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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

ACES...

Whoever mentioned 1080 here? :)
But if you deliver 1080, that obviously s good enough for that project. Many valid reasons for shooting 5k for 1080...
 
When I was a boy I had a tour of the Disney effects studios
when they were making the movie "The Black Hole".

Their fancy motion control camera system was called....."ACES".

It stood for "Automated Camera Effects System".

:)
 
Our workflow for commercials wouldn't work for film-out but what we do is:

R3D -> Nuke -> EXR -> Nuke -> DPX

That way we can work in linear color space but also have the r3d settings saved in Nuke. We'll then erase the EXRs at the end of a project to save space but have the option to re-render with the exact settings should we need them again.

If RED released a Linear>RG3 LUT it would let us use RG3 (which I do like) on projects.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
Our workflow for commercials wouldn't work for film-out but what we do is:

R3D -> Nuke -> EXR -> Nuke -> DPX

That way we can work in linear color space but also have the r3d settings saved in Nuke. We'll then erase the EXRs at the end of a project to save space but have the option to re-render with the exact settings should we need them again.

If RED released a Linear>RG3 LUT it would let us use RG3 (which I do like) on projects.
Click to expand...

This is quite similar to our VFX/Resolve pipeline

Edit
Firstlight
Run out EXR's RLF for VFX --> Cineon DPX for re-ingest into resolve project
Main project - firstlighted RLF/RC2 (soont be RC3) "RAW" in resolve (since our last series, we have stayed without rendering RGB material as much as possible and practical)

Currently working on 24x 30 minutes X-mass calendar...
Come summer! :)
 
Yeah, you guys are all doing it right.

You know who's not doing it right? The guy using Adobe software (which doesn't understand Log very well). Eg the workflow RED is pushing heavily right now.

He "edits in RAW 4K" in Premiere, using R3D decode settings that clip because it looks good on his monitor (no LUTs involved - because Adobe workflow for LUTs sucks and its color management makes things horribly slow - and Red doesn't say "here, use this LUT with RedLogFilm" so nobody knows what LUTs to use anyway). Then he decides to run Warp Stabilizer on the footage.

Awesome... the Warp is Stabilized - but the clippy R3D decode settings are now baked in. Not awesome.

Even less awesome: if you go and change R3D decode settings, you have to do a new Warp Stabilize. You can't say "apply the Warp Stabilize from clipped clip A to clip B".

The problem is that due to Adobe / RED marketing, these people don't even know that there was another way - eg work in RedLogFilm... use LUTs to get the crunchy preview... but the data is still there.

BTW what LUT do you guys use when working with RedLogFilm?

I'm embarrassed to say that I use the Arri Alexa ones - simply because you can easily download them from a website for whatever system I'm using.

Hopefully OpenEXR will put all of this stuff behind us... but I have to say that for now things are a tad convoluted.

And the amount of acronyms in OpenEXR drives me nuts. There are so many transforms happening. We need to make a nice simple website to explain it all or else people are going to make a lot of mistakes.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Jannard said:
We think the concept of ACES is a good one. Trying to create a single workflow that works with all camera options seems just fine to us. We are doing our best to help connect RED footage to the ACES program. The Academy is serious and committed to the ACES workflow... and we are too.

But... it is not ready yet to work with RED footage today. We strongly discourage anyone from using ACES in its current form to grade anything RED except test footage. It is critical that ACES is not considered a current solution for production quality work with RED footage.

We will do our best to change this... and we'll let you know as soon as we feel this option is ready.

Jim
Click to expand...

Is there a layman's explanation of the ACES workflow anywhere? I'm confused as to what it entails.....
 
Bruce, I think we all want to work towards linear light workflows with proper monitor independence. ACES is one attempt at doing this. As much as I somethings worry over the details, the concept is valid.

Graeme
 
Graeme Nattress said:
Bruce, I think we all want to work towards linear light workflows with proper monitor independence. ACES is one attempt at doing this. As much as I somethings worry over the details, the concept is valid.

Graeme
Click to expand...

:cheers2: Thank you for listening as always. :cheers2:

We will use a club to flatten the prickly ACES into a pancake, scrape some of the acronyms off it, then mould it into something useful for cinema domination!

Now we just need to get Adobe to actually add EXR timecode read and write before 2035.

Ah well - thank heavens for the ProEXR plugin for now!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
WATER AND WARMTH

WATER AND WARMTH

I have nothing against people who live in the desert. I also have nothing against people who live in the north pole. It is clear that over time, man has found ways to thrive in places that are complex and (to the average person) require more work to survive. But because of the known challenges of territories that are short on water and warmth, human civilizations have gravitated to places that offer more temperate climates, more resources, essentially more water and more warmth. Large cities grew in areas where the geography and climate made life easier, yet amidst all the known comforts of temperate places, some still prefer to live in the desert and some in the north pole.

