Love the fact that Raphael, which is a true rendering connoisseur, keeps using Octane instead than Redshift, that says a lot to me about the quality of this rendering engine.
Yes!! I knew I had hooked everything up correctly!! Somehow I couldn't find any ACES (C4D Octane - AE) workflow tutorial and had to figure it out on my own. Thanks a lot, Raphael!
Hey Raphael, ich glaube das ist das erste Kommentar, dass ich jemals bei UA-cam schreibe, aber ich kann mich nur TAUSEND mal bedanken, dass du dieses Video erstellt hast. Du hast keine Vorstellung wie aufgeschmissen und wie viele Videos ich bereits geschaut habe, die den Workflow angeblich beschreiben, aber nichts hat funktioniert. Dein Tutorial hat mir bereits mehrfach geholfen und ich bin dir wahnsinnig dankbar dafür, dass du dir die Zeit nimmst dein Wissen zu teilen. Wirklich von ganzem Herzen DANKE! :)
Hey, was für eine Ehre Dein erstes Kommentar zu bekommen! Freut mich wahnsinnig, dass mein Content Dir weiter geholfen hat. Ich teile mein Wissen sehr gerne und hoffe, dass noch viele Tuts und Quick Tips folgen werden! Grüße und gutes Gelingen bei Deinen Arbeiten!
@@SilverwingVFX Not only is it useful, it is (in my opinion) ESSENTIAL. It astounds me that in 2021/2022 After Effects requires such effort to get the ACES workflow looking and interpreting correctly. Your video is perfect, I just wish it wasn't so necessary, and it wouldn't be quite so needed if Adobe would make some much needed changes to After Effects. But for now, I am so thankful you have created this perfect explainer video. Thank you sir!
It’s amazing how you are able to explain things in such a short time and being on point 100%!!! I just started looking into Aces this morning and your video and a little additional comment here in the comment section explained way more than the Last 10 Videos I watched! Thank you so much!!!
Can´t believe After effects doesnt support ocio by default. Nuke in my opinion is just way better for compositing cg renders. And great video. Thanks for the tips in octane.
This is just too much work, so it seems, but once you lock it in place and set up vustom startups in octane - c4d a- Ae, I don't know If I can ever go back to rendering 16bit png. I feel like I've leveled up in the proffession and I have to admit after messing around in 3d world for almost a decade now, it is hard to realize after all these year now I feel like I have complete control over the color grading quality.
Hi Raphael, thank you for all of your hard work. I hope you can answer couple of questions regarding ACES now that Octane XB version has "ACES Tonemapping" integrated into the rendering options/camera imager. I am curious as to how this has been adopted, how it changes this workflow (is it literally as simple as clicking the button and you are now working in an ACES colourspace?). It's all a bit confusing with little documentation, and I wonder what impact ACES Tonemapping has across the pipeline, and if you then output as sRGB are you only rendering in ACES. Thanks!
Hey and thanks for the plethora of questions ha ha! Clicking the "ACES Tonemapping" button in the "Camera Imager" menue does a ACES to sRGB tonemapping. That means you can save your output now with ACES Tonemapping baked in. Answer: The "ACES Tonemapping" is a one klick solution if you are working with a ACES to sRGB tonemapping pipeline. Answer: If you check "ACES Tonemapping" and output as sRGB you get a baked in ACES to sRGB tonemapped version. If you want to take ACES further to comp, you can still do so by Choosing "ACES 2065-1" or "ACEScg" as "Color Space" in the Octane C4D render settings. I am working with rec.709 most of the time. So I still need to link ACES in the octane settings (Since the checkbox only does the sRGB Tonemapping, not the rec.709 one) Hope that clears things up a bit!
Hi there. Unfortunately, as I do all my image processing using After Effects of Fusion, I am not aware of a workflow in Photoshop. I am certain that there are solutions for Photoshop as well!
I didnt have any double gamma issue in AE - seemed fine - Exact colour the same from Aces Octane viewport to AE via the Opencol plug. Oct 2021.1.1 and AE 2022
Thanks for your comment! Depended on your settings in AE there is more then one way to achieve the right result. I am using the way that also needs "View" "Display Color Management" to be turned on. (This is turned on by default) Other methods look right but might need more settings to setup the export process to get the right output. If your approach is working that´s great! Cheers and a good time to you!
Thank you for this. Can you please confirm that if you set the output colour depth in the Octane Render pass to 16-bit/channel, should you still set the AE project settings depth to 32-bit (7mins 40secs in your video) or will 16-bit depth be ok?
That is correct. We are talking about float capabilities. Meaning the ability of the software to carry brighter then white values. After Effects 16bit does not allow for that. AE 16bit will be clamped at 100% white. Since ACES needs a high dynamic range to tonemap the sRGB / rec.709 output, Setting AE to 16bit would not be sufficient. EXR 16bit is floating point format. AE 16bit is non float. Its there to load other non float formats as 16 bit TIFF, PSD, PNG etc. Cheers, Raphael
@@SilverwingVFX fantastic, thanks for the detailed reply. I’d pay you for a short course that explains all this theory around tonemapping, float and non- float formats etc across C4D and AE workflow in your delivery style, just an idea….
