Great tutorial! From my experience - I simply didn't check "Linearize Working Space" in Project Settings, so I don't need to use your "sRGB Gamma Fix". In my case, you also don't need to care about the "Use Display Color Management" tick and "Preserve RGB" on the Output. It just works in full ACES glory. Cheers!
The most complete guided tutorial about ACEScg, thank you!! The Display color management workflow it's driving nuts to everyone who want to start using Aces on AE. Big thanks.
Every ACES tutorial I went through was tremendously confusing and overly complicated and I was never able to replicate their results. I got what I was looking for here which is simply, how to adjust a render with the high dynamic range of a RAW photo. Thanks for the contribution!
Thanks for the great tutorial! Very well-explained. One way to get around having to select the OCIO config file each time is to save a preset C4D scene file as "new.c4d" in your root program folder (AppData/Roaming/Maxon/etc.). It'll always open with the saved parameters. Great way to pre-populate new scene files with object manager nulls, custom layers, light set-ups, etc.
Oh my god, thanks so much for this, today I've spent basically the whole day trying to figure out a consistent way of comping my renders in after effects. Finally tonight I found your video and it all seems to just make sense now! Thanks a lot for this, really
Thanks mate, I'm working with Maya/Renderman to After Effects, couldn't understand why my EXRs looked overexposed. This workflow works a treat! Cheers!
As I understand it, an ACES 360 skydome has 16 to 24 steps of exposure in it, where as a normal HDRI skydome will be 5 to 9. These extra steps of conversion really help in the shadows to bring up the details. Converting your skydome to the ACES colorspace can be done via Nuke or Aftereffects easy enough (tho you will be missing the steps of exposure), then use the OSL shaders to do the conversion of your diffuse maps to an aces diffuse. The point being it's easy to get your colors/textures in line now.
It's so incredible and you explained it so well!! Thank you soo much!! I watched several tutorials and tried to use ACES in my projects, but didn't understand what and why exactly am I doing it. Thank you again, now it all starting to make SENCE!!
Zak! Thank you for this tutorial. SUPER helpful and knowledgeable. Was beating my head against the wall with other tutorials. This makes a lot more sense.
Man this is the most troughout explanation. Specila thanks to the effort you put to be didatic "the color correction is the meat of your sandwitch" hehe
Fantastic tutorial! So much good background explanation too, without getting overly technical. I've been rendering in ACES in V-Ray for a couple of years and recently started doing more in C4D + Redshift. I have a suggestion: To get around the issue of needing to pre-convert textures and HDRIs, you can edit Redshift’s config.ocio file to convert your rendering from Linear sRGB to sRGB instead of ACEScg to sRGB. By default, OCIO assumes you are rendering in ACEScg. The gamut change between Linear sRGB and ACEScg causes a visible color shift. This is likely linked to the unpredictable color behavior you mentioned in AE as well. By entering material colors manually in C4D, you are using your own brain as a pre-conversion LUT to offset the color/saturation issues based on what you see in the output and effectively rendering in ACEScg, which is technically correct, but laborious. I edited my config.ocio file for an almost-ACES workflow that works for me until Redshift and C4D offer an end-to-end ACES workflow. To do this, I opened config.ocio in a text editor and made the following change: Under roles (near the top of the file), I changed "rendering: ACES - ACEScg" to "rendering: Utility - Linear - sRGB" (no quotes). Redshift's OCIO implementation looks to this role line to tell it the original gamut and gamma of the raw render straight out of the engine. Making this change allows me to enter familiar sRGB colors and regular sRGB textures as color inputs. This also means that the rendering is calculated in Linear sRGB (not ACEScg), just as it would be in a non-ACES workflow, but then tonemapped through the ACES RRT (the tonemapper) on its way to final sRGB color and gamma. While this method is technically "wrong," (ideally the rendering should be calculated in ACEScg to take full advantage of the huge ACES colorspace), I find it much more workable than preconverting colors and textures, and it allows me to access the magical tonemapping within ACES without dealing with the color shifts that result from partial implementation of OCIO within Redshift and C4D. Fingers crossed for better ACES implemention (through OCIO or CTL) in upcoming versions of Redshift. One warning: editing your config.ocio file in this way might have an effect on other apps that use OCIO roles as well. For this reason, depending on your workflow, it might be advisable to have a separate config file for Redshift so your other apps' behavior is unmodified. That's what I do. Love your tutorials. Keep them coming. :)
Interesting! So you're removing the color aspect and only utilizing the tonemapping of ACES. I image that's beneficial if your workflow involves tons of PBR or color critical textures that would need converting to ACEScg. Thanks for sharing this workflow! Could come in handy until full OCIO is implemented in C4D & Redshift!
Thank you so much for explaining the step about the Color Profile Converter for exports - my colours were always overexposed way too much and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why!
I found the culprit, one of the other ACES colour tuts I was following said to have the Linear > ACES and ACES > REC.709 layers as guide layers. Switching these to 'normal' adjustment layers fixed the overexposure issues that I was having :)
Half way through and I’m kind of mind blown that After Effects and C4D haven’t created seamless support for ACES yet. It seems so convoluted. Great instruction so far though!!
This is incredibly informative. Thank you so much for doing this. One question, as an After Effects VFX editor, if someone sent me an exr, dpx, or prores with a specific log or linear color space, what layers get turned off before rendering, and how would you set your render settings on the output prores, exr, or dpx file from AE to preserve the color space they sent? I am sure baking in SRGB is not what they would want back.
Thanks for watching! Yeah, in this scenario you'd need to find out what format your editor/colorists wants to receive. Let's assume they want ACEScg EXRs sent back to them for final color grading. You'd just have to make sure that all of your footage is converted to ACEScg. That's not an issue for 3D renders as most likely you've exported those as 32bit EXRs in ACEScg. Now if you've comped footage in with VFX, you'd need to transform the Log footage to ACEScg so you could do that with an OCIO effect right on that layer converting from the Log format it was recorded in (Sony s-log3, or Arri Log C3, etc.) to ACEScg. If you're using the same layers I used in the tutorial, you'd just need to turn off the top OCIO layer (which was converting our ACEScg to sRGB) and the gamma correction layer. So now you're left with terrible looking footage (assuming you're not using the new OCIO in AE which has the option to view the sRGB output transform in the composition window) because we're viewing this linear ACEScg footage on our sRGB monitor. But this is fine because we want to export this high dynamic range linear ACEScg footage to send off. So you can export as EXR in the Render Queue's Output Module Settings - Main Options. Then under the Color tab you would check the "Preserve RGB" check box. Because you're using the Fnord plugin and handling all color conversion on each layer, we can turn off AE's color management on export and just pass through the RGB values directly to the file.
@@igobyzak This is so kind of you to answer, thank you for the detailed response. You have unlocked the answers to so many questions I've had and will be saving your comment in my process documents as part of my future workflow. I really appreciate everything you've shared! Have a good one!
Thanks zag! Best tutorial on this topic so far! Is there any difference working in 16bit in Ae? The workflow is still producing the same results?(visually)
Holy shit, there it is. Finally someone who explains this topic in some serious depth. I've been struggling particularly with the After Effects side of things but that sRGB Gamma Fix trick wasn't something I'd ever have thought of. I'm wondering about one thing tho. I'm using Octane not Redshift, so there might be a difference here? When using ACES 2065-1, I get these wonderfully rich colors but when switching to ACEScg it just turns all green. Sill a good image, just doesn't look as neat in terms of the color variance. Judging from your explanation at the beginning, ACEScg simply isn't as wide a color space as 2065-1 but then why use ACEScg over 2065-1?
From what I understand, ACEScg was developed because non-spectral renderers were producing inaccurate results because of the large gamut of ACES2065. Because Octane is a spectral renderer, I don't believe the same issues are present. So I think you could render in 2065 but the Output Display Transform would still transform all that information down to your display profile, whether that's sRGB, Rec709, Rec2020, etc.
