ACES - Incorrect Texture Export With EXR

[Matteo24898513fulu]

Hi i have this problem that is currently giving me anxiety and sleepless nights (and anger issues).

I recently started using ACES for a project with a group of friends, and we are using Adobe Substance 3D Painter v8.1.0 with OCIO 1.0 and ACES 1.2, we tried to set up everything through this guide:

https://mrlixm.github.io/blog/substance-painter-color-management/#aces-workflow

at the "ACES -Output" section, it says that the best workflow is to export everything with exr because "Color channel will be exported in ACEScg while scalar channels will bypass any color-transform encoding"

when i was going to export i, indeed, saw that everything was going like the guide instructions:

--the color channels (Base color and Emissive) were setted on ACES - ACEScg

--all the others data channels were setted on Utility - Raw

Once all the textures were on my desktop:

the color of  the Base_Color texture was a bit lighter, and that's correct, because i exported them with ACES - ACEScg..

but WHY all the other textures are lighter too! i can clearly can see they are exported as Utility - Raw, they should look like i see them on my display! (right? because with 8 bit they look like it)

they change their color because of the 32bit exr's depth? but what i should do then? the guide is wrong?

should i keep all the other maps like metallic,height,roughness and normals, as exr 32 bit and more light colored?

won't the Utility-Raw 32bit exr maps change the result on Maya/Arnold from using the Utility-Raw 8/16 bit tif maps?

i really don't know what i should do..

thank you so much

[sharktacos · Accepted solution]

Working in OCIO means you are in a color-managed environment. When you view the files on your desktop you are not in a color-managed environment and so the files will not display properly. You need to view the files in other software under the same OCIO config for them to look the same.

[Matteo24898513fulu]

@abilio_7991  Hello! 

im so happy to see that even after so much time someone took interest into this question! since 2y ago i studied much more ACES and i think i understood the issue: basically i just had to look better at the ACES settings in Adobe Substance Painter(at the lowest line), because it's written:

Export settings 

Floating Point images (which are 32bit) = Aces - AcesCg

so it was right in front of my eyes! literally written that when i choose to export with 32 bit the images get transformed into ACEScg! 

(⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠）⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

Anyway thank you so much for replying to this question!!