I am sorry to tell you, but I know next to nothing about ACES in Photoshop. I abandoned it a very long time ago because of its abysmal 32bit handling 😞 I do all my postwork within AE or Fusion Studio. I use Photoshop for texture creation and file Conversion maily.
Thank you for sharing this! I've been learning quite a bit in Octane C4D recently in part on account of your videos. I did want to mention that I was not able to reproduce the correct color shift in AE when I followed this process. However, when I changed my "Output Space" setting in the OpenColorIO effect from "Output-sRGB" to "Utility-Linear-sRGB" I got the correct level of contrast. It's entirely possible that I've missed something elsewhere, but I checked and double-checked the settings you laid out in this video. Are you using "Display color management" in After Effects? That's the only setting I can find that makes a difference (turning it off seems to get me close to the correct color with the "Output-sRGB" setting in OpenColorIO).
I use the AE defaults which are "Use Display color management" = On "Simulate Output" = No Output Simulation. Not sure where the problem could lie. Hope that helps and you get it working!
@@SilverwingVFX Thank you. I think that's where mine were at as well. So, I may have found the issue on my end. I found that I hadn't changed the setting in the "Main" C4D render settings tab for Octane. Setting the Color Space to "OCIO:/Output-sRGB" seems to have given me consistency between the live viewer and what I'm seeing in AE. I think in yours this was set to ACES-cg. Thanks again for your help!
@@jonathanlutjens6284 Cool that you found a way that works for you. Just a word of advice. If you save OCIO Output sRGB than you are ending your ACES workflow at this point. Everything that comes after that only has sRGB colors. It limits the possibilities of what you can do in Comp (in terms of colors). Not saying that is wrong though. How goes the saying: If it works it works 🙂
@@SilverwingVFX Ah, ok. That makes sense. I've changed my output to ACEScg and it appears that I still get the same image in AE as I have in the Octane live viewer. One tutorial I would love to see you make is about the differences (and functions) of the Octane settings Camera Imager and the Octane Camera tag Camera Imager. I still don't understand how these 2 things operate either separately or in tandem. Thanks for getting back to me on all of this!
@@jonathanlutjens6284 The Camera Imager in the Octane Settings is global. It applies to any camera with its own Camera Imager settings ticked Off. If you tick on the Camera Imager if a Camera Tag it will overide the global setting. This is useful if you e.g. have an archviz scene with multiple views, interior and exterior, where you needed to boost the exposure for interior shots. So instead of adjusting the imager settings or even lighting globally (to compensate for the darker interior) you can just up the imager exposure on the camerastags that are inside the building.
Any other option in the octane LV when it come to OCIO, HDR etc seems to break the nice pastel colours we see with cryptomattes. I only get bright green and yellow colours in Cryptomattes when using anything other the LDR. Have you found the same issue??
Hey there. Yes there was an issue displaying Cryptomattes while at the same time having ACES enabled. This problem should be fixed in newer Octane Builds. e.g. the newest 2022.1. Hopefully this helps. Cheers!
Thanks so much, btw I have been having issue with the Octane 2021.1.1 where the ocio just preview as black, it works well in earlier octane version, any new settings needed to tweak for that?
Hi there and thanks a lot. Much appreciated! In the Octane Settings, where you setup OCIO, make sure the box on the right that activates it is ticked. That tick-box is new and is overlooked by many.
@@kennielim2024 Sorry, its on the left 😇 "Use other config file" also make sure "Automatic (recommended)" is ticked too. If you have linked the right OCIO File, it should work.
thanks a lot raphael! one question, at min 10 circa, you use color profile converter, but you could also get the same results just by disabling "use color display management" in view. is there any difference in the 2 approaches? what would you recomend to do? thanks! Also should i still change my textures gamma in octane(from 2.2 to 1)?
The use Color Display Management workflow is a different more complicated one. To my knowledge you have to be more careful when importing / exporting with this workflow. I adapted the workflow I am showing because I am getting what I see with not too many settings.
Sorry I can´t help you with that. I usually never denoise my final renders. If I do something I use the Neat Video Plugin for After Effects. In theory denoising with ACES should work just as well. What would you say does not work or works different to your usual color workflow?
Thank you so much! This is just what I needed. When generating a Z-depth pass do you tweak the "Z-depth max" value based on the scene or do you generally leave it at the same value? Also, I find even after I tweak the Z-depth pass to look right in my octane live viewer, it comes out totally white and I have to adjust the exposure in AE to -5 to get it to look right. Am I doing something wrong?
Hi there Robert. To be honest I am not using Z-Depth very often. I older Versions of Octane the "Z-depth max" did nothing when you saved 32bit / float formats. Otoy only recently changed that. So if I´d need a Z-Depth I guess I would tweak it a bit based on the scene, as you suggested. Only if you need really accurate measured data (how far away stuff is form the camera in world units) then I would leave it at the default 😊
Having an issue on my end Raphael, wondering if you’ve also noticed this. When rendering ACEScg, all my “white” textures get greyed out. White basically becomes a 0.7 value in AE. To get “white” to actually look white, I have to place a levels adjustment on top of ACES workflow and essentially clamp things down. Am I doing something wrong? Since the brightest parts of my image are 0.7, I’m losing roughly 30% of the data my sRGB image could be showing. Does that make sense?