This is great, thanks so much for your tutorials, they are awesome! I am just starting out with Redshift and ACES and this is what I needed :) Just quick question - in the C4D project settings, under "Project Settings" in the bottom I can check "Linear Workflow" and choose an "Input Color Profile" - I currently have the "Linear Workflow" checked and the "Input Color Profile" set to RGB and things look fine that way. When I choose the "Input Color Profile" to "Linear" things look not right. Just wanted to check if it is correct to have the "Linear Worfklow" option on and the "Input Color Profile" on "RGB" in the C4D project settings? Really looking forward to more tutorials, big fan here! :)
Thanks for watching! Yeah, I keep "Linear Workflow" on and the color space set to sRGB in the C4D project settings. Color picking becomes very unintuitive for me if I'm have to select colors in linear gamma.
Thanks a lot! Very helpful. This cleared up a lot for me. Do you have a tip when dealing with stills? Do you just process them as you would with animations in AE or do you use Photoshop or Affinity Photo as part of your ACES workflow?
Thanks for the tutorial. The Adjustment layers make sense and with current RS settings at "RAW" everything works. How do you recommend lighting the scene? I currently set it to Aces-SDR to light everything and then output to RAW. Is that the common setup?
Yeah, exactly. It's really a very similar workflow as a film set when shooting LOG. The reference monitors on set would have a LOG to Rec709 LUT applied so director's don't have to watch washed out low contrast playback. Kinda the same thing here, our Render view has the transform from RAW to sRGB applied so we get a sense of what our final product will be, but we want to save the RAW data in our final output, then apply the transform to sRGB at the very end of our edits in post (AE, Resolve, Nuke) so we keep all that sweet color information and dynamic range for color grading/compositing, etc.
@@igobyzak Thanks for your reply :) That makes sense but to clarify, would I work with the "Aces SDR" preset and switch to "raw" when outputting for compositing?
Thanks so much! If you haven't checked it out yet, here's a link to the ACES tutorial I did after ACES became the default in Redshift v3.0.46. ua-cam.com/video/HGC8k2gbS1s/v-deo.html I believe the settings should be the same for the newest version of Redshift and Cinema 4D. I haven't upgraded yet so I'm not 100% sure. Message here again if things aren't working out in the newest version.
This is great! I'm currently working with RED R3D IPP2 in After Effects. After Effects color management seems overcomplicated in many ways for the IPP2 workflow too. I am trying to do greenscreen keying and compositing. Does this workflow help with Keylight? Do you recommend changing R3D into ACES? It seems like it's the most universal workflow, and something I should be doing from now on, as I am moving into more advanced work; premiere, after effects, blender, C4D, etc. Thanks
Thanks!! To be honest, I'm not sure about converting footage before it's been keyed. I'd check with the folks over at acescentral.com; lots of great info over there from people that composite RED footage.
Hello! Thank you for a great tutorial - can you please explain how doing that color profile trick actually removes one of the gamuts? I'd love to understand it, not memorize it :)
Because we're using a 3rd party plugin to do some color management (OCIO plugin) the conversion to sRGB is happening inside that plugin. After Effects doesn't know that is happening, so it's adding a gamma correction so the image looks correct on our monitors. But now we have 2 corrections, one from the plugin and one from the After Effects. The Color Converter setting used here is applying the opposite gamma curve, the inverse of the curve, to make the gamma linear. But because we have 2 sRGB gammas applied to our image, this is basically removing one curve so we're left with only 1, which is what we want to make the image look correct. I hope that helps. This stuff is can be pretty complicated!
Hey zak! really love your stuff, have learned so much from you about Redshift and other topics! Weird question, but would it be possible you share the scene file you used in the video to see if I'm doing everything right? If I try it on my own project I'm not sure where I'm messing up the settings, but if I had a direct comparison that would maybe help. Totally understand if thats not really possible, but would love if you could help out with this!
I think this is something that I may be implementing in the future, however, right now in these scenes I'm using some textures and HDRIs that I didn't create myself, so I'm not free to share them. It's a good point though, and I'm looking into some options about how to make this easier in the future. In the meantime, if you do have specific questions, feel free to ask here and I'll do my best to answer!
Hey Zak, thanks for the great tutorial again. In C4D 2023, I'm a little bit confused, how can I disable a baked export with AcesCG, and just export RAW, and the use the OCIO plugin + the color profile converter to remove the double SRGB gamma and leave just one. In previous versions of C4D you switched off color management or chose RAW, but we don't have that option. When it comes the time to export we need to switch back to basic in the color management Project Settings now that everything is handled in C4D project settings regarding color management ?
Thanks Zak, I think I found it, when you switch back to Basic Color Management in Project Settings, all your options come back inside the Redshift Render settings, Globals, color management and I can export a RAW image like before, and insert ACES and remove one layer of gamma SRGB in After Effects like you explained. Thanks and I love your tutorials !
Thanks so much! So the great thing about OCIO in 2023 is that EXRs are automatically exported as RAW without the ACES transform baked in. Just hit render now! No need to switch back to basic. I have another tutorial in the works that covers all these updates.
@@igobyzak One thing that I noticed, that is working default in C4D 2023, is if I choose inside [Render Settings / Save ] the Open EXR 16-bit Depth under format, it keeps the Color Profile to SRGB in the saved file. And if you choose Open EXR 32-bit Depth it switches to Linear/RAW in the Color Profile. Interesting. So I started choosing 32-bit and checking the 16-bit Float in the little arrow next to Format. This is why, despite the fact that you told me that EXRs now by default (C4D 2023) are saved linear and we don't have to switch back to Basic in the Color Management Project Settings, my EXRs were saved as SRGB, because I was choosing 16bit Depth. Thanks.
@@igobyzak Another interesting thing, I don't know why or If I'm doing something wrong, but when I use the config OCIO file 1.2 downloaded from GitHub in AE, what I see in AEFX matches what I see in Redshift Renderview with OCIO enabled in C4D 2023 project settings. But when I use the OCIO config file found in resource/modules/c4dplugin/ocio/config.ocio that C4D is pointing by default, the colors in AEFX are slightly more saturated. And on top of that, the github file has Outputs named , then Output>SRGB is selected. The OCIO that C4D2023 points to in project settings, doesn't show SRGB as an output identifier (IDT) only show an SRB in the beginning of the list and I don't know if it is an output profile.
Using the Ae technique you're doing at 26:00, what project working space would be used? When I did ACES baked into the image, I had my color space in Ae set to none. Do I now set it to srgb and check linearize?
In the video I go back to my default After Effects settings (sRGB color space, Linearize on, 32 bit comp) then add the OCIO layer and "Gamma Fix" layer. There are multiple ways you can comp ACES in After Effects correctly; the workflow in the video is just my preferred way of working.
Thanks zak...I think I'm almost there, but I have one issue. Do you know where I could have gone wrong if I'm getting a very washed out image? I can bring it back down to a proper look by applying an exposure and cutting the gamma from 1 to 0.5, but it doesn't look like you need to do that in your example. I'm turning off "compensate for view transform" in redshift settings.
Hey great video! Is there any reason you don't cover the conversion of diffuse textures for working in ACES? That tends to trip people up when their textures are super over-saturated
Really interested in this workflow (I use the other method currently). For this workflow, would you ever change the Input Color Profile in C4D itself (Ctrl + D) and change it from srgb to Linear or leave as default srgb?
I wouldn't change, no. I want to be able to select my colors in Cinema using sRGB colors. Things get weird (or at least nothing like I'm used to) if the color mode is switched to (and I'm quoting Cinema's terminology here) "Linear." "Linear" is not a color space. As far as I know, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, changing this input color profile from sRGB to linear would not affect the render when using the workflow outlined in this tutorial.
