out before - but the C4D Picture Viewer can display tonemapped ACES output - switch the output colorspace from "Embedded" to "Project" and if needed select ACEScg

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much for pointing this out. It could have been worded better in the video! With Octane it´s best to leave the Project settings to sRGB because Octane likes its color input values in sRGB. Also the material preview balls are rendered in an incorrect way. Therefore I would like to have an option to sett the Viewport View transform independent from the project settings. And this is not possible at the moment.

[@wid0w12]

Very clear tutorial, thanks a lot! Is there a way to output the ACES workflow into an H264 video format instead of a tiff image? When going to output color space, what's the profile you would recommend? It's not possible to 'show all' the profiles in this format. Any suggestions?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much. Appreciate your great comment. About your question: If you save your MP4 through AE and not media encoder, you should have the option to export it via Output sRGB or Output Rec.709 tonemapping. I have not figured out a workflow though the media encoder yet. But mostly this is because I save image sequences most of the time... 😇

[@VFXProductionsRT]

Thanks so much for this! It's helped a lot :) With the Display Color Space both sRGB and Rec709 for me are showing white as grey, the values are correct but I was wondering visually what is the reason for this? Shouldn't pure white look correct in sRGB/Rec709? Is there any way around this? It's a bit of an adjustment to get used to currently especially when using things like glows on highlights

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hi there and thank you for your comment. The "Output" or "SDR Video" transforms are tonemappers. Meaning they create the pleasing image us artists are after. So out of linear ACEScg the create something the looks more filmic (bit of contrast, desaturated highlights and great dynamic range) Because of this dynamic range whites become light gray in order to fit more highlight (dynamic range) in the image and give us the nice rendition of filmic falling off highlights (no harsh burned out area) In the video, you can find the part where I show the example with the gameboy game. Glow: That glow should be applied before the sRGB tonemapping. Where you still have access to all the above white values of the EXR files. About the Workflow: If you are working in an ACES to sRGB / rec.709 workflow you usually light different. Lights with more intensity usually. As you have more latitude / dynamic range to play with. The sRGB tonemapping gives you back a white value with a pixel value of around 16 if I recall correctly (so 16 x brighter then white). Taking scenes that you lit before and then just converting them usually makes them a bit dark looking. An easy fix here is to just increase the exposure a bit (either in the 3D scene or in comp later) There was one benefit of the old ACES workflow in AE where you used the OCIO plugin (i have a video on this too) usually what I did there was another correction after the ACES to sRGB conversion to bing the white values up a bit. How much you can bring those up then really depends on a shot by shot basis. How much highlights it has and how much you want to retain those / or clip into those. Hopefully this clears things up. If you have any further questions feel free to ask!

[@VFXProductionsRT]

@@SilverwingVFX Hey thanks for the reply, I'd never tried the old conversion adjustment layer method before but that does sound like a benefit being able to boost the brightness after. Guess this look is just something I'll have to get used to, just at the moment the grey white looks so off

[@ItsLemonSqueezy]

Ah, the grand world of color spaces! It's a bit like the difference between choosing a Rolls-Royce or a private jet-both will get you to where you're going, but how you travel depends on the experience you want. Let’s talk about ACEScg, ACEScc, and ACES2065-1 in a VFX workflow. Think of these as different modes of transport, each suited for a specific part of your creative journey. ACEScg: The sports car of the color spaces. Designed for compositing and 3D rendering, this is your sleek, high-performance machine. Why? Because ACEScg operates in a linear color space-which is perfect when you’re dealing with light. In VFX, you’re mimicking reality, and light doesn’t behave in the same way we perceive it-it behaves like it’s in a luxury simulator. In practical terms, this means light blends, reflects, and interacts as naturally as in the real world, which is crucial when you’re rendering something like, say, a photorealistic dragon soaring through the skies (because everyone loves a good CGI dragon). So, for rendering and compositing, ACEScg is what you want. It’s your trusty Ferrari-fast, accurate, and specifically built for this kind of task. Why blend colors with clumsy tools when you can do it with the precision of a surgeon? ACEScc: The handcrafted leather interior. Now, when it comes to color grading, you're entering a different world. Grading is like taking that sports car and giving it a custom paint job. You don’t want the raw power of ACEScg here-you need finesse, a soft touch. That’s where ACEScc comes in. It's a logarithmic color space, which means it’s great for pushing and pulling colors without getting banding or blowing out highlights. Think of it like working with traditional film stock-you have this gentle, artistic control over your color palette. It's the difference between hammering a nail and painting a masterpiece. So, once your compositing work is done, you hop over into ACEScc to handle the final look development. It’s like swapping out your sports car for a finely tuned Bentley-more subtle, more elegant. ACES2065-1: The vault. This is where you store everything at the highest quality possible. ACES2065-1 is like a bank vault for your footage. It’s where you keep the master files in the most pristine condition, unaltered by the biases of a working space like ACEScg or ACEScc. This color space doesn’t degrade or clip information-it's where you put things when you want to come back in 50 years and still have all the data intact. But you wouldn’t take a vault on a road trip, would you? This is purely for archiving. It’s not for active work-it’s for preserving the work. To sum it up: ACEScg is the sports car of color spaces, best for VFX work where precision in light and detail is critical. ACEScc is your luxury interior-ideal for color grading when subtle control over the image is needed. ACES2065-1 is the vault, there for archiving-not for driving around, but essential for keeping everything in perfect condition for the long haul. In essence, when you're doing VFX, you'll start with ACEScg for all the complex compositing and rendering, then hop into ACEScc for color grading, and finally store it all in ACES2065-1 to keep it pristine for eternity. It's not just a journey-it's a lifestyle.