This is totally normal when converting older scenes to ACES. Part of why ACES looks this good is tonemapping so highlights do not look that harsh. Usually I do the same as you do by adding a levels after the ACES tonemapping as a last step and really dial in the Darks and Highlights. However if you freshly set up a new 3D scene the thing to remember is that ACES has a much wider dynamic range and therefore you can crank the light intensities much more then before. Having grayish white values is just a byproduct of our conservative lighting techniques we are customed to because the old sRGB workflow was so fragile. Hope that makes sense :-)
Hi, Could you please explain the process to export (.mov animation or any .mov codec) from after effects with using aces workflow that you have greatly explained. Because when I am rendering from after effects and output is coming in high contrast and when I import in same comp its not showing same results and I tried many setting in color management in output setting. Regards.
Hi there as I usually export image sequences I unfortunately have no experience with .mov container exports from AE until now. I will try to replicate your problem and then let you know once I found a possible solution. Cheers, Raphael
Ok, I did a test and I could replicate it. The reason is a color space mismatch. Somehow MOVs are always saved and interpreted in Rec.709 Gamma 2.4 But the AE project is set to sRGB. Solution is simple: When outputting your MOV in the AE Render Queue klick on "Output Module" Settings. A Windows pops up (where you would set it to output MOV). In that same window go to "Color Management" and change the output type in the "Output Profile" from "Working Space..." to "Rec.709 Gamma 2.4" Now the MOV should match what you see in the comp!
Raphael, do you know if it is a bug in 2021.1.6 when using this exact workflow that the Layershadows pass gets tonemapped as well and become unusable? The white areas where no shadows appear have a slight gray value instead of a 100% white value so you can't multiply them over the backplate. Switching back to srgb works just as expected...
It sounds like as if you would multiply the final aces results. You need to do all your mathematical operations before the aces tonemapping is applied. If you want to get a white floor with shadow you would have to apply ACES to your main render and multiply your shadow pass after the fact. Aces tonemaps the image with a lot of headroom. So white in sRGB is not White in ACES. I usually correct the ACES output after the conversion back to sRGB so at least one small spot in my image is pure white. Usually I take the levels effect for that.
Hmmm. That Open Color IO Color management was implemented in Octane 2020 / 2021. If you are using an older version, you probably don´t have the setting. Otherwise I am not sure why it would not be there to be honest.
Could you make a tutorial on the best way to render SSS materials and volumes for animation and ACEs? Or just Octane animation settings in general with ACEs? I've been looking all over the internet and I can't find proper tutorials on this. I come from Redshift and I'm super lost :( There is so much content for still image renders but I'm a motion designer and still images aren't my thing.
The simple answer in Octane is that there is no specialized settings for animation. If you can render Stills with it, it will also work for animation. I personally use the Aces to EXR workflow in After Effects (Video Above) also for animations. Of course you can bake in the Aces Look in a non 32bit image sequence if you´d like. To bake your Aces look into a 8bit image sequence. Set the "Buffer Type" to "LDR (8-bit)" then "Color Space" "OCIO" and then Select "Output sRGB" there. You can save through C4D (which is more intuitive) or through Octane (as seen in the above video) If you save through Octane, you should choose something else then EXR e.g. TIFF or PNG though I recommend TIFF. For professional productions I recommend not baking ACES to sRGB and going with the workflow shown above. No matter images or animations (image sequences).
@@SilverwingVFX Thank you for replying! After some more research that is what I concluded as well for the Octane animation settings. Its about finding the right balance of tolerated noise and render speed per frame. Love your content and your work, it's been very helpful in understanding Octane and seeing stunning work to aspire to!
No, it´s not a foolish question, since I did not explain the need for it. sRGB was the minimum standard (smallest denominator) for decades now. Its OK for viewing, but in some situations w.g. where highly saturated lights are mixing, because of the small color space, can cause wrong results. ACES delivers a much bigger color space to work in and therefore is not (that) limited in terms of color processing. Hence more life like colors out of your renderer. Also it applies a very natural (filmic) looking tonemapping that looks much more what your eyes see / what analog film would look like. Highlights are not as harsh, very bright colors are desaturated etc. If you search, you probably will find some articles about it. e.g. prolost.com/blog/aces Look for the billiard ball example.
Hey, i love this tutorial, but could you please explain which settings i have to change if i want to work with rec709 instead of srgb? There are a lot of steps where i don’t know what to do..it would really help me a lot! For example which buffer type do i have to select in c4d? I wasn’t able to find any information about this..
There is not much to do: There are just two spots where you need to change someting: 1: In C4D Octane. In the Camera Imager OCIO set the OCIO View to Rec.709 instead of sRGB. This is just so you see the Rec.709 result in the Live Viewer and can light and shade according to it. 2: In After effects in the Open Color IO Plugin in your ACES layer. Leave input as ACEScg but set the output to Rec.709 That´s it! Leave the buffer type at HDR (Float 16-bit or 32-bit) and the Color Space to ACEScg.
@@felixbaker3160 Great to be of help. If you have any more questions I´ll be there. P.s. if you want to have some more info's about Aces I recommend you the Maxon Training Team UA-cam channel especially the "Max On Color" Bootcamp episodes.
Hey there Adrian and thanks for your comment! There have not been any changes in workflow since the tut was made. So everything still applies. I have herd that Adobe is working on native AE ACES support. But its not there yet.