@@igobyzak gotcha, thanks! Yes definitely not a color space. But once to linear a 50% gray with a ramp in RS actually responds accurately. Versus having the srgb 2.2 curve applied to it. But definitely things go funky with color picking. Hopefully Maxon can sort this all out soon because it really should all not be so crazytown. Again, thanks for the great walkthrough!!
Hey Great video! Question, at 15:43 I see you left the image colour profile two fields down from where you specified 16bit as sRGB, shouldn't it be set to Linear?
The way I understand that drop down is that is the color profile that would be embedded in your output file when it's written. So if we were to render a TIFF file, that color profile would be written into the TIFF. But EXRs do not support embedded color profiles. So for EXRs this drop down would have no effect.
Hey Zak, thanks for this very interesting. Am I right in saying that you're not actually working in ACESCG colourspace with these renders? You're still using the sRGB primaries out of C4D that has essentially been graded through a LUT to look like ACES?
This is a fantastic question, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how this is working. I originally thought this exactly, that Cinema was rendering using sRGB primaries. But I would think if that were the case, then when putting this together in After Effects, we'd need to use the OCIO plugin to transform our C4D render from "linear sRGB into ACEScg" then another transform from "ACEScg to Output sRGB." BUT! This is not correct. I test this in the video around the 33:15 mark. I had to change the "Utility - Linear sRGB" to "Utility - RAW" to "ACEScg," but mathematically that's not doing anything, so we don't need that conversion at all. So it would seem that there's no inherent sRGB color being baked in to our renders out of C4D. But this is really complicated stuff for me and I don't have a grasp of the math that's happening behind the scenes, so I could be missing something.
Hi Zak, amazing knowledge and opened a lot of doors for me to colour grade my renders. I have an issue with the 3.058 update. I think there is a difference between 3.056 vs 3.058 Do we need to do anything different for aces workflow with this update?
@@igobyzak Hi Zack. This is was my bad. I probably forgot closing redshift posteffects. so I watched your tutorials again. maybe this could be related to openEXR 16 floating check too. My problem solved.
This is a nice and useful tutorial, but the video mentions nothing about another option: "highlight compression" In the video it is said that if you wanna avoid burns you have to adjust the light intensity or resort to using the ACES workflow, but highlight compression is a thing since many years ago. Old tutorials don't advice to dial down the lights value, on the contrary, most say to use real values for sun like lights and use tone mapping to adjust. No matter how strong the light is, you just dial that option and you can achieve a nice balance between washed-out or burned highlights just like in the video examples. And you can also use post effects for "highlight compression" or "filmic" in Fusion, and probably After Effects too. Achieving the same or similar results.
Yeah, I don't really go into other options outside of ACES. I think Blender people have had the Filmic tonemapping option built in for a while at the time of recording, but I think the idea of tonemapping was still pretty new to C4D redshift users. I'm not sure what the options were, if any, before Redshift introduced OCIO. Every tutorial I struggle with how much information to go into. My tutorials usually end up being pretty long so I try to keep them as succinct as I can, but then I guess I run the risk of not explaining things fully or leaving out some information that could be useful. It's a balancing act I need to figure out. Appreciate you taking the time to watch!
@@igobyzak I am interested in learning more about ACES and I was glad to see this video tutorial because it seemed simpler to understand and see potential benefits in using ACES. But at the same time I was expecting more, since everyone is touting ACES as a "must have" tool in our arsenal. But I still have so many questions and "asking google" gives me no answers. For example, I understand about a larger gamut and "future proofing" your renders with ACES. But I don't understand how rendering in floating point leads to less color gamut than ACES. At least in music the difference between CD quality 16 bit and 32 bit is enormous. 32 bit is almost an infinite quality - to put it in simpler terms. And sometimes I hear how ACES creates better colors. How can that be ? A color is a color. Represented with a number. That number should be the same. Is ACES color correcting my renders ? Behind my back ? Making my works look better even if I don't want to ? People seem to give ACES mystical abilities. Maybe more ACES tutorials are needed :)
@realtimeFilms Yeah, color science is a dense and complicated topic. You bring up great points and I hope you've watched some of my other tutorials on ACES as this was the first one recorded quite some time ago, and a lot has changed since then. Here's my still very basic understanding of the way this is all working. (I'm still learning this stuff so this may be oversimplified) Redshift is an RGB render engine, not a Spectral render engine like Octane. The difference being (the way I understand it) is that where Octane computes actual wavelengths of light in its calculations, Redshift uses a particular Red, Green, and Blue to produce the final image. In Cinema4d if we are not using ACES or any color management but we are selecting "Linearize workflow" and we are rendering 32bit floating point images our colors are rendered using sRGB primary values in linear gamma. The luminance values of our rendered scene are preserved in a 32bit EXR (tons of dynamic range like your audio comparison), but we're not creating more colors than available in sRGB color space. If we're not using all wavelengths of light to render our scene like Octane does, we have to define the colors we're using. We have to define what exactly Red, Blue, and Green are. So with ACES, instead of using sRGB primaries we are using ACEScg or ACES AP1 primaries which encompasses a wider color gamut so more colors. The benefit, the way I understand it, is that this gets us closer to Spectral render engines, a more realistic interaction of color in our renders. Choosing different primaries produces different looking renders. In my latest OCIO After Effects Beta tutorial, at the end, I show the effects of choosing colors in sRGB and ACEScg and how different they render. I hope that makes sense. Definitely check out Chris Brejon's website for some more technical information about all this stuff. chrisbrejon.com/cg-cinematography/chapter-1-5-academy-color-encoding-system-aces/
@@igobyzak Thank you for taking the time to reply. Even though I saw that explanation before, I think I finally got it from your above explanation - how can you fit a limited gamut of colors inside a huge dynamic range. I think the benefit of floating point files has more to do with the luminance or something, and not with the colors. The problem with ACES, for me at least, is since I have to model, render, write, composite real life footage with cg, and also write the symphonic music, gives me a very limited time. And I can't just apply instructions I see in tutorials. I have to do lots of tests myself and compare and see the benefits. And sometimes I feel like with my limited time, maybe the benefits are not so big. Redshift has that nice function of desaturate colors in post effects - the brighter and hotter a color gets, it gets desaturated. Like in those nice ACES examples I keep seeing on internet. Plus there are also all kinds of post process workflows in Nuke and Fusion, specially for cg renders, to tame those colors. You don't have to accept those saturated highlights. I feel like I can get similar results without using ACES. But still, I would like to try to implement it in my pipeline. And perhaps I could, but converting all the textures would be a step too much. The textures are anyway highly modified and color corrected in subjective ways because I almost never saw a texture which is right from the start. They are always too saturated, too something. Maybe there's benefit of using ACEScg even without textures conversion.
Hello, Redshift has release a 3.0.46 version with full ACES support,but I cant find a way to turn off the color management in 3.0.46. I wonder if you could make a new video about workflow in version 3.0.46. Im sure a lot of people are search for this.
Thx for doing this, it’s overall such a kind f*ck lol…quick question: instead of turning color management off completely, couldn’t you just render out to Raw to get all the dynamic range without the tone mapping or gamma correct? Then reapply the ACES tone mapping in AE…?
I'm sorry, I'm not following. I don't turn color management off. I am rendering out RAW and applying the ACES transforms in After Effects. It seems like you're describing what I'm doing?
@@igobyzak sorry I didn't explain that well! I was trying to say that if you set your working space to ACEScg (linearize), then you wouldn't need the color conversion node? From what I've seen, if you set the WS to ACEScg and click the Preserve RGB in the footage, you can just apply the opencolor node and set it as needed and you'd get the desired results? you wouldn't even have to set the output in the Render Queue to preserve RGB bc that setting defaults to the working space (ACEScg)? This seems a little more straightforward, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, thanks!