To me, ACES offers many theoretical advantages to image control, monitoring and distribution. Personally, I find that the back-half of the ACES pipeline is its strongest characteristic. I like the idea of more uniform archiving and the encouragement of better preparedness for future display technology. I also like that the ACES platform is going to encourage advancements towards linear EXR files. I like the idea that ACES encourages production, visual effects, and post production to collaborate closer together, and often sooner in the process. The ACES system does not work if only part of a production uses it, therefore, ACES can be a champion for file-based efficiency by forcing departments to consider their collective color science strategy upfront.

But even with these advantages I think that people will begin to identify drawbacks to the ACES agenda. Complex systems have tendencies to fail over simple systems. Complex systems tend to cost more than simple systems. Anyone who has examined the ACES IIF system knows that it's fairly complex. Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest solution is typically the best, and there are a lot of great looking pictures out there that did just fine with far simpler alternatives. Until the development of ACES matures to the point that its complexity is better understood, better adapted and better optimized, simpler solutions will continue to be popular.

The complex world of ACES will get worse before it gets better. ACES will cost more. ACES will take longer. ACES will eat up more space and require more support, more assessments and more adjustments. But in the long run, ACES will likely prevail and its benefits will strongly outweigh its limitations. For my company, Light Iron is not a group of people that believe in singularity. We believe in pluralism. A pluralistic view on filmmaking suggests that there are infinite ways in which to manage a project. And the direction of that pluralism should always be dictated by the personalities of the filmmakers, not the Academy. Some people's view of ACES is that it homogenizes cameras and color so as to simplify DI. Others feel ACES brings uniformity to archivists. Some believe it levels the playing field amongst competitors. And some feel it actually improves their images.

The fact of the matter is, I have nothing against people who live in the desert or in the north pole. But when you choose to live in a more complex environment, life without water and warmth is going to be difficult. My recommendation: wait for ACES to evolve. Watch it. Learn it. Test it. Discuss it. Practice it. Provide feedback. Do comparisons. And publish them. Take advantage of the widely published ACES IIF documents to help you navigate this new territory and listen to what your instincts tell you.
m
 
Michael's post is hard to argue with. I just wish there was an easier way to reap the core benefit of a benchmark color space. Behind all the acronyms there is a very real upside to being able to take a wide variety of sources and put them in a reference container with fixed values for post/DI.

If VFX were not a part of the scene then roll your own LUTs might be sufficient, but that's not most people's reality. I also think that whatever dire warnings about digital and archiving you might place credence in, having an open source standard with wide parameters will improve the odds of being able to access digitally acquired images in the future.

Cheers - #19
 
Michael:

"What attracts you personally to the desert?"

T.E. Lawrence: "It's clean"

Although I agree that the complexity of ACES is kinda the opposite of clean :)

Seriously, though: what do you guys use most of the time while we wait for ACES? Don't want to give away trade secrets but I suspect you guys aren't able to stay in R3D until the very end, based on your public posts (eg Dragon Tattoo) - and film VFX workflow in general. It's just impossible.

So: DPX log files with P3 or 709 primaries? RedLogFilm? How much tweaking of the R3D decode settings do you do?
(here's what I do: RedLogFilm and just get WB, color and exposure roughly right... then do the rest in RGB grading environment. Run NeatVideo and optical correction in between. Ignore exhortations to "stay RAW")

What LUT do you use? If you give stuff to a VFX vendor do you give them a preview LUT for your RedLogFilm conversion to 709 / sRGB / P3? Do you make that yourselves?
(here's I do: use the Arri LUTs)

I must admit to a hack of my own: even when I work in Log format... I still save as EXR. The disk space savings are huge, the CPU overhead not too big... and there is no quality loss. Sometimes I sacrifice a tiny bit of quality by saving in 4:2:2 format with B44 compression. Huge savings in disk space. Only drawback is the potential to confuse the heck out of 3rd parties!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Thank you Michael...........I love reading your posts..............and your Blog.

THANKS!

Also.....isn't LA a desert, or wasn't LA a desert once?

;)
 
Bruce Allen said:
BTW what LUT do you guys use when working with RedLogFilm?
Bruce Allen
Click to expand...

RedColor3 for all below...

Linear EXR 16b -> (No LUT) -> Nuke
RedLog Film DPX 10b-> (Cineon>Lin) -> Nuke
RedGamma3 TIF 16b-> (sRGB > Lin) -> Nuke

to...

Comp in 32b Linear w/ (sRGB Viewer LUT)

to...

lin > target LUT.

So in many respects a very similar workflow to ACES.
 
I have not tried it personally, but Gavin's use of Nuke as the "mezzanine" point seems like a great way to get some of the benefits of ACES topology sooner than later.