Hi, what should i do if i want to use response, gamma, highlight compression settings e.t.c instead ocio? How to save LDR or HDR what i see in LV exactly?
Setting gamma, highlight compression etc. and OCIO does not work well together. You can either choose to do the one or the other. If you want to save what you see in the live viewer choose LDR 8bit and sRGB in your output settings and save to e.g. TIFF 8bit or 16bit.
The shown workflow also works with the 2020.2.x The 2021.1 is not final. Its the release candidate 2. You can downloads this version in the Otoy Forum render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=78409
The After effects download is not working on his blog.. Ive tried lots of problem solving to get it to work but nothing. Has anyone else had this problem?
I just tried it. My browswer also tells me that it "can´t be downloaded securely" A workaround that worked for me was to right klick on the link and "Copy link address" then paste it in a new browser tab.
Make sure that multipass EXR is unchecked in the Octane export settings. If you have it checked, you need Extractor in AE to unpack your EXR to see your passes. If not, make sure everything is setup as I show it in the video. e.g. having the ACES linked etc. It should not be blank.
If I want to use Lumetri to add a LUT to the mix or do some color grading, is the "correct" place to put it the same place you put the exposure at the end of your video? (before it reaches OpenColorIO)
As I never use LUTs I am not sure if there are luts for ACES that come before the conversion to sRGB. If you use "normal" luts they should come after the ACES to sRGB conversion, as you said!
@@SilverwingVFX Thanks again. Makes sense. If you are going for a dramatically different color look (like what someone might reach for a LUT for) what do you personally do?
I usually just use curves to tweak colors contrast and colors. It´s the workflow that worked for me. I guess you can also add lumetri color using linear to log conversion this way. Just watch this section of the Redshift ACES video: ua-cam.com/video/HGC8k2gbS1s/v-deo.html
@@SilverwingVFX Just when you couldn't be more helpful, you read my mind! I wondered what Lumetri "expects" and now knowing it expects log and how to adjust the workflow to fit that in, I now have my workflow 100% sorted. Thank you so much.
Changing the Camera Response to Linear will not change anything. A: Your Live Viewer response it set to OCIO. (Changes in the Camera Response are only visible when using "SDR/sRGB" and "HDR/sRGB" in the live viewer). B: Saving images in ACEScg will ignore most of the Imager settings (such as Response, Highlight Compression, Gamma, Saturation etc.) as it gives out the "raw" render. You can tweak those thing in Post / Comp after the fact.
Try the "Extractor" effect in After Effects on those EXR passes and see if you get your info back. Its a thing in newer Octane versions. I thought this was just effecting the custom AOVs but might be that Depth is also effected.
Hey there. No worries about that. Its not that straight forward. Klick the link in the video description. That will get you to Github. There click on the green "Code" button and then "Doanlowd ZIP" Its a bit bigger so it can take a while. If downloaded. Unzip it and link the right .ocio version. Done!
NEW Native ACES in AE video: ua-cam.com/video/6MdhaWtpI5o/v-deo.html
Love the fact that Raphael, which is a true rendering connoisseur, keeps using Octane instead than Redshift, that says a lot to me about the quality of this rendering engine.
Finally an updated aces workflow, thansk heaps!
Yes!! I knew I had hooked everything up correctly!!
Somehow I couldn't find any ACES (C4D Octane - AE) workflow tutorial and had to figure it out on my own. Thanks a lot, Raphael!
its all in my patreon too but big thanks to Rapha for breaking down this workflow here :)
Always a pleasure to hear the sultry voice of Raphael. Love the depth you too for this stuff!
Hey Raphael, ich glaube das ist das erste Kommentar, dass ich jemals bei UA-cam schreibe, aber ich kann mich nur TAUSEND mal bedanken, dass du dieses Video erstellt hast. Du hast keine Vorstellung wie aufgeschmissen und wie viele Videos ich bereits geschaut habe, die den Workflow angeblich beschreiben, aber nichts hat funktioniert. Dein Tutorial hat mir bereits mehrfach geholfen und ich bin dir wahnsinnig dankbar dafür, dass du dir die Zeit nimmst dein Wissen zu teilen. Wirklich von ganzem Herzen DANKE! :)
Hey, was für eine Ehre Dein erstes Kommentar zu bekommen! Freut mich wahnsinnig, dass mein Content Dir weiter geholfen hat. Ich teile mein Wissen sehr gerne und hoffe, dass noch viele Tuts und Quick Tips folgen werden!
Grüße und gutes Gelingen bei Deinen Arbeiten!
You are THE only video I have found to explain it all fully. From me and my renders, thank you sir!
Great to hear you found it useful. Highly appreciated!
@@SilverwingVFX Not only is it useful, it is (in my opinion) ESSENTIAL. It astounds me that in 2021/2022 After Effects requires such effort to get the ACES workflow looking and interpreting correctly. Your video is perfect, I just wish it wasn't so necessary, and it wouldn't be quite so needed if Adobe would make some much needed changes to After Effects. But for now, I am so thankful you have created this perfect explainer video. Thank you sir!
This video is amazing. By far the best explanation of C4D Octane and AE workflow. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your comment. Great to hear you find it helpful!
Dude, thanks so much for this explanation! I keep coming to this vid from time to time and it just feels good to have the answers here
Hey, thanks very much. I appreciate it.