Hi, I want to know how to render the PostFX pass and the other beauty pass without post at the same EXR file? Or should I hit render twice each frame? Thank you!
Zak I've been using your method here with great success but ran into a weird issue... A studio I work with requires Quicktime 4444 renders and for some reason there is a gamma shift when I export... the shift doesn't occur if I render out a lossless avi (or QT animation), and all is well if I export jpg, png, etc.... In the 4444 settings I've tried switching the depth, and playing with the output profile but can't seem to get it to hit the mark... any ideas?
Are you viewing your 4444 QuickTime on a Mac? If so check out this blog post about the ongoing Mac QuickTime Gamma Shift: dominey.blog/2021/01/24/why-are-videos-washed-out-on-the-mac-exploring-quicktime-gamma-shift/
@@igobyzak Thanks Zak, I'm actually on Windows but that article did lead me into the solution... So... no matter where I preview the 4444, there is a slight shift. However I ran the 4444 through media encoder and made an mp4 and that displays correctly (so as per the article, I think it's something to do with the QT player). Thanks for all that you do :)
The Redshift Render View definitely changes, but I'd have to do some checking to see if it does go back to a standard sRGB view or a "Linear" gamma view. I'm not sure.
This is great. My only "catch" I'm running into now is remembering to turn off the color management redshift post effects every time I go to render. The setting in my render settings seems to be linked to the display setting in the render view. Any ideas how to unlink the two?
17:50 - I'm a little confused. If I render out EXRs without any colour management, the colours are stored are linear, BUT AE will see them as sRGB? I never rendered the EXRs with any colour management, so why would I choose ACEScg? I didn't select that as an output colour space when I rendered. That's where I'm confused... Does ACEScg just assume I'm using linear files and convert to ACEScg from there as the input?
Yeah, this took me a while to wrap my head around. EXRs do not use color profiles, they're just color data with linear gamma. In Cinema 4D we did all of our lighting and coloring using the ACEScg to sRGB transfer function in our Redshift Renderview. And we converted our texture's color data into ACEScg. When we render out our EXR without that transfer function baked in (with RS color management turned off), we end up with an EXR with some color data and linear gamma. In order to get back to what we saw in the RS Renderview we need to do that same transfer function. So we take our linear gamma EXR and tell after effects it's ACEScg (because that's the color data we fed in when doing look dev in the corrected renderview and by converting our texture colors to ACEScg) and then convert that ACEScg into sRGB using the OCIO plugin. If we wanted to, for some reason, we could tell After Effects our EXRs from Cinema are really AdobeRGB (or whatever) color space instead of ACES. It's just that our renders wouldn't look anywhere close to what we were seeing in Redshift. We just tell After Effects those EXRs are ACEScg because that's the color space we used when rendering them.
Hello there, thank You for tutorial... question - if You will stay in 100% CGI image, what is the reason to use AcesCG instead of Float renders and manage tonemapping later as you want? In tutorial You are comparing srgb picture to aces tonemaped render, not 32bit exr...
Why don't you just follow the manual that comes with the OCIO plugin? It's the simplest workflow ever, and the very first thing they tell you to do is turn off AEs color management - not set the color space to sRGB but actually turn it off. This way the ONLY thing you have to do is have a Guide adjustment layer with the aces to rgb conversion in your comp - that's it :) Well you also have to check the preserve RGB in the import settings ;)
The thing you missed is disabling the Color management in AE - you didn't do it - that's why you HAD to do it in 4 places and it still didn't work ;) To disable CM in AE you have to set the Project Working Space to None not sRGB (and disable the linearize workspace - it's an old hack from the time when Adobe had no idea what linear workflow meant). If you do that, all the other places where you have color profiles in AE become grayed out. If you do this, there is no way of messing the ACES workflow anymore. If you're rendering back to ACES - just render, no need to do anything else. If you're rendering to sRGB, change the Guide Adjustment Layer to normal Adjustment Layer and render the comp. That's it.
The workflow you describe here is totally valid. It will work great if you're just bringing your EXRs into After Effects and that's it. I, personally, want to keep color management on. I am usually working with many different types of files that need to be comped together. For instance, in the workflow you described with After Effects color management off, if I brought in a Tiff file embedded with a ProPhoto RGB color space, it will look incorrect in the comp. After Effects won't know how to interpret it, and even selecting "Preserve RGB" like we would do for EXRs won't work in this case. I would have to add a "Color Converter" effect to change the color space from ProPhotoRGB to sRGB to get accurate colors in the comp. With color management on, this profile conversion is handled automatically by After Effects. I know there are a dozen or so different ways one could go about comping ACES EXRs in After Effects. The method I describe in the tutorial is just what works best for me and my workflow.
I wonder, why going all the length of explaining the workflow in such detail, but then using it not as intended, just because it's easier? You should be fine pre-converting HDRIs and textures manually to ACEScg EXRs (for example with Affinity Photo) and use them this way in C4D without any unwanted color shifts. Are you using a 32-bit project in AE? I can't see it in your setup.
I go over both a color managed workflow and the non-color managed workflow in After Effects. One is not "more correct" than the other; both can deliver accurate results. Personally, I prefer the color managed workflow because it's easier for me to keep track of, but either way works. I go over converting textures/HDRIs into ACEScg in part 2. Yes, my AE comp is 32bit. Thanks for watching!
By any chance do you have the OpenColor IO plugin zip file? The fnordware blogspot link doesn't work anymore so I have no way of getting After Effects to use it. I foolishly thought my redshift vfx shot was done, only to import it into AE and realize that the colors are way darker than my original footage. I'm starting to understand the workflow thanks to videos like yours but everyone always links to the same download link but it doesn't work.
Man, I think that this is the most straight forward and complete tutorial of ACES that I ever seen.
Hats off to you for doing updates on Redshift ACES workflow! It’s the most important factor for color correction when using Redshift👍
Thanks for watching!
Great tutorial! From my experience - I simply didn't check "Linearize Working Space" in Project Settings, so I don't need to use your "sRGB Gamma Fix". In my case, you also don't need to care about the "Use Display Color Management" tick and "Preserve RGB" on the Output. It just works in full ACES glory. Cheers!
thank you for this alternative approach to ACES..... saved me from the constant headache of the other method
The most complete guided tutorial about ACEScg, thank you!! The Display color management workflow it's driving nuts to everyone who want to start using Aces on AE. Big thanks.
Glad you found it helpful! Thanks for watching!
Every ACES tutorial I went through was tremendously confusing and overly complicated and I was never able to replicate their results. I got what I was looking for here which is simply, how to adjust a render with the high dynamic range of a RAW photo. Thanks for the contribution!
Even though I'm using Octane, this managed to clarify so much! Thank you for putting this together!
This one is the best of many ACES Redshift C4D explanation videos. Thanks a lot!
Thanks so much! Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the great tutorial! Very well-explained.
One way to get around having to select the OCIO config file each time is to save a preset C4D scene file as "new.c4d" in your root program folder (AppData/Roaming/Maxon/etc.). It'll always open with the saved parameters. Great way to pre-populate new scene files with object manager nulls, custom layers, light set-ups, etc.
Ahh! Great tip!!
Forgot that would work for this as well. Nice one
Thank you! Finaly I understand what to do with Aces)
Ah man this is so much better than constantly correcting the color management. Thank you so much!
I hope someone at Adobe sees this and do something about it!
Thanks for sharing
Oh my god, thanks so much for this, today I've spent basically the whole day trying to figure out a consistent way of comping my renders in after effects. Finally tonight I found your video and it all seems to just make sense now! Thanks a lot for this, really
Thanks for commenting! Glad you found it helpful!
Thanks mate, I'm working with Maya/Renderman to After Effects, couldn't understand why my EXRs looked overexposed. This workflow works a treat! Cheers!
Very nice technical information!
