Hi Guys!
I hope someone would be able to help me.

I am using H19 + latest version of Redshift.
Despite having a lot of experience in motion graphics I have very limited experience with Colour Management.
Now this ACES/OCIO/WTF happened and I had to switch to C4D because of that.

The first problem was that in Houdini in Redshift Renderview I had one picture but when I rendered it to Disk in MPlay I had a washed-out picture.

I fixed this by:
1. setting a variable in houdini.env:
OCIO="C:/ProgramData/Redshift/Data/OCIO/config.ocio"

2. In Redshift Render View in Color Management:
Display: sRGB (no other option available)
View: Un-tone-mapped instead of ACES 1.0 SDR-video. (I don't know what this means and whether I am getting the "correct" image in this mode)

As a result the RenderView and MPlay became very close colour-wise, not 100% perfect but around 95%.


Now here is where the main problems begin.

After I render to disk (EXR) from Houdini and import it into After Effects the colours are extremely washed out.
Note that rendering from C4D does NOT have this problem.

Of course I can spend some time adjusting the curves to get it almost right but I know this is not the way.
I've started reading and watching tutorials on ACES/OCIO and can't make any sense out of it.

Can someone PLEASE tell me if there's a way to have the files that I import into AE look the same as the RenderView?
I have the OpenColor IO plugin for AE, I tried different combinations in it and still I can't make the colours match properly.
I've googled, watched videos, read all those million-page ACES/OCIO articles but I guess there are just things that wil always be beyond my understanding.

Can someone maybe just tell me what to do in simple steps?

Or maybe there is a way to disable this OCIO madness altogether and just work in a normal way?

Thank you!

Display: sRGB is correct. View has some options to "make it pretty," so SDR-video will give you the punchy ACES look that people like.

Sounds like you're almost there, you just need to get AE working. To clarify, the AE plugin you have is the one from fnord? If so, here's the recommended workflow:

1. Drag your EXR render into your AE composition.
2. Create a new adjustment layer and add the OpenColorIO effect to it.
3. For Configuration pick your Redshift config.ocio file.
4. Choose input space ACEScg and output space sRGB.
5. In the View menu uncheck Use Display Color Management.

Following those steps should get you a perfect match with what you saw in Houdini.

BrianHanke
Display: sRGB is correct. View has some options to "make it pretty," so SDR-video will give you the punchy ACES look that people like.

Sounds like you're almost there, you just need to get AE working. To clarify, the AE plugin you have is the one from fnord? If so, here's the recommended workflow:

1. Drag your EXR render into your AE composition.
2. Create a new adjustment layer and add the OpenColorIO effect to it.
3. For Configuration pick your Redshift config.ocio file.
4. Choose input space ACEScg and output space sRGB.
5. In the View menu uncheck Use Display Color Management.

Following those steps should get you a perfect match with what you saw in Houdini.

Thank you so much for your answer!

Can you please help me clarify a few things:

1. Should I assume that Un-tone-mapped mode in Redshift RenderView is the "correct" image? And I should stop viewing my results in ACES 1.0 SDR-video

2. When importing the EXR to AE should I set "Preserve RGB" in the file interpretation?

3. Should my AfterEffects Working space be set to sRGB or to ACESsg?

Thank you again!

Glad to help!

1. I use SDR-video or similar. You get a more accurate sense of how your final image will look.
2. No.
3. ACEScg working space.

THANK YOU again SO MUCH, Brian!

Everything worked out perfectly.
I will attach the results and settings here in case someone will be having the same problem.

In houdini.env file I defined an OCIO variable:
OCIO="C:/ProgramData/Redshift/Data/OCIO/config.ocio"




The MPlay Result looked brighter / more washed out than the Redshift RenderView (see screenshot).
I assume this is normal behaviour and not a reason to worry.



This is what I did to make it look correct in AfterEffects:


1. File -> Project Settings -> Color -> Working Space -> ACESsg



2. Imported the EXR rendered in 16 bit

3. Added an Adjustment Layer with OpenColorIO plugin by fnord

4. In the OCIO Plugin I used the Display Mode instead of Convert Mode
- Input Space: ACESsg
- Display: sRGB
- View: ACES 1.0 SDR-Video





5. In the AE project window: Interpret Footage -> Color Management -> Assign Color Profile -> Working Space (ACESsg)
*Same result I got when when instead of assigning the profile I turned Preserve RGB ON (disabled color management)





Also I managed to get the same result when setting AE Working Space (Step 1) to sRGB mode too.
In this case the EXR Color Management had to be set to Preserve RGB (Step 4), assigning sRGB profile didn't work.

Glad it's working! Redshift must come with an OCIO v2 config? Houdini doesn't quite support v2 yet. Looks don't work, so that's why it's brighter in MPlay. If you loaded a v1 config, such as ACES 1.2, Redshift and MPlay should match.

Now I see where the problems stem from. Will try and load a V1 config tomorrow and report here. Thank you again and have a good one, Brian!

So I tried using an OCIO v1 file and Redshift (ver 3.0.66 at the time of this message) refused to work with it.