[@oursonwelles]

Hi Raphael, thank you for this awesome tip! I'm not going to try it out right now because I don't wanna break the Ae project i'm working on, but I have a question for you: With the old method, as the OCIO was on an adjustment layer, we could easily add (for exmaple) a 100% white solid on top of it and mask it to have a pure white gradient boosting the background of our scene. Or, we could add a lumetri effect on the top of it to boost the contrast a little, without the ACES color space preventing the white to be fully white. That's handy in a lot of projects that need to have brighter whites, or optical glow. In other words: I loved that I could setup the exposure before the OCIO layer to keep it in Aces (like working on a photograph in RAW) and then add a few boosting effects on top of the OCIO layer. With that new method, I guess it's not possible anymore? I would have to perform color grading on top of my render in Premiere, I guess? But losing the cryptomatte pass to apply it only on my background, for instance.

[@SilverwingVFX]

You are absolutely right. The new workflow assumes your whole project is in the set color space "ACEScg" in the videos case.. So you do not have the benefit of "going in and out" of the color space. You can still do it by converting your ACEScg to sRGB at some point and choose the right Viewing Lut in the viewer. But that would make the new workflow nearly as complicated as the old one. P.s. There are other tricks to add white backgrounds etc to your aces. e.g. by sending them through an inverse transform. But I guess it is more reliable to just convert the color space first and then add it! P.p.s ACES Does not clamp all values down below white. It just has a really high threshold. If you make the values bright enough in ACES you will get back white colors through the tone mapping also. But as you, I also did some minor post correction as well moving the white point with the levels effect 100% white after the ACES tone mapping. P.s. you mentioned Glow. I always leave that within the ACES layer. But that is personal preference I think.

[@oursonwelles]

@@SilverwingVFX Thank you for all the additional interesting information! Maybe i will stick to the previous method then, I don’t know 🤔

[@SilverwingVFX]

@@oursonwelles There is nothing wrong in keeping the old workflow. It just depends on what you are after. The newer workflow might be a bit easier to get into. But, as you said, is a bit more limited.

[@esnoox8616]

Your complete grading workflow would be awesome, so +1 for that. :) What I can't wrap my head around: wouldn't be the goal for an extend color grading getting a flat image? To bring the contrast in by grading it yourself? ACES images look beautiful right of the box but when adjusting levels in AE, values are getting crunched quiete quickly. How would I get the image out of C4D in the best possible way to give our color grading guy the most options interms of shadows and highlights?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey esnoox, thank you very much for your nice comment, your vote and your question 🖖 About flat images: The ACES container (ACEScg) is linar. You just five the image a more contrasty appearance by piping it though the ACES Tonemapping (ACEScg to sRGB) in the end. There is no contrast / crushed blacks / cutoff highlights in the ACEScg EXRs. Its mostly just a wider color space! Think of the convertion as a LUT you are viewing your footage through. So your grading guy can do whatever he wants. If he´s working in Davinci, he can convert the ACEScg to a Log based ACEScct. In general the ACES sRGB transform is used because it handles the data more film like. Its hard (not impossible) to generate such a tonemapping via a custom grade. ACES tries to take away the pregrade process where you have to get footage from different sources and apply contrast / colors to them so they look all the same. As you see it´s a big topic. Hopefully this will give you a bit more insight. But if you have questions based on what I just wrote, feel free to ask away 😃

[@esnoox8616]

@@SilverwingVFX Thanks for the quick and detailed reply. We got a little further to what we want to achieve but aren't there quiet yet. May there be a way to connect on discord (maybe via the otoy channel?) or something else for a quick chat including some screenshots? Would be a little bit easier... plus, auf deutsch wärs auch schneller denk ich. :D

[@SilverwingVFX]

