Update the Add Grain effect to use GPU and 32-bit

[ckuehne]

I need to apply grain frequently in my work to clean plates I’ve created, and it needs to match the 6k/4k HDR plates I’ve been provided. I prefer Add Grain to Match Grain, as it’s quicker and more accurate for me to manually set it. Because of the size of the plates, and the lack of GPU acceleration in this plug-in, it’s the main bottleneck in my rendering speed, plus 32-bit would help with color fidelity. Obviously, multiframe rendering would be great, too, but I would at least love GPU acceleration to start!

[ckuehne]

Unfortunately, paying $31/month for BorisFX Sapphire solely for accurate grain doesn't make sense for me, and no one shold have to do that, either. I have no use for anything else in that package. I'm really hoping someday they just correct what is built-in to After Effects. It's already there, it just needs to be updated.

[Rocketbottle]

I agree with previous posts.

Sapphire is an excellent plugin package. I have used it for years when I was working with the big machines. But I will never ever pay for another subscription model if I can.

I do not believe After Effects cannot be made fully 32-bit compatible. Adobe being a multi-billion company should have the people and resources to make it happen.

Paying a lot of money for an Adobe subscription, I rather expect working basic tools than new shiny gimmicks.

Hear us Adobe, please!

[mrk888]

The 32-bit add grain functionality is a must-have for me in literally every ACES project nowdays so I posted this info for anyone just looking for a solution to the problem even if it comes at an additional cost. In the previous version of Sapphires the add grain plugin was 8-bit only. 
I totally agree, though, that the software I am paying for should have by now full 32-bit functionality included in the package.

[dh91]

BUMP. 

I literally can't believe this hasn't been addressed yet. I mean I can but it's still disappointing.

[Rocketbottle]

I had a quick look at AE Beta 24.3.0. I heard some CC plugins have been updated. What if...?

 

Nope. Not yet ☹️

[ckuehne]

Is there a certain number of upvotes that need to happen before Adobe looks into these kinds of things? I was really hoping with the number of releases since I first posted this, plus they seem to be pushing for industry standard color spaces, etc, this would be something they would want to address. In my opinion, this is the best add grain plugin as far as functionality goes, but it is still 16-bit, and not mult-render compatible or GPU accelerated. Even just 32-bit would help as a stop-gap.

[mrk888]

Apparently full 3D functionality is easier to code than the port of one plugin to 32-bit 😉 

[dsol21]

It's absolutely maddening. Right now, the solution I use is to convert the colour space to Log (using the color profile converter), apply grain, then reverse the colour conversion. But this is a pretty shonky way to work and if your HDR values are high enough you do lose some fidelity.  C'mon Adobe -  this is basic stuff!

[TillP]

WE STILL NEED THIS! 

[Rocketbottle]

Yayyy!

Adobe made 5,4 billion dollars profit in 2023. And you just raised the subscription fee. 

How hard could it be to channel some of it to really useful features?

[ckuehne]

Obviously, very happy that they have since implemented the OCIO wokflow, but so disappointed that they have still not updated the grain plug-in. I THINK Adobe knows After Effects is being used in a professional, high-end environment, so I'm still not sure what it happening, here.

Does ANYONE know how to contact Adobe about this? I don't know why this seems to not be even a low-priority, and being completely ignored after all these years of updates.

[freelancer29041969]

You are wasting your time trying to speak to them... They don't care

[Rocketbottle]

This is great.
Two and a half years in this thread alone, backed by valid reasoning.
Not a single comment from Adobe so far... 

[Rocketbottle]

OK. While we wait for the miracle to happen, I would like to share my Add Grain workaround for working with log material in the 32-bit. You'll need to use full ACES/ACES2065-1 colourspace to keep transformation transparent.

[Shebbe]

@Rocketbottle ,

When using OCIO project management there is no need to use the color profile converter, it's rather counter intuitive to the toolset expected to be used in an OCIO based project. It would be better to use OCIO ColorSpaceTransform and convert from the working space ACEScg to ACEScct -> add grain -> convert back. There is also no need to set the working space in the project to ACES2065-1, in fact this should never be used as a working space. It is not how ACES is intended to work and neither is it a practical space to work in. It is and should only be used as 'ACES compliant' file interchange and archiving format.

[Rocketbottle]

Thanks for the tip, Shebbe
 
Finding practical information about AE's Colour management with ACES is still difficult.
So, using as wide working space as possible is not good? So far I have set the correct media and output profiles and worked in a wide gamut space. Everything has worked fine, looked correct and exported transparent to originals.
Could you point to a good source of practical information about After Effects ACES working methods and all the display profiles?
 
Cheers

[dsol21]

OK, I might be wrong, but as far as I can tell there's no point feeding ACES material into the existing Add Grain effect as it'll just clip HDR values. Converting it to Log (flat profile) adding the grain, then reconverting it back to the original space is clearly a bodge (and will clip/quantise some colour values) but it's still the best way to do it until Adobe pulls their finger out and adds a proper 32 bit float version of the Add Grain effect

[Shebbe]

@Rocketbottle , sorry, I'm not aware of any one stop shop video or site that covers everything for AE context. OCIO itself is not AE specific though and neither is ACES so I would encourage you to look up these topics in a broader way. I found the following links to be of great resource learning about color management and scene-referred workflows.

Christophe Brejon's website

Filmlight's Color Management talk by Daniele Siragusano

ACES Central forum where people are happy to help with any question including the folks behind ACES.

@dsol21 , did you encounter a scenario where this is the case? Log spaces are used often in compositing and grading, cameras also encode to 10 or 12bit integer log files so working in 16bit log should not really degrade the image unless 8bit effects are in the chain or you have some really extreme synthetic values in the source?

I do agree tho regardless, we really need an upgraded Add Grain that can provide grain in linear context.

[ckuehne]

Being that it's been 2.5 years, and over a 100 upvotes, and I haven't seen any response from Adobe, does anyone know of a way to reach them about this? I can't imagine this is the most complicated to update to 32-bit, at least. Obviously, with grain, the multiframe aspect would help tremendously. I have a couple of third party plugins that do grain, and they both use the GPU, are 32-bit and are multiframe, but they don't have all the same parameters that Adobe's has.