Welcome to native OCIO/ACES support in After Effects!

[Christine Goldby]

It’s a big day for Beta. In today’s Beta build (23.1.0 build 44), you are getting not just one, but two new features to take out for a test drive. Introducing native OCIO/ACES support in After Effects! 

I’ve attached documentation for a deep dive into the feature, including a Quick Start guide which is copied below.  

We would love to hear your feedback, including what you think of the workflow, and whether you get the results you expect. 

As always, thank you so much for participating! 

Quick start 

1. File > Project Settings 
     a. Create an After Effects project and select Color Engine as OCIO color managed.
     b. Select the appropriate OCIO configuration file.
       i. We are shipping the ACES configuration ACES 1.0.3 with the application bundle.  
       ii. NOTE on ACES 1.3 Configurations 
   In addition to the default ACES 1.0.3 configuration, there are now two beta configurations from OCIO which are compliant with ACES 1.3 (ACES CG v0.2.0 (Beta) and ACES Studio v0.1.0 (Beta)). These are still under development, but they do include new features and enhancements setting the stage for ACES 2.0, such as the ability to set the Rules in the config file to an assigned color space. We will update these to the release 1.3 versions once they are available. 
     c. Select a Working Color Space 
     d. Select a Display Color Space2. Add some media (EXR, etc.) to your project 
     a. Media Color Space is automatically assigned a default color space (specified by the default role) 
     b. Media Color Space can be overridden via the Interpret Footage dialog accessed by right-clicking the footage in your Project panel 

3. Create a composition  
  a. Composition window shows color converted content 
    i. Color conversion - Media Color Space to Working Color Space 
    ii. Color conversion - Working Color Space to Display Color Space 
  b. Use the Display Color Space dropdown in the composition toolbar to change which display transform you are viewing 

4. Export the composition 
  a. Add the composition to render queue 

  b. Select the Output Color Space in Output Module Settings > Color dialog 

5. Use OCIO Color Space Transform effect to apply any color space transform to your layer, especially if you need to apply an effect or CDL/LUT that was created in a different color space. 

6. Use OCIO File Transform effect to apply a LUT or CDL to your layer. Make sure to change the color space using the OCIO Color Space Transform if required for that LUT/CDL, and then apply another transform to bring it back to the working space you are using.

[Filip23315833k75u]

No, I see artifacts both on Mercury and on software - all bit depths.

It happens only if OCIO 1.2 is selected - built in and user. If I switch to built in OCIO 1.3 - the artifacts disappear.

[Shebbe]

Odd, and is there a difference in trilinear vs tetrahedral LUT interpolation? Dunno what else you could test other than have Adobe look at it with a similar system. 🙂

[Chetan Nanda]

Hi @Filip23315833k75u ,

I just tried on a Mac system and was not able to reproduce.

We will try to find the system with matching configuration to reproduce internally.

[Chris Gunningham]

Hi, I'm new to this but just to report a bug or maybe user error. I've imported exr's from baselight which are 2065-1 and override color space to 2065-1 (as AE just says Aces Chromaticities) project settings are set to Aces CG, export exrs and the colours don't match when checked back. They do match however if I change project settings to 2065-1. As far as I understand it though project working space should be Aces CG. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong. This is hte non beta 23.2.1 (build 3)

[Shebbe]

When you're exporting EXR out of AE, are you selecting ACES 2065-1 on the output module settings in the color tab? That will set up the conversion from the working space to desired output space.

[Filip23315833k75u]

When the project working space is set to ACES CG, what you're doing is import file that is in ACES65, then it gets converted to ACES CG (like all other source files) then you just export it. AE doesn't know which color space to export in so it just exports in default - default color space is the same color space as working color space (project color space). You have to select an output color space to ACES65 - then it will work. Or better yet, change the working space (project space) to ACES65. I still haven't found an explained reason why the suggested working space for post is ACES CG not ACES 65. All the footage we get, and are expected to return is in ACES 65, why should we limit it by working on it in ACES CG?

[pat pro]

Why ACES CG for Postproduction ...because it has linear gamma not log. If you work with CG (3D renderings) you should go this route. If not, you can stay in ACES 2065-1

[Chetan Nanda]

For ACES workflow based on OCIO,  AfterEffects uses color space defined via `scene_linear` role from OCIO configuration file as default working color space.

The ACES configurations that we are shipping with the applications all have `ACES - ACEScg` as scene_linear in their configurations file. 

You may edit the config file and point it to use `ACES2065-1`, then from next time onwards for each new project AfterEffects will use ACES2065-1 as default working color space.

Please help to check and let us know if that's works for you.

[Chris Gunningham]

Thanks this is helpful, sounds like user error on my part. I understood the
reason for composting in Aces CG (and not 2065-1) was that it limits out of
gamut colours that can causes artefacts.

[Chris Gunningham]

Hi, Is it possible to render Aces 2065-1 exr's from AE using Media Encoder, with the correct colour? My tests are coming out as the wrong colour space. There appears to be no options in AME to overide the colour space to 2065-1 (like there is in the AE render queue). Is there a workaround for this? Thanks

[Chris Gunningham]

2 other bugs. Saving the render preset in color to 2065-1 gets forgotten and reverts to project color space. Has anyone got OCIO output working to an external monitor with correct color and realtime playbacks on a cached comp?

[Filip23315833k75u]

Here is something a little different.

Grain.

First of all, Adobe seriously, f**** you. 5 years and Add Grain still doesn't work in 32bit??? The ACES implementation is actually quite good in the latest release, but we still can't use Grain in our shots?!?!?!?!

Secondly.

Today I did a couple of my first commercial shots with the new OCIO CM system - it went generally without a hitch, very comfy, congrats on that - buuuuut I had a hard time matching the grain from the orginal footage. The grain almost didn't get applied to a highlight (around 0.7 luminance on color picker) - the original footage had visible grain there. No matter what I did, how I changed application curves it just wouldn't cover the highlight.

Now it might have been that particular piece of footage, weird grain from camera or something, but I kinda felt that at this brightness level I should be able to apply grain.

So it got me thinking, shouldn't Add Grain's application curves take into account the OCIO CM as well?

Most other color management we did till now mainly changed the color gamut but not the brightness values, so it didn't matter, but ACES comes with a big change in the brightness of the pixels. The application curves in Add Grain divide the ranges to Shadows, Mids and Highlights - pretty standard stuff - but now it matters when these are actually calculated - on original source clip's luminance values or on the sRGB displayed values. I mean, medium values in the Comp Viewer that is displaying in sRGB are not medium in the source - in the source these same pixels fall under the shadows range.

Now I don't have a suggestion here, it requires much more testing, but have you taken that into consideration - for all effects that split their effect to  Shadows/Mids/Highlights ranges?

[Filip23315833k75u]

Output templates don't remember output color space. They seem like they do - after editing the template the color space is getting applied but that is only in the current AE session. After AE restert all templates revert to the default working color space 😞

[tomg45872964]

Hi, I'm viewing the AE comp on my external screen through Mercury transmit. 

But there's no option to do a transform to Rec709 on that, I would like to request that feature. Thanks

[chrisbrearley]

This needs to happen. Can't see any reason why the external display output transform can't follow what the compostion window is doing.