Is my ACES workflow correct? From Maya Vray to AE

[GregCooper]

Just wanna check I'm doing this the right way. I've followed this guide for setting up Maya and Vray with ACES. I'm currently using the second option (I think) but the color management page of Maya is slightly different in the latest version - Maya 2022
You'll see the settings I have selected in the screenshot attached

And then in the VFB I've opted for the Display Correction method with the OCIO option selected. I seemed to be getting a slightly different result when using the 'filmic tonemap' approach, maybe I'm missing something in the workflow.

Saving to an external EXR or batch rendering saves images out without the VFB correction from what I can see - this is preferred so you can colour correct using ACES colour range in post, as opposed to baking ACES into the image sequence

In After Effects my project settings under Color are 32bit, Working Space 'None'.
I'm interpreting the EXR as 'preserve RGB'
Then I'm applying an adjustment layer over everything with the OpenColorIO plugin reading the same OCIO config that's being read in Maya.

Am I doing this right?

p.s. I realise AE sucks for anything to do with colourspaces and this would probably be easier in Fusion

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I seemed to be getting a slightly different result when using the 'filmic tonemap' approach, maybe I'm missing something in the workflow.

Hi GregCooper

Your setup is correct, good job!

For me personally I prefer using the ACES 1.2 config, which is the latest official release. The difference is that it will give you control over your color picking in Maya, I explain this here

About the filmic tonemap approach, you will need to set Display correction to None. Then Add Filmic Tonemap layer, set it to AMPAS and change the Gamma to 0.8
The ACES documentation will get updated soon, and the team is working on improving the AMPAS preset to match without needing to change Gamma

Saving to an external EXR or batch rendering saves images out without the VFB correction from what I can see

Yes, as long as you save in EXR, you will keep the scene-referred values untouched and you will be able to comp light AOVs for example
And you have the option to do your adjustments in the frame buffer, then you can save a JPEG and burn the view transform to the file. You will find an option for that in the Display correction

p.s. I realise AE sucks for anything to do with colourspaces and this would probably be easier in Fusion

Fusion and Nuke are much better, having proper color management. Ae workflow is kind of a hack with the OpenColorIO plugin

Best,
Muhamed

[GregCooper]

Awesome that’s perfect. Thanks Muhammed

[stezza]

Interesting, I thought the Input colour space in the Maya prefs had to be set to ACEScg and not default?
Maybe this is where I am going wrong!
Setting it to default for me produces much darker renders, Setting it to ACEScg produces a render similar to the texture file.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Interesting, I thought the Input colour space in the Maya prefs had to be set to ACEScg and not default?

Input Color Space needs to be set manually for textures,

-For color channels (diffuse/reflection/translucency/textured lights) you need to use Utility-sRGB-Texture for 8 bit formats like JPEG and PNG, and Utility-Linear-sRGB for linear EXRs like HDRIs (this way the correct Gamut conversion takes place during render time)
-For roughness/Glossiness/displacement and everything else, use Utility-RAW (it basically loads the map linearly without a conversion)

If you set this to ACEScg, no conversion is done. the texture is just loaded with a linear transfer function (ACEScg is scene-linear, so no conversion is done)
You need either Utility-Linear-sRGB or Utility-sRGB-Texture for the correct color space conversion to ACEScg

Best,
Muhammed

[peter_rosengren]

Borrowing the thread with a connected question. When saving EXR from VRay, it should bee seen as footage with ACEScg colorspace? (For example when selecting interpret footage in AE .)

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Borrowing the thread with a connected question. When saving EXR from VRay, it should bee seen as footage with ACEScg colorspace? (For example when selecting interpret footage in AE .)

Correct!
This means AE reads the data linearly, it doesn't apply any transforms to it. Which is what you want

[peter_rosengren]

Correct!
This means AE reads the data linearly, it doesn't apply any transforms to it. Which is what you want

Thanks for your quick replay Muhammed!
The thing is I get a result in AE that is more similar to the VFB when I interpret footage as sRGB then ACEScg in AE.
Is that wierd?

(I then have working space 32 bit, linerized. ACEScg working color space. Transforming from ACEScg --> Rec.709 and applying A Profile Converter Rec.709 --> Rec.709 Linearized)

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I'm going to install Ae and give this a try, will report back soon

Best,
Muhammed

[peter_rosengren]

I'm going to install Ae and give this a try, will report back soon

Best,
Muhammed

Great thank you for your time Muhammed. Much appreciated!

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I made a video here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecr9s05gtSw

I'm not an Ae guy, I barely used it in production. I tested in the latest 2022 release

Best,
Muhammed

[sebbiej]

I've been working for a while to try and get ACES figured out... Glad to see I'm not the only one who is confused! I've been using the 'new' method outlined in this tutorial: https://youtu.be/7uY4-bPvRKs?t=1060

Instead of setting After Effects to work in an ACEScg colour space, you use an sRGB AE Working Space. The EXR footage is interpreted with the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 Profile.

Comp is then set up like so:

• Adjustment Layer with Color Profile Converter. sRGB Input and Output - Linearise Output Profile ticked.
• Adjustment Layer with OpenColorIO. Input Space: ACEScg. Display: sRGB. View: (not sure what to set this as, please see below).
• Adjustment layer with colour corrections
• EXR FOOTAGE

I assume this setup is correct? Using the sRGB working space in After Effects works well for me as a motion graphics artist as I'm often mixing images, HEX brand colours and all sorts in with my 3D work - I can layer this on top of the color profile converter layer and everything is displayed properly without having to preserve RGB outputs or calculate correct HEX values for text and graphics, etc.

But, the thing I'm really confused about is the View in the OpenColorIO effect, and the matching View in Maya.

• When it is set to ACES 1.0 SDR-Video I find that colors that should be 100% white and bright are muted down to a white value of ~0.6243 in AE/Maya viewer/V-Rays Frame Buffer. The attached images show the differences in colour that I'm getting, the grey-ish images just look odd to me.

- But this has the benefit of if I really crank up exposure colours remain more natural and nice. But, it means that textures and the images aren't as bright as it should be without post effects and the image doesn't look as 'punchy'. I can compensate for this with an Adjustment layer on the top of the stack with a Levels effect that brings these whites back up to 1. - Feels like a bit of hack compared to working in the old linear way before I used ACES.

• When I set it to Un-Tone Mapped I find that the image and whites are as bright as they should be (showing a correct RGB value of 1 in AE), but then I'm not sure if I'm really getting the benefits of ACES colour adjustments - colour seems to clip when I bring up exposure values quite high.

Which View setting should I use, and why?

[GregCooper]

Has something changed in a more recent version of V-ray 5 with the way it handles ACES? I swear I had this workflow down as per my original post and now I can't figure out why it deosn't seem to be working anymore. This ACES biz seems unnecessarily complicated for end users to figure out

[craigdvance]

I was wondering if I could get some feedback on this same issue. I can't seem to get pure white to render as pure white. This is my setup.