As I understand it, an ACES 360 skydome has 16 to 24 steps of exposure in it, where as a normal HDRI skydome will be 5 to 9. These extra steps of conversion really help in the shadows to bring up the details.
Converting your skydome to the ACES colorspace can be done via Nuke or Aftereffects easy enough (tho you will be missing the steps of exposure), then use the OSL shaders to do the conversion of your diffuse maps to an aces diffuse. The point being it's easy to get your colors/textures in line now.
Man, even have the simple solution for getting the PostFX pass. Thank you!
Thanks for taking the time to do this. It is excellent.
Thanks so much! Thanks for watching!
Zak! You beat me to it! I was struggling with the renders until I realized I needed to check preserve RGB on the output module too! Great stuff man!
It's so incredible and you explained it so well!! Thank you soo much!! I watched several tutorials and tried to use ACES in my projects, but didn't understand what and why exactly am I doing it. Thank you again, now it all starting to make SENCE!!
Thanks for the tutorial.
Zak! Thank you for this tutorial. SUPER helpful and knowledgeable. Was beating my head against the wall with other tutorials. This makes a lot more sense.
Glad it helped!
Man this is the most troughout explanation. Specila thanks to the effort you put to be didatic "the color correction is the meat of your sandwitch" hehe
Thanks so much! Glad it helped!
Fantastic tutorial! So much good background explanation too, without getting overly technical. I've been rendering in ACES in V-Ray for a couple of years and recently started doing more in C4D + Redshift. I have a suggestion:
To get around the issue of needing to pre-convert textures and HDRIs, you can edit Redshift’s config.ocio file to convert your rendering from Linear sRGB to sRGB instead of ACEScg to sRGB. By default, OCIO assumes you are rendering in ACEScg.
The gamut change between Linear sRGB and ACEScg causes a visible color shift. This is likely linked to the unpredictable color behavior you mentioned in AE as well. By entering material colors manually in C4D, you are using your own brain as a pre-conversion LUT to offset the color/saturation issues based on what you see in the output and effectively rendering in ACEScg, which is technically correct, but laborious.
I edited my config.ocio file for an almost-ACES workflow that works for me until Redshift and C4D offer an end-to-end ACES workflow. To do this, I opened config.ocio in a text editor and made the following change:
Under roles (near the top of the file), I changed "rendering: ACES - ACEScg" to "rendering: Utility - Linear - sRGB" (no quotes). Redshift's OCIO implementation looks to this role line to tell it the original gamut and gamma of the raw render straight out of the engine. Making this change allows me to enter familiar sRGB colors and regular sRGB textures as color inputs. This also means that the rendering is calculated in Linear sRGB (not ACEScg), just as it would be in a non-ACES workflow, but then tonemapped through the ACES RRT (the tonemapper) on its way to final sRGB color and gamma.
While this method is technically "wrong," (ideally the rendering should be calculated in ACEScg to take full advantage of the huge ACES colorspace), I find it much more workable than preconverting colors and textures, and it allows me to access the magical tonemapping within ACES without dealing with the color shifts that result from partial implementation of OCIO within Redshift and C4D. Fingers crossed for better ACES implemention (through OCIO or CTL) in upcoming versions of Redshift.
One warning: editing your config.ocio file in this way might have an effect on other apps that use OCIO roles as well. For this reason, depending on your workflow, it might be advisable to have a separate config file for Redshift so your other apps' behavior is unmodified. That's what I do.
Love your tutorials. Keep them coming. :)
Interesting! So you're removing the color aspect and only utilizing the tonemapping of ACES. I image that's beneficial if your workflow involves tons of PBR or color critical textures that would need converting to ACEScg. Thanks for sharing this workflow! Could come in handy until full OCIO is implemented in C4D & Redshift!
Whew, thank you for sharing this! So in this case you would leave the Redshift Color Management on for rendering?
So great! Thank you for simplifying!
Holy hell, thank you so much!! Can't wait to share this at work, we hate the turn off everything AE method
Awesome tutorial. Thank you.
WOW, nice color management trick!
Super helpful. thanks a lot for the tutorial!
Awesome! Thanks for watching!
I'm gonna like before I begin watching cus I know this is gonna be good.
Good job. Thank you!
Thanks Zak! Great video and really simple explanations! Thank you for taking your time to make content like this!
Great Tut!
Thanks a lot for sharing, much appreciated!
Thank you so much for explaining the step about the Color Profile Converter for exports - my colours were always overexposed way too much and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why!
Edit: JPGs seem to export ok, but when I try to export a quicktime movie the file export is still massively overexposed. #stuck
I found the culprit, one of the other ACES colour tuts I was following said to have the Linear > ACES and ACES > REC.709 layers as guide layers. Switching these to 'normal' adjustment layers fixed the overexposure issues that I was having :)
Great tutorial!
Thanks!!
Half way through and I’m kind of mind blown that After Effects and C4D haven’t created seamless support for ACES yet. It seems so convoluted. Great instruction so far though!!
Hopefully soon things will be much more streamlined and the workflow will be made much simpler!
This is incredibly informative. Thank you so much for doing this. One question, as an After Effects VFX editor, if someone sent me an exr, dpx, or prores with a specific log or linear color space, what layers get turned off before rendering, and how would you set your render settings on the output prores, exr, or dpx file from AE to preserve the color space they sent? I am sure baking in SRGB is not what they would want back.
Thanks for watching! Yeah, in this scenario you'd need to find out what format your editor/colorists wants to receive. Let's assume they want ACEScg EXRs sent back to them for final color grading. You'd just have to make sure that all of your footage is converted to ACEScg. That's not an issue for 3D renders as most likely you've exported those as 32bit EXRs in ACEScg. Now if you've comped footage in with VFX, you'd need to transform the Log footage to ACEScg so you could do that with an OCIO effect right on that layer converting from the Log format it was recorded in (Sony s-log3, or Arri Log C3, etc.) to ACEScg. If you're using the same layers I used in the tutorial, you'd just need to turn off the top OCIO layer (which was converting our ACEScg to sRGB) and the gamma correction layer. So now you're left with terrible looking footage (assuming you're not using the new OCIO in AE which has the option to view the sRGB output transform in the composition window) because we're viewing this linear ACEScg footage on our sRGB monitor. But this is fine because we want to export this high dynamic range linear ACEScg footage to send off. So you can export as EXR in the Render Queue's Output Module Settings - Main Options. Then under the Color tab you would check the "Preserve RGB" check box. Because you're using the Fnord plugin and handling all color conversion on each layer, we can turn off AE's color management on export and just pass through the RGB values directly to the file.
@@igobyzak This is so kind of you to answer, thank you for the detailed response. You have unlocked the answers to so many questions I've had and will be saving your comment in my process documents as part of my future workflow. I really appreciate everything you've shared! Have a good one!
Thanks for the tutorial！
You are a very good teacher Zak. :)
Thanks so much!!
Thanks zag! Best tutorial on this topic so far!
Is there any difference working in 16bit in Ae? The workflow is still producing the same results?(visually)
Thanks so much! You'll definitely want to work in 32bit Linear in After Effects; especially if you're comping together AOV passes!
I adore you! Thanks!
Holy shit, there it is. Finally someone who explains this topic in some serious depth. I've been struggling particularly with the After Effects side of things but that sRGB Gamma Fix trick wasn't something I'd ever have thought of.
I'm wondering about one thing tho. I'm using Octane not Redshift, so there might be a difference here? When using ACES 2065-1, I get these wonderfully rich colors but when switching to ACEScg it just turns all green. Sill a good image, just doesn't look as neat in terms of the color variance. Judging from your explanation at the beginning, ACEScg simply isn't as wide a color space as 2065-1 but then why use ACEScg over 2065-1?