Great that it was useful to you!
Cheers and an awesome start into the Week to you!
It’s amazing how you are able to explain things in such a short time and being on point 100%!!! I just started looking into Aces this morning and your video and a little additional comment here in the comment section explained way more than the Last 10 Videos I watched! Thank you so much!!!
Great to hear that!
I guess other people also explain what ACES is about, which I don´t do. I just present how I use it 🙂
Thank you that was tremendously useful, super clean explanation.
Finally a real in depth explanation of the work flow.. Any chance anyone knows how to work with Apple Motion ACES?
Thank you very much!
Sorry, I personally can´t help you. Windows guy here 😅 Hopefully you get your answer from someone else!
This is a great tutorial. Thanks for getting us going in ACES!!!
Looking forward to the next Ae Beta, when ACES is built in.
Thanks so much for the clear explanation!!
I admit. Your 3133 days left octane license made me spit some water :D
You seem to be the first one to notice 😁 🙌
Unreal, its work
Thank you, Silverwing.
Thanks for this man. Very helpful.
Great work as usually Raphael!
Thank you Raphael!
Awesome as usuall. Thansk Raphael
very helpful, thanks!
You very welcome!
Keys working nice :)
Thanks again!!! wow
You are very welcome!
yessir this is good
Can´t believe After effects doesnt support ocio by default. Nuke in my opinion is just way better for compositing cg renders. And great video. Thanks for the tips in octane.
Love you man
This is just too much work, so it seems, but once you lock it in place and set up vustom startups in octane - c4d a- Ae, I don't know If I can ever go back to rendering 16bit png. I feel like I've leveled up in the proffession and I have to admit after messing around in 3d world for almost a decade now, it is hard to realize after all these year now I feel like I have complete control over the color grading quality.
Hi Raphael, thank you for all of your hard work. I hope you can answer couple of questions regarding ACES now that Octane XB version has "ACES Tonemapping" integrated into the rendering options/camera imager. I am curious as to how this has been adopted, how it changes this workflow (is it literally as simple as clicking the button and you are now working in an ACES colourspace?). It's all a bit confusing with little documentation, and I wonder what impact ACES Tonemapping has across the pipeline, and if you then output as sRGB are you only rendering in ACES. Thanks!
Hey and thanks for the plethora of questions ha ha!
Clicking the "ACES Tonemapping" button in the "Camera Imager" menue does a ACES to sRGB tonemapping.
That means you can save your output now with ACES Tonemapping baked in.
Answer: The "ACES Tonemapping" is a one klick solution if you are working with a ACES to sRGB tonemapping pipeline.
Answer: If you check "ACES Tonemapping" and output as sRGB you get a baked in ACES to sRGB tonemapped version.
If you want to take ACES further to comp, you can still do so by Choosing "ACES 2065-1" or "ACEScg" as "Color Space" in the Octane C4D render settings.
I am working with rec.709 most of the time. So I still need to link ACES in the octane settings (Since the checkbox only does the sRGB Tonemapping, not the rec.709 one)
Hope that clears things up a bit!
Nice, thanks a lot. Is there also a usuable workflow with Photoshop? I usually don't edit single images in Afer-Effects.
Hi there. Unfortunately, as I do all my image processing using After Effects of Fusion, I am not aware of a workflow in Photoshop. I am certain that there are solutions for Photoshop as well!
The same plugin exists for PS
it's easier to work non-destructiv in Ae. just do a new render in C4D ant it will update in Ae
I didnt have any double gamma issue in AE - seemed fine - Exact colour the same from Aces Octane viewport to AE via the Opencol plug. Oct 2021.1.1 and AE 2022
Thanks for your comment!
Depended on your settings in AE there is more then one way to achieve the right result. I am using the way that also needs "View" "Display Color Management" to be turned on. (This is turned on by default)
Other methods look right but might need more settings to setup the export process to get the right output.
If your approach is working that´s great!
Cheers and a good time to you!
@@SilverwingVFX my colour management is switched off, all others settings are the same as yours, looks fine. :) thanks for this.
Thanks
Thank you for this. Can you please confirm that if you set the output colour depth in the Octane Render pass to 16-bit/channel, should you still set the AE project settings depth to 32-bit (7mins 40secs in your video) or will 16-bit depth be ok?
That is correct.
We are talking about float capabilities. Meaning the ability of the software to carry brighter then white values. After Effects 16bit does not allow for that. AE 16bit will be clamped at 100% white. Since ACES needs a high dynamic range to tonemap the sRGB / rec.709 output, Setting AE to 16bit would not be sufficient.
EXR 16bit is floating point format.
AE 16bit is non float. Its there to load other non float formats as 16 bit TIFF, PSD, PNG etc.
Cheers, Raphael
@@SilverwingVFX fantastic, thanks for the detailed reply. I’d pay you for a short course that explains all this theory around tonemapping, float and non- float formats etc across C4D and AE workflow in your delivery style, just an idea….
Hey Raphael, how is the worklflow with Photoshop? Is there a similar way? Or do you save out a image from within After Effects?
I am sorry to tell you, but I know next to nothing about ACES in Photoshop. I abandoned it a very long time ago because of its abysmal 32bit handling 😞
I do all my postwork within AE or Fusion Studio. I use Photoshop for texture creation and file Conversion maily.