​@@esnoox8616 I am not very versed in Discord, I am however a member of the official Octane group. My name is Raphael Rau in Discord, Maybe you can find my somehow. Other then that I still do a lot of email. So this is another option. You can find my email on my website silverwing-vfx.de

[@esnoox8616]

@@SilverwingVFX Thanks a lot, gonna hit you up via email as soon as I got the time. :)

[@ThePuka]

Will try this vs my NONE setup for colour management and just having aces native as on adjustment layers. Only magic bullet looks seemed to work with aces in colour correction. All the usual tools seem to only like video or log space (you can go to cct tho) , ie if you pull a dark three way it pulls all even the light colours. I don't think you can use these tools in aces as you expect, may be wrong tho. Need more experimenting but my NONE space seems easier in a mixed workflow like adding srgb stills etc. Still exports out BT709 to prores on export.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Yes leaving AE at its native space and working with the OCIO plugin definitely gives you more options! In the workflow above you could still transform the ACEScg to e.g. ACEScct with an OCIO effect in an Adjustment Layer and do your color work there. Then put another OCIO on top and convert it back to ACEScg. Personally I mostly use very old school tools like Curves and Levels, I guess you are right in saying it´s more complicated with more sophisticated tools! You could do your base comp in AE and then take it to e.g. DaVinci Resolve to do the grading. I would need to look into that more my self. But that should have the right tools for grading ACES.

[@edmungbean]

Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but if you switch to Rec.709 ODT without also switching the LUT of your display to Rec.709, it will of course look less contrasty because the monitor is using a mismatched table. I've tried both sRGB and 709 ODTs on both view LUTs of my monitor and I also prefer Rec.709 but only because it's the preferred industry workflow, and it seems a bit less compressed than sRGB.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Yes, you are right in that you would have to view your rec.709 with a rec.709 mode on your screen. I am just using the method to get slightly different tonemapping. There is no "Right" way to tonemap colors. There is only a right colors in the sense of the colors having the right hue. Since the color space of sRGB and rec.709 overlap 100%, you do not mess up the colors by setting the output from sRGB to rec.709. You just get a slightly different tonemapping.

[@Jay_M_L]

Thanks again for a wonderful tutorial. However - a problem: I followed these steps carefully, but when I make a white solid in AE, it is not white, it is light grey. This is the case in the AE composition window as well as in the render. If I set color management to Adobe color managed (rather than OCIO color managed), my white solid is white. So, colors are not reproduced correctly. I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there Jenne, this is not a bug but an expected behavior and comes from the ACES tone-mapping when converting from ACEScg to sRGB. The tonemapper is what brings you the filmic quality with so overexposures do not clip that harsh. In order to do so there has to be room for highlights in the visible 0 to 1 (black to white) brightness range. So formerly white values are pushed down a bit to make room. So what was white before is now light gray. You can get around that problem by either splitting up your comp between an ACES and an non aces part (you need that Open Color IO Plugin Workflow for that) kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHq7lJiGaKh-jas Or if you reverse convert your white plane through the tonemapper. So it ends up with values that the tonemapper will actually will use as white values. The way to do that also incorporates the Open Color IO Plugin. Bring your white plane into the comp. Load that Open Color IO plugiun. As Input space choose Output - sRGB (or Rec.709 if you use that as a view transform) and as output space ACEScg. This then reverese tonemapps your white layer into the right brightness to be displayed white when tonemapped down to sRGB again. But be careful with that 2nd method. Your white plane has now a brightness of around 16 (which is 16 times as bright as white)

[@Jay_M_L]

@@SilverwingVFX Thank you very much, you're a lifesaver. I'm a freelancer, without your tutorials I'd probably be out of business.

[@christianmatts_bk]

thank you for the video. very helpful. question - when you set your ae display color to aces - srgb or aces - rec709 --- does this change the color range being used in your color correction/adjustments? Or is it adjusting the full aces color cg space before converting to the display color space? I will also have to look aces vs linear color space. unclear if aces can be with or without linear compositing or it replaces ae linear color space.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there Christian and thank you very much for your nice comment and your question! AfterEffects treats everything inside the set working color space. In the videos case that is ACEScg. All effects / color adjustments etc. are applied in the ACEScg space (of course you should make sure they are capable of handling 32bit) Only in the last step the colors get converted and tonemapped to the defined display- / viewing- colorspce. ACEScg is linear. Comping math also applied here (Comp two light passes with ADD for example) . The only difference to the formerly known "Linear Workflow" is that it contains a bigger color gamut / color space. The correct term for "Linear Workflow" should have been Linear sRGB. Its just that there usually were no other color spaces, so people left out sRGB. Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

[@christianmatts_bk]

@@SilverwingVFX thank you!

