Maya 2022.1 ACES 2 Colour Match Issue

[wizlon]

Hi, I'm testing Maya 2022.1 and the new ACES 2.01 workflow. I can't get my colour swatches in Maya to match the exact same colour as an imported .jpg or.png. Both colour values are identical, but they render very differently. Either the import of the texture is being interpreted wrong, or the colour picker/swatches are incorrect.

Could someone test and see if you come to the same conclusion please.

Thanks.

[wizlon]

Tested this on Maya 2020.3 and all is fine. Must be a 2022.3 issue?

[wizlon]

Can anyone from Chaos confirm? I assume this is a Autodesk issue though.

[moshev]

Hi wizlon,

This is the expected behaviour. The colour picker in Maya is in display space, i.e. after tone-mapping is applied. If you switch your view transform in Maya's Color Management Preferences to "Un-tone-mapped", then setting the colour swatch to 52,52,52 will produce the same result as the jpeg. If you wish to have your final render with a tone-mapped view, you can switch the view transform, choose your colours, then switch it back. Colour swatches in Maya are stored in rendering colour space, so changing the view transform doesn't alter the RGB values used during rendering.

Alternatively you can choose to set your colour swatches in rendering colour space, in which case they will always match with colour values from a linear texture in rendering colour space. If you do switch to working this way, note that another pitfall is trying to match a colour swatch with a linear sRGB texture while working in ACEScg colour space. Since ACEScg is wider gamut than sRGB, the same linear RGB values produce different colours. The easiest way to avoid such mix-ups is to have your textures in the same colour space as your rendering colour space.

[wizlon]

Oh dear. I thought we were trying to make colour workflows and colour management easier not more difficult. There is a similar thread over at Autodesk too, this isn't a good long term solution. Many of my team are making mistakes and losing confidence in Maya 2022. There must be a better way? Thanks for the reply.

[moshev]

I understand your frustration, but there is nothing we can do here. It's just how Maya's colour management works.

[wizlon]

Agreed. Thank you for your reply moshev. I'll go and trouble the Autodesk Dev's.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

I thought we were trying to make colour workflows and colour management easier not more difficult

Color picking in Maya is very powerful, you can control exactly how you pick your colors in the way that suits your needs. I honestly prefer this over 3Ds Max and other DCCs because of the amount of control I have
I recommend reading this paragraph here,
This explains the concept of color picking in details, I still use ACES 1.2 in Maya 2022.1 for consistency with Nuke and other software.. as OCIO 2.0 is still new and not adapted by many applications yet

I can't get my colour swatches in Maya to match the exact same colour as an imported .jpg or.png. Both colour values are identical, but they render very differently

By default your OCIO file will look like this(it gives you control over color picking)



It uses Output - sRGB by default ,which is the view transform you use like what moshev explained
Now if you edit color picking to Utility - sRGB - texture, you color swatches will behave in the way you want
This should work if you guys pick your colors in integer (0 to 255) range



For me personally I set my color picking to ACEScg which is rendering color space.. some people work in utility - LInear - sRGB which is fine as well

I explain here the workflow for matching a logo or any given value by a client

If you have questions let me know

Best,

Muhammed

[wizlon]

Thanks for the explanation Muhammed. It would be nice to see this as a user selectable option in the Maya Preferences.

[wizlon]

Hi again. In Maya 2022.1 there is no Color_Picking Role to change in the OCIO Config file. I can find it in the older 1.2 Config.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Hi again. In Maya 2022.1 there is no Color_Picking Role to change in the OCIO Config file. I can find it in the older 1.2 Config.

The latest official ACES version is 1.2
I wouldn't call it old, many places are still on this version for compatability with other software ..

OCIO 2.0 has some new features, but the ACES part is still WIP as far as I know .. I haven't worked with it much honestly, 1.2 gets the job done for me
Best is to stick to 1.2 config where you are able to change color_picking to your liking

[wizlon]

Here's the post from the Autodesk Forum......

"Hey all

Currently there are efforts happening regarding creation of New Color Picker for VNN that will encompass few extra new Color management features. For start, we are planning to expose View option in Picker, where you would be able to quickly control if you want to use tone-mapper in your color transformation or not. Exposing color picker default behavior is something we discussing actively and could be resolved as Lee mentioned in preferences or just by having option to save Color Picker preferences within Maya pref.

We will present shortly solutions on Maya Rendering Beta forum, discussions and suggestions will be more than required.

Thanks

Nikola"

This sounds very hopeful.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Thanks for sharing wizlon

This will be very helpful, instead of manually editing the config file then having to restart Maya for changes to take effect

This is exactly how the color picker works in Modo (greyed out below as it failed the license check lol) , I can control how the swatches work and it allows me to pick values in Linear HDR, integer or 0 to 1 (sRGB) values





Best,

Muhammed