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jordanc75789874
jordanc75789874
Known Participant
July 4, 2020
Question

After Effects HDR workflow

  • July 4, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 6144 views

Hi

 

I am currently working on a job and require a little bit of advise.

 

The majority of the footage I'm am receiving is from a Sony camera and shot in SLog3. I am adding an explosion or two and also some 3D stuff. 

The final delivery for the project is going to be a HDR. (I haven't ever supplied shots back to an edit which will be a HDR final delivery)

 

What colour space should I be working in? And how should I supply my shots back to the edit? Normally I set it to Rec709 2.4 

 

I also have a question about working with SLog3. When I work with footage like this for a normal delivery (not HDR) I am pretty much always asked to resupply the footage back ungraded, so in this case back in SLOG. Because I can't revearse a LUT I match to the SLOG LUT with levels, gamma and saturation effects. Do my work. Then at the very top of my comp I undo all of this with the reverse settings and supply back with a "flat" look. (So the editor can slap on an SLOG lut and do their grade)

 

However I have just noticed that I can interpret footage as SLOG from the colour space section of the "interpret footage" when I do this I get a different looking shot to the same shot, interpreted normally with a LUT applied? Does anyone know why that is? 
(FYI in the current project - when I do interpret it as SLOG it is a lot brighter with many values over 1)

 

this stuff is soooooo confusing so thanks for your help! 

Jordan

 

 

 

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1 reply

R
Community Expert
Rick GerardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 4, 2020

You need to work out the color management workflow with all of the rest of your team. 

 

Most of the time for most of the projects that I work on, the color grade is the very last step. The best way I can think of to handle that is to keep all the rendered DI's (digital intermediates) from AE (or any other app) as close to the original footage as possible. If the project is Log, that means your renders will all be log, but it's incredibly difficult to judge VFX work in the Log color space unless you apply some color correction. I recently went over all of this in another thread but I'll repeat myself.

 

Add an adjustment layer to the top of every comp, make it a guide layer, then apply the basic color grade that is going to be used for the project to the adjustment layer. Now, in the comp panel, you will have a very good idea of how the final graded shot will look. When you render the composite, the color correction will be ignored and the shot with your explosion will have exactly the same look as the original footage and it will be much easier to match up with the rest of the footage than it would be if you delivered a graded shot. 

 

Did that make sense? You'll have to flatten out stock footage, but if your project is 10 bit or better, the rendered DI will have still have all of the available color information that the original footage has so the colorist will not run into highlights they cannot pull down or shadows they cannot open up because you already graded the footage. 

 

You might want to take a look at the other thread "Settings for SLOG2?." I gave a little more thorough description and posted screenshots:

 

    jordanc75789874
    jordanc75789874Author
    Known Participant
    July 4, 2020

    Hi Rick

     
    Thanks for the advice. I have also used your trick! 
    I’m generally ok with the “round trip” workflow of doing VFX to log style footage. Unfortunately I don’t think the above approach is appropriate for this challenge as there are so many elements being used or blended that it would become unreasonable.
     
    The thing I’m struggling with is what to set the after effects colour space to. 
     
    For example, normally I would work in Rec 709 2.4. The curve ball for me this time is that haven’t ever worked creating HDR content - (and lets not forget about a billion misconceptions of colour space information I have acquired over the years). 
     
    Is there a standard working space for AE when creating HDR stuff? I’ve read about Rec 2020 being it? But I haven’t a clue. 

    Thankyou for your quick response and help 
     
    J
    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 4, 2020

    The color space you work in only sends metadata to the rendered file. It's the bit depth and the RGBA values that you can deliver that is far more critical. Crush the highlights or shadows in your render and you can never get them back. 

     

    It is not that hard to mix stock footage like muzzle flashes, fire, explosions with HDR footage. If the footage is only 8bit or you need to use 8bit effects you can add the HDR compander to help the data. Setting the color space to Rec 709 just changes the way the footage looks on your screen, it doesn't change the actual pixel values or luminance curves. It is important that everyone working on the project is using the same color space and everyone is working with calibrated monitors so you can discuss things and see pretty much the same thing when you are color grading. That's why it is important to match the color space, bit depth, and if possible even the codec of the original footage for everyone to use. 

     

    A good colorist can get pretty close if you send footage that is already graded, but the work goes a lot faster and is easier if every shot is the same. 

     

    If Premiere Pro is used for the final grade we add an adjustment layer on top of all the footage with the master look for the whole project. Once that master is set the layer is locked and no changes are made. Then additional color correction is applied to each shot below to fine-tune the specific shot. If we want to change the basic look from scene to scene, another adjustment layer is used just below the master adjustment layer to make changes to the scene. 

     

    If you are using another app, the same process happens using a master correction for the whole movie via a node, then a scene master, then the individual shot. The workflow falls apart completely if you throw a bunch of color corrected shots into the mix and it is a lot harder to make things match up.

     

    Agree on a working space, and try and send Log footage back to the NLE and the whole process will be more efficient. 

     

     

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