[@jafilm3488]

Great tutorial. Did you find a way to get After effect to display the right color space on "video preview" monitors? Both my second screen and blackmagic display output without any profile (none). This is a big problem when trying to work in a color managed workflow.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there, thank you very much. Unfortunately I have not used direct screen output yet. I just did a small test and I also was not able to get the sRGB tone-mapped look over to the 2nd screen. The only workaround I have found was to use the old workflow by using the OpenColorIO plugin. This way the external screen shows the right result. I hope you will find another solution utilizing the new AE ACES workflow! If you do, I would love a small comment here. Cheers and all the best! P.s. if you have not seen it, a tut with the old workflow can be viewed here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHq7lJiGaKh-jas

[@jafilm3488]

Thank you for the in depth answer. I find it so strange that direct screen output is not taken into account. @@SilverwingVFX

[@SilverwingVFX]

​@@jafilm3488 Yes, I had the same reaction. Might be hard to believe but it just may be an oversight on Adobes side. I know that they rushed the implementation a bit as they neglected it for so long and finally had to do it. Or maybe there is an option for it and we are just not aware of it 🤷‍♂

[@jafilm3488]

@@SilverwingVFX I was hoping that it was just me that had missed something. Working with the "video out" is good way of seeing your images framed and af feeling of 1:1 quality check, grain level, especially seeing your images live on different types of screens (large inch television and monitor). A color profile option for each output device would be fantastic.

[@whitekraw]

That's very quick-ish.

[@SilverwingVFX]

😁 Yeah. Not really quick. But sort of ish 😅

[@whitekraw]

@@SilverwingVFX I don't care how long your tutorials are my friend. Would watch it for hours. 😇

[@Ave117]

The Octane Manual actually suggests to not use the ACES-CG Color Space, instead it recommends to use the full fledged Spectrum of ACES2065-1 as Octane is a spectral Renderer and the ACES-CG Color Space is intended for RGB Renderers. Here is what it says in the Manual: "(...)ACES 2065-1 is the full range color space, appropriate for Octane as it is a spectral renderer, whereas ACEScg is intended for RGB render engines, and is a reduced color space. Either will work, and most compositing applications can handle the ACES 2065-1 spec."

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey thanks for the hint. Totally makes sense. I think Octane saves out the whole color range even with sRGB. It will simply save values that reach beyond the colorspace. Dino Muhic made a test like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZmbSl5ZpaKt3ebc I am pretty sure the ACEScg space contains all the ACES2065-1 colors anyway. I am mostly using ACEScg to be conform with CGI pipelines of studios.

[@GrischaTheissen]

Great Video! Thanks for that. Wasn't aware you need to click "Show All" to get the sRGB output profile in the newer version. Can I ask what app you're using around 19:50 minutes? Looks like you're able to select the size for the window on the screen?!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much Grischa! Not sure why the sRGB output profile is not in the base list. Probably because in big pipelines comp is not the last thing for the workflow and you would stay with ACES colors until grading. About the app. That´s the native Windows Photo Viewer for Win11. Nothing special. I liked that for once Microsoft produced something actually usable 😇

[@GrischaTheissen]

@@SilverwingVFX Thanks for the reply! Have not upgraded to Windows 11 but planning on it. Is that what the "grid" on the desktop is? First I thought it was one of those app that let you decide the size of a window on the screen.

[@SilverwingVFX]

@@GrischaTheissen Yeah, its part of Microsoft Power Toys. Its a "box" full of useful tools made by Microsoft themselves. I have a 4K screen but I only record in 2560 x 1440. So I have made a preset snapping option for this using the Power Toys "Fancy Zones" You can basically define how you want to divide your screen. Very handy!

[@GrischaTheissen]

@@SilverwingVFX Oh wow! I am usung Power toys and tried Fancy zone but never knew you can "draw" a window on. That's so useful! Thanks a lot!

[@yungbuttermilch]

Danke, danke, danke! Dieses Thema macht mir echt graue Haare. Continuing in english for others to read: What about the transfer to AME? Until now I had to export natively to PNG, re-import and export to AME to keep the ACES tonemapping. Did that change too?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey hey, vielen Dank für Dein Kommentar! Exporting image sequences out of AE is exactly my workflow too. AME had really strange problems with Linear Compositing in the past and had gamma shifts etc. So much so that I refrained from using it directly. To be honest I have not tried it with the new AE. Maybe it got fixed. I need to try. Also I don´t know the workflow getting the tonemapped files in to AME. As you see, lots of questions on my side too 😁

[@yungbuttermilch]

@@SilverwingVFX Thank you, lots to figure out here. 😄 And another question: How do I import non-linear (sRGB) footage like an image into a linearized working space? I tried the „Interpret footage“-color option -> sRGB on that layer, but it seems the image is a little more saturated than the original.

