Hello,
I’m doing an animation and I need to be able to animate the lights in After Effects. I’ve exported all light layers to an EXR (with the right settings from the CESSENTIALS tut video) and imported them to After Effects but the effect is not the same as in Corona’s VFB. The weird thing is that when I import the same files in photoshop and also set the layers to Add, the effect IS correct.
Can somebody tell me what After Effects is doing differently than Photoshop?
Is your AE set to your intended space ? Linear/32bit mode ? I don’t think it sets it automatically from imported footage like PS does.
I changed it but unfortunately, it’s not working.
I also tried different settings for the color space but nothing helped.
Anybody? I really need to fix this issue 
I now also tried doing this in Fusion but here my Interactive Lightmixer images all look the same. This is what Fusion shows me when I import different light images (for every image):
This is what After Effects makes of it (with Additive layers):
This how the correct render looks (in VFB and photoshop):
What is going on? Why is Photoshop the only program that gets it right?
No idea what’s going on here.
You are dragging the light select render elements into your soft, and then compositing them one on each other?
Maybe it’s something with gamma?
Yes I import them into AE, stack the layers on top of each other and change the Mode to Additive. I noticed though that some of the highlights are transparent, is that normal?
The Gamma is set to 2.2 in Max.
Go to File > Project Settings… in AE and set them like this (attached).
I just tested this and got the same result as in PS.
It is slightly different than what I got directly from VFB, but similar in 99% - the main differences are in the darkest areas so I guess it is some kind of gamma 2,2 vs sRGB issue.
Update: there is still some difference in the PS vs AE image, but I fixed it by changing the settings to those visible in the ui screenshot. It should not be there, but I already closed AE and did not resave the newest version.
That worked! Thanks so much!
The thing I did wrong was I changed the color settings per imported file, Interpreted Footage and then change the color space. I didn’t think of changing the project file settings and didn’t know there was an option to linearize the workspace.
Thanks again, no I can move forward!
Another question, I want to animate the lights separately in AE but the Glare & Bloom layer has all the lights baked into one file. Is there a way to render a G&B pass out per light?
Currently there is no way to render the glare and bloom separately for lights, sorry.
That’s too bad. I’m surprised that there isn’t a Render Element for that, it would only be a case of applying the G&B to each light layer.
Is there a plugin for AE that get’s a similar effect?
Lots of options for bloom and glare in post - probably some native things in AE, then things like Arion FX, and others too no doubt!