Its also worth noting that RedLogFilm uses a proper Cineon curve so if handled properly (yes Bruce, that's a big IF) R3Ds processed to DPX using RLF should provide predictable results.

10 bit log DPX has held up well considering its age, but IMO a migration to OpenEXR and putting the log crutch away is overdue.

Cheers - #19
 
Hey Bruce,

We do things very much the same as yourself. REDlogfilm DPX with P3 primaries mostly.

I usually build a custom VFX LUT per show, but essentially start out in the same place. I generally do this for creative reasons, not technical. A broad family comedy and a cult horror movie could both have a REDgamma3-esque starting point, but why should they? It really doesn't take a huge investment in time to build something custom based on the lighting style and conversations with the DP.

You can use an Arri lut if you wish, but understand that Log-C isn't exactly the same thing as true cineon, which REDlogfilm is based. So you won't get results identical to what you would get if you used a true RLF to RC3 conversion. Having said that, it will still look great 90% of the time.

Now when I grade, I generally don't use the actual lut, I use the correction that was used to build the lut. That way if I find it paints me into a corner, I have the controls to back it off. Also I keep handy the original lut as a reference to make sure I'm "still in the zone".

That is something that has always concerned me about ACES. The RRT and ODT combination really seem to resemble a 5219 print stock emulation, at least the early stuff I've looked at. So everything has too much contrast. Like magic bullet was applied or something. I'm concerned about fighting to reduce contrast and/or saturation should it not be creatively desirable.
 
Ian Vertovec said:
REDlogfilm DPX with P3 primaries mostly.

Now when I grade, I generally don't use the actual lut, I use the correction that was used to build the lut. That way if I find it paints me into a corner, I have the controls to back it off. Also I keep handy the original lut as a reference to make sure I'm "still in the zone".
Click to expand...

Hi Ian ,
when you say """DPX with P3 Primaries """ what do you mean ?
that you process DPX (from R3D ) applying a P3 Colorspace matrix ?

ps: i agree about using the layer/node (curve) custom built that emulate a 1D lut (so you can modify accordingly ) ...

Scratch have a very nice function that when load a 1D lut it can create a curve out of that (so you can modify the curve )

g
 
M Most said:
I honestly don't understand your point. All technology gets improved over time, and all methodologies get refined over time. ACES is an industry wide initiative that is currently a work in progress that will hopefully provide improved and standard approaches to some current issues (archival formats are one very major one).

I could just as easily point out that a bunch of huge movies are coming out that aren't being shot on film. Or Red cameras. The statement would be equally as meaningless.
Click to expand...

Context Mike .;; in reference to confusion around a complex subject matter - this kind of thread is dangerous as competitors can spin it as " yeah welll Red is not Aces compliant workflow" and more fud spreads... so I think in that context it was meaningful but I'm not surprised you don't. LA is no longer the only place movies are made Mike and we struggle with workflows like the rest of the world and welcome a standard like ACES... Meantime I felt it necessary to iterate that Red's current challenges with ACES is not relevant to getting a quality deliverable as can easily be misconstrued in this thread.
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
.. this kind of thread is dangerous as competitors can spin it as " yeah welll Red is not Aces compliant workflow" and more fud spreads...
Click to expand...

Well, if we're pointing out FUD, allow me to quote Cioni:

The complex world of ACES will get worse before it gets better. ACES will cost more. ACES will take longer. ACES will eat up more space and require more support, more assessments and more adjustments.
Click to expand...

ACES is constantly getting better because its creators understand that there are problems at this point, and also because they understand color science better than just about anyone here or elsewhere on this planet and therefore have the experience and knowledge necessary to eventually work out those problems. ACES will cost more??? Really? The fact is that ACES is an industry initiative being done by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scientific and Technical Committee, and whose work is free to all who want to use it, and will remain so. ACES will take longer?? ACES will eat up more space and require more support? Once again, the fact is that ACES can easily be incorporated into existing workflows. It basically replaces an input transform with an IDT, and an output LUT with an output transform, consisting of the RRT/ODT combination. You can use those transforms as part of a "live" working environment. Using an ACES workflow does not require creation of new files and does not require use of the half float EXR container. Those things are there for storage and image exchange.

I have already gone on record in this thread as portraying the ACES system as a work in progress, particularly the RRT. I have said that more work needs to be done to refine it, and that in its current state, there are issues that need to be addressed. What irks me is that I'm quite sure Michael is aware of all that, yet statements are made here that are patently false. I too believe in facts, not FUD. The facts are that it is a work in progress, is currently imperfect, but has a lot of potential for a lot of reasons, and will evolve over time. FUD is that it costs money, somehow adds time to the post process, and takes up more space.
 
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