From what I understand, ACEScg was developed because non-spectral renderers were producing inaccurate results because of the large gamut of ACES2065. Because Octane is a spectral renderer, I don't believe the same issues are present. So I think you could render in 2065 but the Output Display Transform would still transform all that information down to your display profile, whether that's sRGB, Rec709, Rec2020, etc.
Also, make sure you're transforming your ACES2065 render into ACEScg, not just selecting ACEScg as the profile if the render is in 2065.
This is great, thanks so much for your tutorials, they are awesome! I am just starting out with Redshift and ACES and this is what I needed :)
Just quick question - in the C4D project settings, under "Project Settings" in the bottom I can check "Linear Workflow" and choose an "Input Color Profile" - I currently have the "Linear Workflow" checked and the "Input Color Profile" set to RGB and things look fine that way. When I choose the "Input Color Profile" to "Linear" things look not right. Just wanted to check if it is correct to have the "Linear Worfklow" option on and the "Input Color Profile" on "RGB" in the C4D project settings?
Really looking forward to more tutorials, big fan here! :)
Thanks for watching! Yeah, I keep "Linear Workflow" on and the color space set to sRGB in the C4D project settings. Color picking becomes very unintuitive for me if I'm have to select colors in linear gamma.
This is awesome
Thanks a lot! Very helpful. This cleared up a lot for me.
Do you have a tip when dealing with stills? Do you just process them as you would with animations in AE or do you use Photoshop or Affinity Photo as part of your ACES workflow?
Thanks so much! I usually just do it in After Effects but it could be done in PS or Affinity.
Thanks for the tutorial. The Adjustment layers make sense and with current RS settings at "RAW" everything works. How do you recommend lighting the scene? I currently set it to Aces-SDR to light everything and then output to RAW. Is that the common setup?
Yeah, exactly. It's really a very similar workflow as a film set when shooting LOG. The reference monitors on set would have a LOG to Rec709 LUT applied so director's don't have to watch washed out low contrast playback. Kinda the same thing here, our Render view has the transform from RAW to sRGB applied so we get a sense of what our final product will be, but we want to save the RAW data in our final output, then apply the transform to sRGB at the very end of our edits in post (AE, Resolve, Nuke) so we keep all that sweet color information and dynamic range for color grading/compositing, etc.
@@igobyzak Thanks for your reply :) That makes sense but to clarify, would I work with the "Aces SDR" preset and switch to "raw" when outputting for compositing?
@@joshingleby9956 correct, we work and do our look dev with the SDR transform then change to RAW when saving out our EXRs.
This is fantastic! Will you update it for R25\\3.056 by chance?
Thanks so much! If you haven't checked it out yet, here's a link to the ACES tutorial I did after ACES became the default in Redshift v3.0.46.
ua-cam.com/video/HGC8k2gbS1s/v-deo.html
I believe the settings should be the same for the newest version of Redshift and Cinema 4D. I haven't upgraded yet so I'm not 100% sure. Message here again if things aren't working out in the newest version.
This is great! I'm currently working with RED R3D IPP2 in After Effects. After Effects color management seems overcomplicated in many ways for the IPP2 workflow too. I am trying to do greenscreen keying and compositing. Does this workflow help with Keylight? Do you recommend changing R3D into ACES? It seems like it's the most universal workflow, and something I should be doing from now on, as I am moving into more advanced work; premiere, after effects, blender, C4D, etc. Thanks
Thanks!! To be honest, I'm not sure about converting footage before it's been keyed. I'd check with the folks over at acescentral.com; lots of great info over there from people that composite RED footage.
Hello! Thank you for a great tutorial - can you please explain how doing that color profile trick actually removes one of the gamuts? I'd love to understand it, not memorize it :)
Because we're using a 3rd party plugin to do some color management (OCIO plugin) the conversion to sRGB is happening inside that plugin. After Effects doesn't know that is happening, so it's adding a gamma correction so the image looks correct on our monitors. But now we have 2 corrections, one from the plugin and one from the After Effects. The Color Converter setting used here is applying the opposite gamma curve, the inverse of the curve, to make the gamma linear. But because we have 2 sRGB gammas applied to our image, this is basically removing one curve so we're left with only 1, which is what we want to make the image look correct. I hope that helps. This stuff is can be pretty complicated!
oh man, thanks a lot!
Thank you!
subbed u are the man!!
Thanks so much!!
Hey zak! really love your stuff, have learned so much from you about Redshift and other topics! Weird question, but would it be possible you share the scene file you used in the video to see if I'm doing everything right? If I try it on my own project I'm not sure where I'm messing up the settings, but if I had a direct comparison that would maybe help. Totally understand if thats not really possible, but would love if you could help out with this!
I think this is something that I may be implementing in the future, however, right now in these scenes I'm using some textures and HDRIs that I didn't create myself, so I'm not free to share them. It's a good point though, and I'm looking into some options about how to make this easier in the future. In the meantime, if you do have specific questions, feel free to ask here and I'll do my best to answer!
Hey Zak, thanks for the great tutorial again. In C4D 2023, I'm a little bit confused, how can I disable a baked export with AcesCG, and just export RAW, and the use the OCIO plugin + the color profile converter to remove the double SRGB gamma and leave just one. In previous versions of C4D you switched off color management or chose RAW, but we don't have that option. When it comes the time to export we need to switch back to basic in the color management Project Settings now that everything is handled in C4D project settings regarding color management ?
Thanks Zak, I think I found it, when you switch back to Basic Color Management in Project Settings, all your options come back inside the Redshift Render settings, Globals, color management and I can export a RAW image like before, and insert ACES and remove one layer of gamma SRGB in After Effects like you explained. Thanks and I love your tutorials !
Thanks so much! So the great thing about OCIO in 2023 is that EXRs are automatically exported as RAW without the ACES transform baked in. Just hit render now! No need to switch back to basic. I have another tutorial in the works that covers all these updates.
@@igobyzak that’s great to hear, I didn’t know that, good that Maxon is making our lives easier.
@@igobyzak One thing that I noticed, that is working default in C4D 2023, is if I choose inside [Render Settings / Save ] the Open EXR 16-bit Depth under format, it keeps the Color Profile to SRGB in the saved file. And if you choose Open EXR 32-bit Depth it switches to Linear/RAW in the Color Profile. Interesting. So I started choosing 32-bit and checking the 16-bit Float in the little arrow next to Format. This is why, despite the fact that you told me that EXRs now by default (C4D 2023) are saved linear and we don't have to switch back to Basic in the Color Management Project Settings, my EXRs were saved as SRGB, because I was choosing 16bit Depth. Thanks.
@@igobyzak Another interesting thing, I don't know why or If I'm doing something wrong, but when I use the config OCIO file 1.2 downloaded from GitHub in AE, what I see in AEFX matches what I see in Redshift Renderview with OCIO enabled in C4D 2023 project settings. But when I use the OCIO config file found in resource/modules/c4dplugin/ocio/config.ocio that C4D is pointing by default, the colors in AEFX are slightly more saturated. And on top of that, the github file has Outputs named , then Output>SRGB is selected. The OCIO that C4D2023 points to in project settings, doesn't show SRGB as an output identifier (IDT) only show an SRB in the beginning of the list and I don't know if it is an output profile.
Using the Ae technique you're doing at 26:00, what project working space would be used? When I did ACES baked into the image, I had my color space in Ae set to none. Do I now set it to srgb and check linearize?
In the video I go back to my default After Effects settings (sRGB color space, Linearize on, 32 bit comp) then add the OCIO layer and "Gamma Fix" layer. There are multiple ways you can comp ACES in After Effects correctly; the workflow in the video is just my preferred way of working.
Thanks zak...I think I'm almost there, but I have one issue. Do you know where I could have gone wrong if I'm getting a very washed out image? I can bring it back down to a proper look by applying an exposure and cutting the gamma from 1 to 0.5, but it doesn't look like you need to do that in your example. I'm turning off "compensate for view transform" in redshift settings.
awesome!