[@SilverwingVFX]

​@@yungbuttermilch Aces provides color space transfers for that. You go to your footage, right click and then "Interpret footage" and then under Color choose the right colors pace transform. Something like Utility sRGB. If you bring in footage from a camera you likely be able to choose the camera type and codec you recorded with.

[@yungbuttermilch]

@@SilverwingVFX Thanks! I‘ll try that out soon!

[@coldarone]

great tutorial Raphael! Just curious, with native OCIO support in AE basically we can bypass the config ocio file profile in viewer/picture viewer in C4D and stay with LDR/sRGB in viewer?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there Peppe. If you want the ACES tonemapped result, you have to click the ACES Tonemapping checkbox in the camera imager in Octane. You don't need to link the ocio.config file for that and it works in LDR / sRGB if you click it. You can see me doing it in the video. If you want more info about it I have a Video called ACES one click solution on my channel.

[@Kennygdfrd]

Great video! For somea reason, after exportting my exr sequence from DaVinci, and importing in After Effect, ACES sRGB doesn't give me the right colors. I tried them all out and the only one the gave me what I had in DaVinci was ACES/Raw. Any idea way?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there and thank you very much for your comment. Its hard to tell what went wrong without looking at all the settings in the chain. Plus I do not have experience with ACES in Davinci. I am guessing with right colors you mean that colors just not match. Red looks orange and yellow looks greenish. Stuff like this? The only thing I can say here is that you need to export from Davinci in an ACES color profile. If it looks right using ACES RAW there might be already a color conversion applied by Davinci on export. I am making this point because if you have a perfect render in sRGB and you load an ACES profile and then look at it though RAW, it should show the import directly without modification. Fingers crossed you figure out the culprit. Cheers and a great weekend to you! Raphael

[@Kennygdfrd]

@@SilverwingVFX Hi Raphael, Thank you for your time response. I will look into that! Cheers!

[@brandonstorrs4533]

Thank you for your tutorial. Could you give me a link to the channel you did a shoutout to please? I couldn't find it. Thank you!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there and thank you very much for your comment. I just noticed that I did not link Zak´s channel in the description. Silly me. I updated the description with a link. So you should be able to find the channel now!

[@ved.fourdimensional]

I have two questions: what's the difference between "Use Denoised Beauty pass" (Octane Render settings main panel), "Save Beauty" and "Denoised Beauty" (both in Render AOV Group panel)? I always use the denoiser to clean up my renders, and I always check "Use Denoised Beauty Pass" to export the denoised image, and with ExTractor (After Effects) I use the denoised beauty pass as the main image. Is this correct?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there. Thanks for your patience. "Use Denoised Beauty" swaps out the beauty pass when saving through C4D´s saving option: Render settings --> Save --> Output Paths. "Save Beauty" saves the Beauty with the Octane saving options (the output at the same locations the checkmark is placed: Render settings --> Octane --> AOV Group --> Output Path. "Denoised Beauty" saves a denoised version of the Beauty called "_DeMain" with the Octane saving options (the output at the same locations the checkmark is placed: Render settings --> Octane --> AOV Group --> Output Path. All of this does not require to have denoising enabled anywhere else. Hope this helps. Cheers and a great weekend to you!

[@DanielMeszarosProd]

Hey there! Thanks for the tut. I wonder what's the best way to now bring Aces and not aces footage together in one comp? Eg. I'm workin on an animatic with playblasts but also adding some shaded renders over time. Setting up color management seems to be only either this or that now, if I'm correct?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey Daniel, The ACES workflow was developed as an all encompassing color workflow. It is intended as a container. So in an ACES Project all media should be brought to an ACES space to have everything in the wider color space to be able to mix stuff with better color math. So every bit of footage should be added to the aces color space and unified there and in the end conformed to the output device (ODT) If you have footage with a certain color profile. For example sRGB . Then in the "Interpret Footage" set it to the corresponding profile. something that fits best. For Images / Textures / Non Specific Video its e.g. "Utility sRGB Texture", "Gamma 2.2 Rec.709 - Texture" For log camera footage (e.g. video shoot), you need to find the exact setting of your camera in that huge Interpret Footage ACES list. P.s. your input sRGB / Rec.709 images / Videos will look darker and more contrasty. This is because of ACES sRGB ODT with tone mapping. Basically what is making your rendered images look so good (filmic). If you want to go through ACES but want to get out the exact same image then what you brought in there is a trick. You need to reverse tonemap your input. So it goes through the tonemapping in reverse. This is not recommended as it produces extremely bright values in the comp. To do so, in the "Interpret Footage" you need to select the "Color_Picking: Output - sRGB" profile. There are multiple other methods as splitting your comp between ACES and non ACES files. This requires the external Open Color IO Plugin and a bit more preperation work. Hopefully I have not confused you more then I did help... Fingers crossed I didn´t and it helps your project.

