White solid is not white in OCIO color engine

[Gawron]

How can I make a white solid in the OCIO color space? Currently, the color is not white. It looks almost gray. See my attached screenshots. Both whites are #FFFFFF. 

[Rick Gerard]

You have a color management mismatch somewhere. Start by checking the Project Settings (Shift + Alt/Option + Ctrl/Cmnd + K)

[Mylenium]

Hex codes don't mean much. As Rick said already, you have some wrong settings somewhere. since you haven't provided any info about your CM settings we can't tell you more than that.

Mylenium

[Gawron]

Thanks for the quick reply! I'm attaching my project settings. I'm using ACEScg for my working color space because I'm bringing EXR renders in from C4D/Redshift. If I set my working color space to "None". The "Whites" are correct, but all of my renders are wrong. I need to be able to work in ACEScg with my renders and then also be able to comp in graphics with correct "whites". 

Thanks!

[szabi.12578705]

i hope this isn't your full time job, no offence. 

[dh91]

Jesus christ what an unhelpful comment. 

[grantc28262828]

Lame comment from useless user. But, no offence.

[Gawron]

Any Updates on this topic?

[Celestial_Whirl16B8]

I'm having the same issue - I'd love to hear about a solution. Did you solve this on your own @Gawron? If I find one myself, I'll let you know.

[DrStrangelove3]

I am having similar issues regarding this. I have noticed that a project in ACES is fine at first (white equals white), then along the way whites become gray. I even havea case where seen two comps in the same ACES ae file act differntly, and they are using the same settings. See attachements.

[DrStrangelove3]

Sorry for all the typos in my previous post. This post includes an AE scene that shows two comps in the same project interpretting white differently.

[Celestial_Whirl16B8]

So as a workaround we need to add an OCIO Color Space Transform either directly to a layer or an adjustment. Set the Input to Output - sRGB and set the Output to ACEScg.

[DrStrangelove3]

Somone recently just replied to part of this thread & I just noticed your comment. Thanks for sharing this work-around, as it does work. What is crazy is that I didn't have to do this when ACES was 1st released. But eventually the comp would succumb to the problem of whites no longer being white, therefore requiring such a work-around as you suggest. Based on my workflow, not sure I can honestly justify using ACES until AE integrates a better way of integrating ACES. The whole color space arena is full of misunderstandings and perhaps I am a victim of not fully understanding the process myself. Anyway, thanks for the solution!

[Daniel Goschke]

Hey folks,

i ran into the same issue. Here i found the solution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nVbAJd1R_4&ab_channel=i_go_by_zak

Under: Effects/Color correction you find the OCIO Color Space Transform - Efferct, which imcalledandy

also mentioned. You use this on your rendered footage/passes only and then you turn the pulldown in the viewer to off. 

Before it was for example ACES/sRGB or ACES/Rec.709 for example. This one is only for Preview. If it´s set to a different colorspace, the in After Effects created stuff like for example type, is shown in this colorspace and you can´t get it white. I´m not a native speaker, so i hope you understand what i mean.

Best regards,

Daniel

[Simon_0815]

I'm also confused: New Solid: All the way up to do a white solid, (H:0/S:0/B:100) and then it's even called "light grey"

Why should I have now a color management mismatch?

The workaround with the FX does work nomore (for me?)

[sidekick2rida]

Hopefully, this helps someone. I've spent days trying to figure this out and finally got whites (text, graphics, etc) to appear and export correctly.

The context is using 3D footage (16-bit exr image sequence) rendered with an ACES/OCIO config file. The crucial part is in the After Effects project settings. In the Color tab, under OCIO Configuration, I chose Custom, and selected the same OCIO file I rendered the footage with, instead of the built-in OCIO configuration (see the attached screenshot). In my case, I chose ACEScg as the working color space and ACES/sRGB as the display color space. The last setup was the interpret footage settings. You get to this by right-clicking on the footage in the project panel or selecting the footage in the project panel and pressing Cmd/Control + Option/Alt + G. In the Color tab, check Preserve RGB (disable color management conversions for this item). I 

Cheers!

[Simon_0815]

I make Text or solids white with an Exposure FX. Nothing else works for me.

[Gawron]

Hi Everyone. Below is my OCIO workflow. Some aspects may not be relevant to your worklow, but hopefully it helps. White solids and text will remain white with this workflow. 

After Effects Project Settings

• Color Engine - OCIO Color Managed
• OCIO Config - ACES 1.2 (Or latest default ACES)
• Bit Depth - 32 Bit
• 3D Lut Int. - Tetrahedral
• Working Color Space - ACES cct
• Display Color Space - None

Importing Footage From Davinci / Backplates

• Import .EXR Sequence
• Rt. Click on the footage - Interpret Footage
• Color
• Override Media Color Space
• ACES cct
• Add Footage to Comp
• Add OCIO Color Space Transform FX to the footage layer
• Input: ACES cct
• Output: Output sRGB / or Rec 709 (to match)
• Composite / Animation /  FX work

Importing .JPG's or other movie clips that are not 32 Bit

• Right click on footage / asset - Interperate Footage
  • Color
    • Check the box "Preserve RGB"

Importing CG from C4D (or other 3D applications) I'm using ACES workflow with Redshift in C4D

• Import .EXR Sequence
• Rt. Click on the footage - Iterperate Footage
• Color
• Override Media Color Space
• ACES cg

• Add CG to Comp
• Add OCIO Color Space Transform FX to the CG layer
  • Input: ACES cg
  • Output: Output sRGB / or Rec 709 (to match)
• Composite / Animation / FX work
  • AOV’s don’t need the OCIO Color Space Transform FX

Export out of AE

• Option 1 - .EXR back to Davinci (For Grading)
• Add Adjustment Layer to Comp
• Add OCIO Color Space Transform to that Adjustment Layer
• Input - Output sRGB or Output Rec 709
• Output - ACES cct
• Export as .EXR sequence
• Option 2 - .MOV (Baked)
• No Adjustment layer is needed in the composition
• Just Export .MOV as usual.

[LoopCorp]

Came here for the same problem.  I was going to say I think this is just a flaw in the way AE handles ACES but I just created a white solid in Nuke and it's the same there. I never do pure mograph or titles in Nuke so I never noticed before. There has to be a better solution than applying a Color Space Transform to every white solid, type or shapelayer so that ACES interprets them as sRGB??  Some sort of sRGB checkbox in the colour picker? And although white is where the problem is obvious it's happening to all colours, of course. So anywhere you are using colours that have to be 100% this hex or RGB setting, you're going to have to apply a Color Space Transform to them. Please tell me I'm wrong!

Before AE had real ACES support I would just use an adjustment layer on my 3d renders to conform them to OpenColorIO and Color Profile Converter to put it back to my output profile. I think that may still be the best way for me at the moment. Use ye olde Adobe Colour Management for everything that isn't CG, where ACES excels (though I know that isn't the only reason for wider ACES use).