Hey great video! Is there any reason you don't cover the conversion of diffuse textures for working in ACES? That tends to trip people up when their textures are super over-saturated
I go over that in part 2!
@@igobyzak poifect
Really interested in this workflow (I use the other method currently). For this workflow, would you ever change the Input Color Profile in C4D itself (Ctrl + D) and change it from srgb to Linear or leave as default srgb?
I wouldn't change, no. I want to be able to select my colors in Cinema using sRGB colors. Things get weird (or at least nothing like I'm used to) if the color mode is switched to (and I'm quoting Cinema's terminology here) "Linear." "Linear" is not a color space. As far as I know, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, changing this input color profile from sRGB to linear would not affect the render when using the workflow outlined in this tutorial.
@@igobyzak gotcha, thanks! Yes definitely not a color space. But once to linear a 50% gray with a ramp in RS actually responds accurately. Versus having the srgb 2.2 curve applied to it. But definitely things go funky with color picking. Hopefully Maxon can sort this all out soon because it really should all not be so crazytown. Again, thanks for the great walkthrough!!
fkin awesome! really thank you zak
Thanks for watching!
Hey Great video! Question, at 15:43 I see you left the image colour profile two fields down from where you specified 16bit as sRGB, shouldn't it be set to Linear?
The way I understand that drop down is that is the color profile that would be embedded in your output file when it's written. So if we were to render a TIFF file, that color profile would be written into the TIFF. But EXRs do not support embedded color profiles. So for EXRs this drop down would have no effect.
Hey Zak, thanks for this very interesting. Am I right in saying that you're not actually working in ACESCG colourspace with these renders? You're still using the sRGB primaries out of C4D that has essentially been graded through a LUT to look like ACES?
This is a fantastic question, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how this is working. I originally thought this exactly, that Cinema was rendering using sRGB primaries. But I would think if that were the case, then when putting this together in After Effects, we'd need to use the OCIO plugin to transform our C4D render from "linear sRGB into ACEScg" then another transform from "ACEScg to Output sRGB." BUT! This is not correct. I test this in the video around the 33:15 mark. I had to change the "Utility - Linear sRGB" to "Utility - RAW" to "ACEScg," but mathematically that's not doing anything, so we don't need that conversion at all. So it would seem that there's no inherent sRGB color being baked in to our renders out of C4D. But this is really complicated stuff for me and I don't have a grasp of the math that's happening behind the scenes, so I could be missing something.
Hi Zak, amazing knowledge and opened a lot of doors for me to colour grade my renders. I have an issue with the 3.058 update. I think there is a difference between 3.056 vs 3.058 Do we need to do anything different for aces workflow with this update?
Weird, there shouldn't be any different workflow between those 2 versions.
@@igobyzak Hi Zack. This is was my bad. I probably forgot closing redshift posteffects. so I watched your tutorials again. maybe this could be related to openEXR 16 floating check too. My problem solved.
This is a nice and useful tutorial, but the video mentions nothing about another option: "highlight compression"
In the video it is said that if you wanna avoid burns you have to adjust the light intensity or resort to using the ACES workflow, but highlight compression is a thing since many years ago.
Old tutorials don't advice to dial down the lights value, on the contrary, most say to use real values for sun like lights and use tone mapping to adjust.
No matter how strong the light is, you just dial that option and you can achieve a nice balance between washed-out or burned highlights just like in the video examples. And you can also use post effects for "highlight compression" or "filmic" in Fusion, and probably After Effects too. Achieving the same or similar results.
Yeah, I don't really go into other options outside of ACES. I think Blender people have had the Filmic tonemapping option built in for a while at the time of recording, but I think the idea of tonemapping was still pretty new to C4D redshift users. I'm not sure what the options were, if any, before Redshift introduced OCIO.
Every tutorial I struggle with how much information to go into. My tutorials usually end up being pretty long so I try to keep them as succinct as I can, but then I guess I run the risk of not explaining things fully or leaving out some information that could be useful. It's a balancing act I need to figure out. Appreciate you taking the time to watch!
@@igobyzak I am interested in learning more about ACES and I was glad to see this video tutorial because it seemed simpler to understand and see potential benefits in using ACES. But at the same time I was expecting more, since everyone is touting ACES as a "must have" tool in our arsenal.
But I still have so many questions and "asking google" gives me no answers. For example, I understand about a larger gamut and "future proofing" your renders with ACES. But I don't understand how rendering in floating point leads to less color gamut than ACES. At least in music the difference between CD quality 16 bit and 32 bit is enormous. 32 bit is almost an infinite quality - to put it in simpler terms.
And sometimes I hear how ACES creates better colors. How can that be ? A color is a color. Represented with a number. That number should be the same. Is ACES color correcting my renders ? Behind my back ? Making my works look better even if I don't want to ? People seem to give ACES mystical abilities.
Maybe more ACES tutorials are needed :)
@realtimeFilms Yeah, color science is a dense and complicated topic. You bring up great points and I hope you've watched some of my other tutorials on ACES as this was the first one recorded quite some time ago, and a lot has changed since then. Here's my still very basic understanding of the way this is all working. (I'm still learning this stuff so this may be oversimplified)
Redshift is an RGB render engine, not a Spectral render engine like Octane. The difference being (the way I understand it) is that where Octane computes actual wavelengths of light in its calculations, Redshift uses a particular Red, Green, and Blue to produce the final image. In Cinema4d if we are not using ACES or any color management but we are selecting "Linearize workflow" and we are rendering 32bit floating point images our colors are rendered using sRGB primary values in linear gamma. The luminance values of our rendered scene are preserved in a 32bit EXR (tons of dynamic range like your audio comparison), but we're not creating more colors than available in sRGB color space.
If we're not using all wavelengths of light to render our scene like Octane does, we have to define the colors we're using. We have to define what exactly Red, Blue, and Green are. So with ACES, instead of using sRGB primaries we are using ACEScg or ACES AP1 primaries which encompasses a wider color gamut so more colors. The benefit, the way I understand it, is that this gets us closer to Spectral render engines, a more realistic interaction of color in our renders.
Choosing different primaries produces different looking renders. In my latest OCIO After Effects Beta tutorial, at the end, I show the effects of choosing colors in sRGB and ACEScg and how different they render.
I hope that makes sense.
Definitely check out Chris Brejon's website for some more technical information about all this stuff.
chrisbrejon.com/cg-cinematography/chapter-1-5-academy-color-encoding-system-aces/
@@igobyzak Thank you for taking the time to reply. Even though I saw that explanation before, I think I finally got it from your above explanation - how can you fit a limited gamut of colors inside a huge dynamic range. I think the benefit of floating point files has more to do with the luminance or something, and not with the colors.
The problem with ACES, for me at least, is since I have to model, render, write, composite real life footage with cg, and also write the symphonic music, gives me a very limited time. And I can't just apply instructions I see in tutorials. I have to do lots of tests myself and compare and see the benefits. And sometimes I feel like with my limited time, maybe the benefits are not so big. Redshift has that nice function of desaturate colors in post effects - the brighter and hotter a color gets, it gets desaturated. Like in those nice ACES examples I keep seeing on internet. Plus there are also all kinds of post process workflows in Nuke and Fusion, specially for cg renders, to tame those colors. You don't have to accept those saturated highlights.
I feel like I can get similar results without using ACES.
But still, I would like to try to implement it in my pipeline. And perhaps I could, but converting all the textures would be a step too much. The textures are anyway highly modified and color corrected in subjective ways because I almost never saw a texture which is right from the start. They are always too saturated, too something.
Maybe there's benefit of using ACEScg even without textures conversion.