[@DanielMeszarosProd]

@@SilverwingVFX Thank you, you always confuse and amaze but it's all good! :D I've been working in ACES for a long time so I'm mostly aware of the whys, but after doing things a certain way in AE and now shifting to a new method just confused me all over again, just when aces first came out. Thanks for the refresher.

[@acespirate8500]

Hi. I was wondering why you chose to set your Octane EXR output color depth to 16 bit versus 32 bit. Thanks!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there and thank you for your question. EXRs have the possibility to save "Half Float" or 16bit Float. This means that highlights at some point will be cut off. But they have to be really really bright. Usually you do not have such bright highlights in your scene. So setting your EXR output to 16bit saves a bit of storage space. P.s. in Octane DWAB is saved in 16bit float anyway. Even if you set it to 32bit. I just wanted to make sure it was shown to the viewer. If you have any more questions about the topic, feel free to ask 😊

[@acespirate8500]

@@SilverwingVFX Thank you!

[@davidkerman1732]

Hey there, so thanks for the tutorial. I have a question about output. When I output my image is slightly desaturated. It's not a huge shift, but it's very slight. Is this something because the OS can't see the colors exactly right? I've imported into photoshop, I'm increased the color depth, and I've tried a ton of different formats, but nothing seems to fix this. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[@davidkerman1732]

UPDATE. I rendered out to Rec709 and looks exactly right. In photoshop it looks correct (and sees the color profile). In the Preview App on Mac OS it still looks off. On the other hand, sRGB still looks slightly off though. At least Rec709 looks good!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey David. I guess the observation you are making is AE Viewport compared to your image viewer / video playback software. The only thing I can comment on is that I had problems with media encoder when working with 32bit. It tends to have a raised black level. So I always save tiff sequences directly out of after effects and use those to create videos later on. Not sure if that is helpful. A good time to you and hopefully you will find a solution for your problem!

[@davidkerman1732]

Hey there, great tutorial. I followed your method, and I'm having trouble with my output. I'm outputting sRGB and rec709 from AE and I'm outputting the frames to .pngs or tifs and each of them show an image that is slightly lets saturated. Hmm. Also, when importing to to ae do you just not interpret the footage? Thanks!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there and thank you for your comment. Not sure what´s going on for you. Make sure your comp is set to 32bit and your output profile matches the one for your viewer. About interpret footage: You can see me doing it at 14:10 Hopefully that helps!

[@davidkerman1732]

@@SilverwingVFX thanks. User error of course.

[@Part1of2]

Hey Silverwing. Thanks again for the vid again. Also this is just a curiosity of mine, what software is primarily used to make your graphics for your explanations? Thanks again ❤

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey, thank you very much for your comment! I usually use Illustrator for that, then export it as PDF to show it. Cheers and thanks for your support 🙌

[@bodobanali]

I dont know why … but my Ae viewport is showing the picture a bit more saturated than my exported PNG/JPG. (Very visible, when layering a viewpost-screenshot and my export. via Photoshop and show/hide upper layer back and forth) Any idea why? Maybe: My „Embed Color Profile“ Checkbox is greyed out and unchecked when exporting (17:47) No idea how to get it back. (im on a Mac btw)

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you for also commenting here. With color workflows such as these, there are a lot of different points where stuff can go wrong. So I can only guess. If you say "export" how do you export the PNG / JPG. Have you checked AE against your live viewer in ACES sRGB mode. This should match at least. And then check your live viewer in ACES sRGB mode against your export if this is any different. I am not on a mac here, so I can't replicate it. For me it all matches here on windows 😇

[@bodobanali]

@@SilverwingVFX oh. Did not realized you made both videos. Sorry for double trouble. In the other video i awnsered with lot's of tests and cheing if color match and when they are drifting away. In short: Everything matchis. Until i export. Somehow in VLC and when reimporting to Ae it still matches the colors. Weird. Short question is: Do i need to embed the color profile into the export file? And if so: how? You have it on. Mine is greyed out. … but maybe it's better to just occupy only one video. So maybe should stop writing here …

[@ceci_sariol]

When working in the Live Viewer should i change the image to ACEScg as well?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there. No, you only would set the Live Viewer to ACES if your screen can Display it. Which is very unlikely. Usually screens are sRGB or Rec.709 so you would get wrong colors (reds look orange and yellows look green) If you are using the one click ACES sRGB solution, you don't need to change the live viewer. If you use the linked config.ocio workflow, then you need to set the Live Viewer to OCIO sRGB or OCIO Rec.709

[@ceci_sariol]

@@SilverwingVFX thx : )

[@okkoboomin]

Does anyone else experience ram preview issues when using this built-in ACES? My preview cant play ANY footage in real time even after caching the whole sequence. I even tested it out with one solid animated between two linear keyframes, major frame drops everytime. Can't seem to find the solution. I'm using 2019 Mac Pro with 192 GB of ram so wouldn't imagine the sequence would be to heavy or complex to playback for my system

[@SilverwingVFX]

Sorry to hear that. I have no idea what would help here. Hopefully you can get it resolved or someone else can chime in and help!

