New OCIO colour management

[marc_ashby]

Hi everyone,
Since installing 3ds max 2025 and Vray 6 2.1 my colour management workflow has gone to the dogs. It's broken! As I understand it, according to guys on this forum I don't need to do anything, simply make sure Vray has ACEScg RGB primaries selected (it's greyed out in the Vray settings), check in the VFB that OCIO is selected in colour management (with 'save in image' ticked) and all should be good......kinda! Firstly, all my material workflow is shot with Vraybitmaps coming in bleached out, muted whites with vraycolour, poor visual representation when working with self-illuminating materials in the material editor and generally very dark and contrasty renders. In the material editor, in order to view a bitmap correctly I have to select 'view image' and change the display transform from ACES 1.0 SDR-video to RAW. The Bitmap image view is also very dark in the UVWmapping window.

Does anyone have a workflow they are using that works, like before Autodesk introduced the OCIO colour management and totally messed up by workflow?

I need help! I've been using Vray for over 20 years and never really had to ask a question about colour management as you lovely people have always had answers/instructions on this forum I could follow and implement but this has really got me stumped.

[vladimir_krastev]

Hi, thanks for posting.
Do I understand correctly that you are having issues only with material editor and viewport previews? Please send us some visual examples of your issues.
Note that minor difference in the look are expected. Here is an example:

[marc_ashby]

Hi Vladimir,
Thank you for responding. I guess I just need some guidance or links to tutorials on how to set up this new colour management for Vray 6 and 3ds max 2025. I can get the appearance of bitmaps and colours within the material editor as I want them but I just don't know if I'm doing it right. As you can see in the images attached, the colours aren't right, the uvw unwrapper window is showing incorrect colours and I'm concerned I'm making a mess of it all. Should I be changing colour management settings within 3ds max or vray?

Please help

[piotrus3333]

UV editor in max still does not support OCIO transforms.

[marc_ashby]

Thanks Piotrus3333. This is good to know. I can cross this off the list of things I'm having problems with knowing it's not fixable.

[piotrus3333]

3ds Max 2025 Help | Current Limitations of Color Management | Autodesk

it's quite a mine field actually.
if you do not need display transform from ocio config in your viewport you might want to consider turning max's color management to gamma workflow and just relying on VRay.

[marc_ashby]

I just might do that. In all honesty I'm not a huge fan of this OCIO colour management anyway. My renders are coming out a little darker and contrasty than before.
Thankyou

[vladimir_krastev]

it's quite a mine field actually.

One important limitation for now is that 3ds Max's ocio colour management does not work with distributed rendering and network rendering. This is not a V-Ray fault (Arnold behaves the same for instance).
We've notified Autodesk about the issue and all we can do for now is wait for a fix.

[piotrus3333]

I just might do that. In all honesty I'm not a huge fan of this OCIO colour management anyway. My renders are coming out a little darker and contrasty than before.
Thankyou

OCIO is a great tool when implemented fully. it really makes things easier but neither max nor VRay are there yet.
dark contrasty renders are an effect of ACES display transform you are using. just find something more to your liking. or use rec709 display transform not sRGB.

[simon_kotowicz]

I'd support Marc's request for a current tutorial for the closest we can get to OCIO. I'm getting great resuts in 3DS Max in the VFB but there's something not quite right with the saved files and how other programmes are interpretting them. It all worked well until 3DS Max got that new Colour Management option, now nothing works as it did.

I've tried looking at the .exr files in Photoshop and Affinity. Affinity seems to get the closest, as it has a good 32bit viewer option with OCIO transform options built in. But the colours of my renders in Affinity aren't right. I tried 16bit half float too.

For instance, I'm looking at the VFB and the Display Correction is set to OCIO. Image is how I want it. When I save, what options save the image so an OCIO transofrm gives me the same image look? "Save in Image" doesn't do it.

In the "Save Image" dialogue there's a new option, if you enable the 3ds Max OCIO colour management, that allows • Automatic (Recommended) • No Conversion • Colour Space Conversion • Displace/View Transform - I systematically tried all but they don't get me there.

For a while I thought, "Perhaps I'm using Affinity wrong, so I tried older ACEScg files for a few years ago - They all work correctly.

So, all in all, I'm in a little mess too.

It would be really, really good if someone creates a Tutorial for this as best as it is in 3DS Max / Vray right now. What's everyone else doing?

Cheers guys!

Simon

[simon_kotowicz]

UV editor in max still does not support OCIO transforms.

Are you sure? When I enabled the new 3DS Max Colour Management option and set it to OCIO, all my materials in the Slate Editor got the OCIO colour transform and display how I see them in Substance Painter.

All the best!

Simon

[Rchv]

if you do not need display transform from ocio config in your viewport you might want to consider turning max's color management to gamma workflow and just relying on VRay.

I did this but the problem remains that once opened in for instance Photoshop, the result is not the same as in the VFB.

[piotrus3333]

Are you sure? When I enabled the new 3DS Max Colour Management option and set it to OCIO, all my materials in the Slate Editor got the OCIO colour transform and display how I see them in Substance Painter.

All the best!

Simon

UV editor.

[piotrus3333]

I did this but the problem remains that once opened in for instance Photoshop, the result is not the same as in the VFB.

VFB has an option to load icc profile you are most likely using in Photoshop.

[vladimir_krastev]

The V-Ray's implementation of the ACES colour management hasn't changed with 3ds Max 2024/2025 and works well. If you have used it previously and had correct results there is no reason to have issues with the newer versions. As of now the 3ds Max's implementation does not work well for network rendering and distributed rendering (we have informed them about the issue) so keep this in mind as well. If viewing your render output in other softwares than the VFB we have to take care and make sure we do not mismatch the colour spaces. An image rendered in ACES colour space must be monitored in ACES transformed viewer otherwise we will be seeing wrong colours.