Hello, Redshift has release a 3.0.46 version with full ACES support,but I cant find a way to turn off the color management in 3.0.46. I wonder if you could make a new video about workflow in version 3.0.46. Im sure a lot of people are search for this.
Oooohhh! I have just the thing for you! A new Redshift 3.0.46 tutorial is uploading now! Should be available very soon.
Thx for doing this, it’s overall such a kind f*ck lol…quick question: instead of turning color management off completely, couldn’t you just render out to Raw to get all the dynamic range without the tone mapping or gamma correct? Then reapply the ACES tone mapping in AE…?
I'm sorry, I'm not following. I don't turn color management off. I am rendering out RAW and applying the ACES transforms in After Effects. It seems like you're describing what I'm doing?
@@igobyzak sorry I didn't explain that well!
I was trying to say that if you set your working space to ACEScg (linearize), then you wouldn't need the color conversion node? From what I've seen, if you set the WS to ACEScg and click the Preserve RGB in the footage, you can just apply the opencolor node and set it as needed and you'd get the desired results? you wouldn't even have to set the output in the Render Queue to preserve RGB bc that setting defaults to the working space (ACEScg)?
This seems a little more straightforward, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, thanks!
Hi, I want to know how to render the PostFX pass and the other beauty pass without post at the same EXR file? Or should I hit render twice each frame? Thank you!
Only 1 render, but with multipass turned on. Selecting Beauty pass also gives you an RGB pass. That's it!
@@igobyzak Thanks for replying! You help me really a lot in Redshift!!
suuuuuper!!
Zak I've been using your method here with great success but ran into a weird issue... A studio I work with requires Quicktime 4444 renders and for some reason there is a gamma shift when I export... the shift doesn't occur if I render out a lossless avi (or QT animation), and all is well if I export jpg, png, etc....
In the 4444 settings I've tried switching the depth, and playing with the output profile but can't seem to get it to hit the mark... any ideas?
Are you viewing your 4444 QuickTime on a Mac? If so check out this blog post about the ongoing Mac QuickTime Gamma Shift:
dominey.blog/2021/01/24/why-are-videos-washed-out-on-the-mac-exploring-quicktime-gamma-shift/
@@igobyzak Thanks Zak, I'm actually on Windows but that article did lead me into the solution...
So... no matter where I preview the 4444, there is a slight shift. However I ran the 4444 through media encoder and made an mp4 and that displays correctly (so as per the article, I think it's something to do with the QT player).
Thanks for all that you do :)
Nice! Glad you found a solution!
hey zack when you turn off enable color management in the color managment tab of redshift post effects does your render turn back to srgb like mine?
The Redshift Render View definitely changes, but I'd have to do some checking to see if it does go back to a standard sRGB view or a "Linear" gamma view. I'm not sure.
This is great. My only "catch" I'm running into now is remembering to turn off the color management redshift post effects every time I go to render. The setting in my render settings seems to be linked to the display setting in the render view. Any ideas how to unlink the two?
Unfortunately I don't know of a way to unlink them. Could be a feature request to the Redshift team.
17:50 - I'm a little confused. If I render out EXRs without any colour management, the colours are stored are linear, BUT AE will see them as sRGB? I never rendered the EXRs with any colour management, so why would I choose ACEScg? I didn't select that as an output colour space when I rendered. That's where I'm confused... Does ACEScg just assume I'm using linear files and convert to ACEScg from there as the input?
Yeah, this took me a while to wrap my head around.
EXRs do not use color profiles, they're just color data with linear gamma. In Cinema 4D we did all of our lighting and coloring using the ACEScg to sRGB transfer function in our Redshift Renderview. And we converted our texture's color data into ACEScg. When we render out our EXR without that transfer function baked in (with RS color management turned off), we end up with an EXR with some color data and linear gamma. In order to get back to what we saw in the RS Renderview we need to do that same transfer function. So we take our linear gamma EXR and tell after effects it's ACEScg (because that's the color data we fed in when doing look dev in the corrected renderview and by converting our texture colors to ACEScg) and then convert that ACEScg into sRGB using the OCIO plugin.
If we wanted to, for some reason, we could tell After Effects our EXRs from Cinema are really AdobeRGB (or whatever) color space instead of ACES. It's just that our renders wouldn't look anywhere close to what we were seeing in Redshift. We just tell After Effects those EXRs are ACEScg because that's the color space we used when rendering them.
@@igobyzak Thank you so much for this detailed response! Clarified a lot for me!
Hello there, thank You for tutorial... question - if You will stay in 100% CGI image, what is the reason to use AcesCG instead of Float renders and manage tonemapping later as you want? In tutorial You are comparing srgb picture to aces tonemaped render, not 32bit exr...
everything for AcesCG > Rec709 lut to works?
If you wanted to manually tonemap your 32bit EXR you definitely could. But I like the tonemapping ACES does so I'm spending less time in post.
Do you have any plans to post a course on paetron?
Maybe someday I'll do some in depth tutorials for Patreon, but right now I'm happy to just share stuff here on UA-cam for free.
I picked a bad day to give up crack cocaine.
Why don't you just follow the manual that comes with the OCIO plugin? It's the simplest workflow ever, and the very first thing they tell you to do is turn off AEs color management - not set the color space to sRGB but actually turn it off. This way the ONLY thing you have to do is have a Guide adjustment layer with the aces to rgb conversion in your comp - that's it :) Well you also have to check the preserve RGB in the import settings ;)
The thing you missed is disabling the Color management in AE - you didn't do it - that's why you HAD to do it in 4 places and it still didn't work ;) To disable CM in AE you have to set the Project Working Space to None not sRGB (and disable the linearize workspace - it's an old hack from the time when Adobe had no idea what linear workflow meant). If you do that, all the other places where you have color profiles in AE become grayed out. If you do this, there is no way of messing the ACES workflow anymore. If you're rendering back to ACES - just render, no need to do anything else. If you're rendering to sRGB, change the Guide Adjustment Layer to normal Adjustment Layer and render the comp. That's it.
The workflow you describe here is totally valid. It will work great if you're just bringing your EXRs into After Effects and that's it. I, personally, want to keep color management on. I am usually working with many different types of files that need to be comped together.
For instance, in the workflow you described with After Effects color management off, if I brought in a Tiff file embedded with a ProPhoto RGB color space, it will look incorrect in the comp. After Effects won't know how to interpret it, and even selecting "Preserve RGB" like we would do for EXRs won't work in this case. I would have to add a "Color Converter" effect to change the color space from ProPhotoRGB to sRGB to get accurate colors in the comp. With color management on, this profile conversion is handled automatically by After Effects.
I know there are a dozen or so different ways one could go about comping ACES EXRs in After Effects. The method I describe in the tutorial is just what works best for me and my workflow.
I wonder, why going all the length of explaining the workflow in such detail, but then using it not as intended, just because it's easier? You should be fine pre-converting HDRIs and textures manually to ACEScg EXRs (for example with Affinity Photo) and use them this way in C4D without any unwanted color shifts. Are you using a 32-bit project in AE? I can't see it in your setup.
I go over both a color managed workflow and the non-color managed workflow in After Effects. One is not "more correct" than the other; both can deliver accurate results. Personally, I prefer the color managed workflow because it's easier for me to keep track of, but either way works.
I go over converting textures/HDRIs into ACEScg in part 2.
Yes, my AE comp is 32bit.
Thanks for watching!
@@igobyzak I am looking forward to watch it soon. Thanks for all the work you putting into the videos.
To be honest.. Adobe is failing! make it EASY ffs
By any chance do you have the OpenColor IO plugin zip file? The fnordware blogspot link doesn't work anymore so I have no way of getting After Effects to use it. I foolishly thought my redshift vfx shot was done, only to import it into AE and realize that the colors are way darker than my original footage. I'm starting to understand the workflow thanks to videos like yours but everyone always links to the same download link but it doesn't work.