Thank you for sharing this! I've been learning quite a bit in Octane C4D recently in part on account of your videos. I did want to mention that I was not able to reproduce the correct color shift in AE when I followed this process. However, when I changed my "Output Space" setting in the OpenColorIO effect from "Output-sRGB" to "Utility-Linear-sRGB" I got the correct level of contrast. It's entirely possible that I've missed something elsewhere, but I checked and double-checked the settings you laid out in this video. Are you using "Display color management" in After Effects? That's the only setting I can find that makes a difference (turning it off seems to get me close to the correct color with the "Output-sRGB" setting in OpenColorIO).
I use the AE defaults which are
"Use Display color management" = On
"Simulate Output" = No Output Simulation.
Not sure where the problem could lie.
Hope that helps and you get it working!
@@SilverwingVFX Thank you. I think that's where mine were at as well. So, I may have found the issue on my end. I found that I hadn't changed the setting in the "Main" C4D render settings tab for Octane. Setting the Color Space to "OCIO:/Output-sRGB" seems to have given me consistency between the live viewer and what I'm seeing in AE. I think in yours this was set to ACES-cg. Thanks again for your help!
@@jonathanlutjens6284 Cool that you found a way that works for you.
Just a word of advice. If you save OCIO Output sRGB than you are ending your ACES workflow at this point. Everything that comes after that only has sRGB colors.
It limits the possibilities of what you can do in Comp (in terms of colors). Not saying that is wrong though. How goes the saying: If it works it works 🙂
@@SilverwingVFX Ah, ok. That makes sense. I've changed my output to ACEScg and it appears that I still get the same image in AE as I have in the Octane live viewer.
One tutorial I would love to see you make is about the differences (and functions) of the Octane settings Camera Imager and the Octane Camera tag Camera Imager. I still don't understand how these 2 things operate either separately or in tandem. Thanks for getting back to me on all of this!
@@jonathanlutjens6284
The Camera Imager in the Octane Settings is global. It applies to any camera with its own Camera Imager settings ticked Off.
If you tick on the Camera Imager if a Camera Tag it will overide the global setting.
This is useful if you e.g. have an archviz scene with multiple views, interior and exterior, where you needed to boost the exposure for interior shots. So instead of adjusting the imager settings or even lighting globally (to compensate for the darker interior) you can just up the imager exposure on the camerastags that are inside the building.
Any other option in the octane LV when it come to OCIO, HDR etc seems to break the nice pastel colours we see with cryptomattes. I only get bright green and yellow colours in Cryptomattes when using anything other the LDR. Have you found the same issue??
Hey there. Yes there was an issue displaying Cryptomattes while at the same time having ACES enabled.
This problem should be fixed in newer Octane Builds. e.g. the newest 2022.1. Hopefully this helps.
Cheers!
Thanks so much, btw I have been having issue with the Octane 2021.1.1 where the ocio just preview as black, it works well in earlier octane version, any new settings needed to tweak for that?
Hi there and thanks a lot. Much appreciated!
In the Octane Settings, where you setup OCIO, make sure the box on the right that activates it is ticked. That tick-box is new and is overlooked by many.
@@SilverwingVFX Hi, im also facing the same issues and I don't see a "new box on the right"? Octane Settings > Camera Imager > OCIO?
@@kennielim2024 Sorry, its on the left 😇 "Use other config file" also make sure "Automatic (recommended)" is ticked too.
If you have linked the right OCIO File, it should work.
@@SilverwingVFX yay it works thanks very much!
@@SilverwingVFX thanks for your guidance, i think the reason that mine don't work is because i never re-link the config file. Thanks alot again!
thanks a lot raphael! one question, at min 10 circa, you use color profile converter, but you could also get the same results just by disabling "use color display management" in view. is there any difference in the 2 approaches? what would you recomend to do? thanks!
Also should i still change my textures gamma in octane(from 2.2 to 1)?
The use Color Display Management workflow is a different more complicated one.
To my knowledge you have to be more careful when importing / exporting with this workflow. I adapted the workflow I am showing because I am getting what I see with not too many settings.
How do you use denoised beauty with this? Aces/Octane fucks the image badly when you use a denoised beauty pass.
Sorry I can´t help you with that. I usually never denoise my final renders. If I do something I use the Neat Video Plugin for After Effects.
In theory denoising with ACES should work just as well. What would you say does not work or works different to your usual color workflow?
Thank you so much! This is just what I needed. When generating a Z-depth pass do you tweak the "Z-depth max" value based on the scene or do you generally leave it at the same value? Also, I find even after I tweak the Z-depth pass to look right in my octane live viewer, it comes out totally white and I have to adjust the exposure in AE to -5 to get it to look right. Am I doing something wrong?
Hi there Robert. To be honest I am not using Z-Depth very often. I older Versions of Octane the "Z-depth max" did nothing when you saved 32bit / float formats. Otoy only recently changed that. So if I´d need a Z-Depth I guess I would tweak it a bit based on the scene, as you suggested.
Only if you need really accurate measured data (how far away stuff is form the camera in world units) then I would leave it at the default 😊
@@SilverwingVFX Thank you!