[@crazyjunk67]

i want the silverwing grade!

[@crazyjunk67]

with many lensflares! :D

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you very much. It´s very likely I will do the grading vid. Not sure about the lens flares ha ha. I am not JJ

[@pipeliner8969]

Didn't know you have a KZbin channel! Please also consider syncing your content to Odysee!

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there, Thank you very much. First time hearing about Odysee, I have to read up some infos :-)

[@c.n.5476]

Since C4D introduced ACES in 2023 should the PV not show true colors if C4D is set to ACES?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Yes. You are right. You can make it show the render with the right transform. Problem is that you need to set C4D to ACES. So everything is ACES in C4D. But octane does not like that. Picked colors will not match as well as the material previews. So its best for now to leave C4Ds ACES handling off. Unfortunately you can´t force the right transform only in the Picture Viewer. ACES has to be enabled C4D wide.

[@BLUENYD]

Hi,bro,If I use the Aces workflow,How should color management be set in C4D, and will adjusting it affect the outcome?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there. When working in Octane. The C4D color management should be left at the old sRGB Linear Workflow. All Octane color inputs are meant to be sRGB. If you set C4D to ACES then this could mess up your scene colors. Hope this helps ✨

[@ronnyyoung7253]

Isn’t sRGB Utility Texture the same as Output sRGB? Both have 2.2 gamma curves right? Hoping someone can shed some light on this for us.

[@SilverwingVFX]

sRGB Utility Texture to my knowledge has a sRGB Gamma, but does not have the Tonemapping. "Output sRGB" or "ACES to SDR Video" have that nice filmic tonemapping to them. So saving out with sRGB Utility Texture will produce the same image that you would have in your Live viewer if you tick off the "ACES Tonemaping" checkbox in Octane. Its the untreated sRGB image.

[@junlao8137]

It's a pity that when I import Lut and use Looks, its color often changes, and I don't know how to perform color conversion

[@SilverwingVFX]

Unfortunately I am not very versed working with LUTs. I think it really depends on the LUT and what colors pace its made to work with. I can imagine a LUT made for Rec.709 applied in an ACES space will produce unwanted results. Hopefully you can figure out a way to get satisfactory results. All the best to you and your endeavors!

[@chelpark23]

can we still set up OCIO sRGB workflow in octane(as your last video on this) instead of LDR/RGB and get the same result in After effects with this new native ACES setup? setting up OCIO/sRGB in octane viewer helps in finalizing the look better for me.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey there and thank you very much for your comment. I am actually not that sure what you are asking. I am trying to answer if I am not answering the right questions, feel free to correct me. In Octane: You can still setup the ACES workflow the way you like. Either through the one click solution or through the OCIO file. You can see the process of that in this video here: 9:09 P.s. in Octane you will get the same result in the live viewer with the one click solution as with OCIO ACES to sRGB. There should not be a difference! Concerning the output: You can setup Octane however you please. The only thing important that you do to make AE receive the ACES data is to set the output of Octane to EXR and the Color Space to ACEScg as seen here: 11:22 This will ignore all the color settings that you made in octane and save out the EXRs in ACEScg color space. Hope this helps! Cheers and a great start into the week to you 🙌

[@chelpark23]

@@SilverwingVFX Hey, thank you so much. This would definitely help me. Earlier, i had little different approach, where ACES is baked in the output setting with buffer type LDR*(8bit) and color space to OCIO, but it dint work in After effects well for color correcting. But thanks to you, i have a solid worklfow. 🙏

[@SilverwingVFX]

@@chelpark23 If it's just about a bit of color correction in after effects you can also bake your look in to 16bit PNGs, by choosing the ACES to sRGB one click solution and changing the Octane output from EXR (Octane) to PNG (Octane). If you want to blend Images e.g. light-passes together, and get the right output then in the Octane Live Viewer, then you need to go with a linear image format and EXRs ✨

[@tutorials859]

You said before that you prefer linear over aces, since it contain more data to work with. So my question is,in a case you maybe know, does linear contains more data than agx?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey, thank you very much for your comment and your question. Probably I meant I very much prefer Linear over Gamma e.g. non linear sRGB. The good thing is, ACEScg is linear. So it provides everything that a linear workflow is good for, plus it has the benefit of transporting more color (wider color gamut) So its superior to the good old Linear Workflow. I have not had the time to compare it to AGX though. But as I understand it AGX might have better Tonemapping (down to sRGB) I have to say that I am pretty satisfied with ACES so far. Also ACES is very widely adopted standard which makes it easier to use. I hope that clears up things 🙌 Cheers and an awesome Day to you!

