ACES Workflows

[jan1]

Just sharing some insights from a support ticket we resolved.

On the last project I was working with a standard scene referred ACES workflow, RED Raw footage, Unicolor and ODT.

As explained in most tutorials I added the ODT at the top of the stack. That turned out to have some unforeseen consequences. I'm losing the ODT in some storyboard functions, and particularly in the gang solo. I also lose the ODT when in the vector paint. After debugging we determined that neither was a bug. The story board/gang solo is by design. The vector paint is turned into a feature request.

But the main take away, and reasons for this post, is that when you work with ACES it actually is more proper to put the ODT into a display filter rather than at the top of the stack. Of course you have to carefully monitor settings and make sure the display filter also applies to renders.

In a way that is logical as it puts the display transform outside of the grade. In Resolve the ODT is set in the project settings, not the grade, so it's generally the right thing. But it's not the intuitive way and not how it's explained in most of the tutorials if memory serves.

Thanks Cristobal and Rocio for helping sort through this.

Edited December 16, 2019 by jan1