Having an issue on my end Raphael, wondering if you’ve also noticed this. When rendering ACEScg, all my “white” textures get greyed out. White basically becomes a 0.7 value in AE. To get “white” to actually look white, I have to place a levels adjustment on top of ACES workflow and essentially clamp things down. Am I doing something wrong? Since the brightest parts of my image are 0.7, I’m losing roughly 30% of the data my sRGB image could be showing. Does that make sense?
This is totally normal when converting older scenes to ACES.
Part of why ACES looks this good is tonemapping so highlights do not look that harsh.
Usually I do the same as you do by adding a levels after the ACES tonemapping as a last step and really dial in the Darks and Highlights.
However if you freshly set up a new 3D scene the thing to remember is that ACES has a much wider dynamic range and therefore you can crank the light intensities much more then before. Having grayish white values is just a byproduct of our conservative lighting techniques we are customed to because the old sRGB workflow was so fragile.
Hope that makes sense :-)
Hi, Could you please explain the process to export (.mov animation or any .mov codec) from after effects with using aces workflow that you have greatly explained. Because when I am rendering from after effects and output is coming in high contrast and when I import in same comp its not showing same results and I tried many setting in color management in output setting.
Regards.
Hi there as I usually export image sequences I unfortunately have no experience with .mov container exports from AE until now. I will try to replicate your problem and then let you know once I found a possible solution.
Cheers, Raphael
Ok, I did a test and I could replicate it.
The reason is a color space mismatch. Somehow MOVs are always saved and interpreted in Rec.709 Gamma 2.4 But the AE project is set to sRGB.
Solution is simple:
When outputting your MOV in the AE Render Queue klick on "Output Module" Settings. A Windows pops up (where you would set it to output MOV). In that same window go to "Color Management" and change the output type in the "Output Profile" from "Working Space..." to "Rec.709 Gamma 2.4"
Now the MOV should match what you see in the comp!
@@SilverwingVFX thanks it worked
Raphael, do you know if it is a bug in 2021.1.6 when using this exact workflow that the Layershadows pass gets tonemapped as well and become unusable? The white areas where no shadows appear have a slight gray value instead of a 100% white value so you can't multiply them over the backplate. Switching back to srgb works just as expected...
It sounds like as if you would multiply the final aces results.
You need to do all your mathematical operations before the aces tonemapping is applied.
If you want to get a white floor with shadow you would have to apply ACES to your main render and multiply your shadow pass after the fact.
Aces tonemaps the image with a lot of headroom. So white in sRGB is not White in ACES.
I usually correct the ACES output after the conversion back to sRGB so at least one small spot in my image is pure white. Usually I take the levels effect for that.
I dont see the color management tab in my settings. What do you think is going on?
Hmmm. That Open Color IO Color management was implemented in Octane 2020 / 2021. If you are using an older version, you probably don´t have the setting.
Otherwise I am not sure why it would not be there to be honest.
Could you make a tutorial on the best way to render SSS materials and volumes for animation and ACEs? Or just Octane animation settings in general with ACEs? I've been looking all over the internet and I can't find proper tutorials on this. I come from Redshift and I'm super lost :( There is so much content for still image renders but I'm a motion designer and still images aren't my thing.
The simple answer in Octane is that there is no specialized settings for animation. If you can render Stills with it, it will also work for animation.
I personally use the Aces to EXR workflow in After Effects (Video Above) also for animations. Of course you can bake in the Aces Look in a non 32bit image sequence if you´d like.
To bake your Aces look into a 8bit image sequence. Set the "Buffer Type" to "LDR (8-bit)" then "Color Space" "OCIO" and then Select "Output sRGB" there.
You can save through C4D (which is more intuitive) or through Octane (as seen in the above video) If you save through Octane, you should choose something else then EXR e.g. TIFF or PNG though I recommend TIFF. For professional productions I recommend not baking ACES to sRGB and going with the workflow shown above. No matter images or animations (image sequences).
@@SilverwingVFX Thank you for replying! After some more research that is what I concluded as well for the Octane animation settings. Its about finding the right balance of tolerated noise and render speed per frame. Love your content and your work, it's been very helpful in understanding Octane and seeing stunning work to aspire to!
This may be a foolish question, but what is the reason to use the aces workflow? Is it preference or does it offer a better output?
No, it´s not a foolish question, since I did not explain the need for it.
sRGB was the minimum standard (smallest denominator) for decades now. Its OK for viewing, but in some situations w.g. where highly saturated lights are mixing, because of the small color space, can cause wrong results. ACES delivers a much bigger color space to work in and therefore is not (that) limited in terms of color processing. Hence more life like colors out of your renderer. Also it applies a very natural (filmic) looking tonemapping that looks much more what your eyes see / what analog film would look like. Highlights are not as harsh, very bright colors are desaturated etc. If you search, you probably will find some articles about it. e.g. prolost.com/blog/aces Look for the billiard ball example.
ua-cam.com/video/1ixzKR21jdw/v-deo.html&ab_channel=JacobDanell in this video at min 7 you can see the benefits
Hey, i love this tutorial, but could you please explain which settings i have to change if i want to work with rec709 instead of srgb? There are a lot of steps where i don’t know what to do..it would really help me a lot! For example which buffer type do i have to select in c4d? I wasn’t able to find any information about this..
There is not much to do:
There are just two spots where you need to change someting:
1: In C4D Octane. In the Camera Imager OCIO set the OCIO View to Rec.709 instead of sRGB.