[@FreakeSport]

Gutes Video as usual, aber "becaurse" :D

[@SilverwingVFX]

Thank you. Ha ha ha. One could say it´s my character of speaking 😁

[@FreakeSport]

@@SilverwingVFX this AE update is so good. Tired of the ocio adjustment layers

[@3dfischvisualisierungen584]

Hi and thanks and a short question: At 17m23s kzbin.info/www/bejne/bH7HmZSNqdV8a9E you show the settings for the Output Module in the render queue. I am looking for them in the Media Encoder and can't find them, so the results look completely wrong. Where are the Output Module Settings in the ME? And a small bonus question: How would I go about encoding an h.264 clip in the ME?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey hey. Thank you for your patience. I honestly have not figured out a way to get ACES inside the media encoder. I therefore most of the times worked within the old workflow kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHq7lJiGaKh-jas You could also just use one OCIO plugin converter at the top of the comp that you are going to send to the encoder and there convert your ACEScg to out sRGB though some people might find the mix of two workflows a bit convoluted. P.s. A couple of Days ago new versions of the Adobe Creative Cloud products were released and I heard about some advancements in the ACES workflows within AE. So it mit be possible now. However I have not had the time to look into that more closely.

[@3dfischvisualisierungen584]

​@@SilverwingVFX Thanks, raphael, came here again to say just that. I don't know about the new version either, but Adjustment layer with Ocio converter seems the way to go: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmPWqWCGastgn68 (Great tutorial!)

[@fatloopfapfapov6553]

19:41 how did you do that? on windows?

[@SilverwingVFX]

It´s an app called "Microsoft Power Toys" that combines a lot of useful Windows tools in one app. Including "Fancy Zones" where you can set your own zones and then "paint" your windows in there as I did in the video. I use it on all my machines as it really helps a lot organizing windows throughout your workday!

[@simontrickfilmer]

C4D: Preferences: Viewport Display: Display Color Profil: Deactivate: is this still a thing? was it even?

[@SilverwingVFX]

It can be a thing. For my workflow outputting EXRs (32bit linear) I never deactivate the color profile. In some scenarios where you want to bake in an OCIO look in to your output I think it´s necessary. Its really hard to keep the overview 😇 Since I almost always export EXRs I just have my workflow with those.

[@simontrickfilmer]

@@SilverwingVFX thanks for the (late) anwswer :-) I also never turn it of, becaus it's not beautyful in the editor to work anymore :-) and I never bake in OCIO

[@henningricke]

Its such a shame, After Effects 32 Bit Workflow is so broken. This stops me from switching to ACES. I would love to implement it.

[@SilverwingVFX]

Indeed, it has some gotchas. But it can be done. Though it very much depends on your workflow. I built my workflow around the limitations so I am able to work with AE. As a workaround you can at least bake ACES into your files by saving them as 8 / 16 bit Integr files.

[@henningricke]

@@SilverwingVFX Thanks for the tip! I guess I'll give it another try. Just not while I'm in a project with a tight deadline ;) Its just so frustrating, still having to work around something so fundamentally basic in 2023, just because Adobe doesn't seem to bother.

[@SilverwingVFX]

@@henningricke That´s a very wise decision. Trying new things during production can end in chaos and tragedy. The best way I found is to experiment on it with a s small spare time project where you do not have the pressure of a looming deadline.

[@nickjito]

I have to question the sheer amount of points of failure this creates in the already very chaotic nature of production. When is ACES the right move and Do you think the risk is worth the reward?

[@SilverwingVFX]

Hey Nick. Very good question. I agree that its hard to get your head around all the details and aspects of it. And that it can be more harm then good if people don´t know what they are doing. To answer your question: ACES can be very beneficial in scenarios with: Strong Lighting, harsh highlights, vibrant colors in materials / lights or both. So mostly recreating reality with high contrast e.g. sun light. Its not very beneficial for scenarios where you have high control over lights as studio setups. As artists we were working so long with the limitations of sRGB that we learned how to deal with them. With the ACES to sRGB workflow the boundaries are lifted. It can take some time to learn to adapt to the new freedom. e.g. dare giving light more intensity, create more vibrant colors ect. Seeing things won´t break that easily anymore.

[@ДмитрийАнатольевич-ш5б]

🥲🥲🥲🤧🤧❤❤❤