This is just so you see the Rec.709 result in the Live Viewer and can light and shade according to it.
2: In After effects in the Open Color IO Plugin in your ACES layer. Leave input as ACEScg but set the output to Rec.709
That´s it!
Leave the buffer type at HDR (Float 16-bit or 32-bit) and the Color Space to ACEScg.
Thank you so much!!! Really appreciate it, maybe kind of small but really valuable information for me!!
@@felixbaker3160 Great to be of help. If you have any more questions I´ll be there.
P.s. if you want to have some more info's about Aces I recommend you the Maxon Training Team UA-cam channel especially the "Max On Color" Bootcamp episodes.
Is there an update on this? do you still need OCIO plugin etc or does AE understand these files now?
Hey there Adrian and thanks for your comment!
There have not been any changes in workflow since the tut was made. So everything still applies.
I have herd that Adobe is working on native AE ACES support. But its not there yet.
@@SilverwingVFX thanks appreciate it!
Hi, what should i do if i want to use response, gamma, highlight compression settings e.t.c instead ocio? How to save LDR or HDR what i see in LV exactly?
Setting gamma, highlight compression etc. and OCIO does not work well together. You can either choose to do the one or the other.
If you want to save what you see in the live viewer choose LDR 8bit and sRGB in your output settings and save to e.g. TIFF 8bit or 16bit.
When I import my various passes into AE, should I also be setting Interpret Footage > Preserve RGB on all of those?
Thanks for your questions. There are other workflows that require it. But with the workflow I am using it is not necessary.
@@SilverwingVFX Thanks!
How do I get version Octane 2021.1? I see the last version on the website is Octane 2020.2.5
The shown workflow also works with the 2020.2.x
The 2021.1 is not final. Its the release candidate 2. You can downloads this version in the Otoy Forum
render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=78409
The After effects download is not working on his blog.. Ive tried lots of problem solving to get it to work but nothing. Has anyone else had this problem?
I just tried it. My browswer also tells me that it "can´t be downloaded securely"
A workaround that worked for me was to right klick on the link and "Copy link address" then paste it in a new browser tab.
@@SilverwingVFX Thank you so much this solved the problem! Cheers
Will you update this tutorial for Octane 2021?
This tutorial was made using the Release Candidate of Octane 2021. It should be the same in the stable release :-)
I get a blank EXR file in After Effects. I can see the render in the picture viewer and the file is 17mb, so it has data in it. But it's blank.
Make sure that multipass EXR is unchecked in the Octane export settings. If you have it checked, you need Extractor in AE to unpack your EXR to see your passes.
If not, make sure everything is setup as I show it in the video. e.g. having the ACES linked etc. It should not be blank.
If I want to use Lumetri to add a LUT to the mix or do some color grading, is the "correct" place to put it the same place you put the exposure at the end of your video? (before it reaches OpenColorIO)
As I never use LUTs I am not sure if there are luts for ACES that come before the conversion to sRGB. If you use "normal" luts they should come after the ACES to sRGB conversion, as you said!
@@SilverwingVFX Thanks again. Makes sense. If you are going for a dramatically different color look (like what someone might reach for a LUT for) what do you personally do?
I usually just use curves to tweak colors contrast and colors. It´s the workflow that worked for me.
I guess you can also add lumetri color using linear to log conversion this way. Just watch this section of the Redshift ACES video: ua-cam.com/video/HGC8k2gbS1s/v-deo.html
@@SilverwingVFX Just when you couldn't be more helpful, you read my mind! I wondered what Lumetri "expects" and now knowing it expects log and how to adjust the workflow to fit that in, I now have my workflow 100% sorted. Thank you so much.
@@robmaric Thank you very much for saying thanks! Glad I could be of help!
what about the camera response? wouldnt you chang that to linear?
Changing the Camera Response to Linear will not change anything.
A: Your Live Viewer response it set to OCIO. (Changes in the Camera Response are only visible when using "SDR/sRGB" and "HDR/sRGB" in the live viewer).
B: Saving images in ACEScg will ignore most of the Imager settings (such as Response, Highlight Compression, Gamma, Saturation etc.) as it gives out the "raw" render. You can tweak those thing in Post / Comp after the fact.
@@SilverwingVFX awesome, thanks for the speedy reply!
Did u know why my pass are black when i export?
My beauty is gud but zdepth and other one are totaly black (i configure it)
Try the "Extractor" effect in After Effects on those EXR passes and see if you get your info back.
Its a thing in newer Octane versions. I thought this was just effecting the custom AOVs but might be that Depth is also effected.
@@SilverwingVFX Good point, I hadn't thought of that! Thank you very much for your help.
0:57 I'm sorry but I don't get how you all downloaded those files((( Where is a link to dowload?!
Hey there. No worries about that. Its not that straight forward.
Klick the link in the video description. That will get you to Github. There click on the green "Code" button and then "Doanlowd ZIP"
Its a bit bigger so it can take a while. If downloaded. Unzip it and link the right .ocio version. Done!
@@SilverwingVFX Great! Thanks a lot, finally I found it)
How can we do this in Resolve?
When it comes to Black Magic I only know the ACES workflow in Fusion. I´m not too familiar with Resolve unfortunately.
1:09 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Huh, what´s wrong at that time stamp?
Realy wokr
Excellent. thx maestro!