ACES Export Nightmares!

[adamt]

can anyone tell me the correct way to export from an Aces1.1 project?

I am having a world of problems and cannot figure out whats going wrong.

I created the project with Aces 1.1 as its colour space.

All footage was imported with Tag Only - Log3G10/RedWideRGB.

I'm exporting to Rec709, so use a View Transform with lut Acescg - >Aces1.1SDR-video(Rec709 limited).

Output looks correct...

BUT if i put my Clock at the start of the timeline (Rec709 video + Text layer on track above), then it completely screws up the export.  If i don't add Colour management to the first two layers then it refuses to export with error message saying "Invalid Sequence colour space ID: Unknown"

So using Colour Management nodes on the two layers, I have tried Tagging as Source, tried with view transforms and with input transforms.

I tried setting the nodes to the colour of the source, to the colour of the red video clips, to Aces but no matter what i try the Clock looks fine but the actual video following the looks completely washed out. 

I have tried to use a variation on the Export View Transform with lut Source - >Aces1.1SDR-video(Rec709 limited).

Makes no difference...output looks terrible. 

Occasionally i get an error message saying the first frame is a different colour space so the rest of the timeline might render incorrectly...but even when i set everything up so the onscreen readout of the video settings (bottom lefthand corner of player window) for every shot/clip shows the same, I'm still getting the same problem.

Annoyingly, when i render the timeline and just hit play - it looks perfect - its just not exporting the same as shown on the monitors.

Please - how on earth am i supposed to export this timeline?

one thing is for sure - after this i will not be trying Aces again!

Adam

[-cicero · Accepted solution]

Hi Adam, you have my sympathy...  I find the colour management in Flame at best extremely confusing, and at worst just plain wrong.

Anyway, I would try tagging (right click timeline segment > Edit Colour Space) your clock media as Log3G10/RedWideRGB to match everything else (even though it isn't).  Then right-click seq in Libarary > Set Sequence Gap Colour Space to match your project, and check (ALT+click) the text over the clock which should update.  Then you shouldn't get the warning on export, and the colour levels may be right.

Good luck!

[adamt]

thanks - i had tried doing the conversion to log3G10 using a ColourManagement earlier - that failed, but doing auto convert to that format and re-importing the file did work. Weird.

Didn't know about that Sequence Gap Colour Space setting - excellent tip...thank you!!

[Grant.Kay]

Hi Adam,

The issue that you are running into is that you are mixing colour spaces in the sequence, and even though it is possible to do this, the export takes the colour space from the first frame of your sequence and things will not export because it has detected issues.

The easiest suggestion is to convert your sequence into REC709 from Aces in Flame and add your clock to that result so everything is in the same colour space and you should be fine.

Here is a workflow:

1. Keep your original sequence in ACES and remove any REC709 elements that you added earlier (ie your clocks). 
2. Make a duplicate of your sequence.  To avoid confusion, rename this new sequence to "seq_rec709" and this is what you'll use to create the export.
3. Add another video track above your edit.
4. Select the virtual gap across the entire sequence of ACES material and apply a Colour Management TimelineFX
5. Set the mode to VIEW TRANSFORM.   Choose Tagged Colour space from Source, View Transform from Rules and Set the Display to REC709 Video (or REC2020 depending on your deliverable)
6. You should notice in the viewport that your footage is viewed through the VIDEO transform (Colormetric) and your sequence is now REC709.
7. In the same sequence, drop your clocks at the beginning of this sequence.   They do not need to be under the CM TLFX gap segment as they are already REC709.   All your media should now be in the same colour space which is REC709.
8. Go to the MediaHub and call up the export window.   
9. In the advanced options, do not use any of the LUT options since your sequence is already in the deliverable colour space.
10. Press Export and it should work.

@-cicero I agree that the colour management can be confusing because of so many options but I disagree that it is wrong.   This is down to an understanding of the colour sciences which most people struggle with and I am no exception.

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if my post fully solves your issue or answers your question.

Thanks

Grant

[adamt]

thanks Grant - thats an option i'll keep for another day.  Having figured a way to do this (after three hours experimenting) its exported and thats all i wanted.

It does get complicated because as well as the myriad of options (which mean nothing to most people) - there is an option missing when it comes to final export....

If the system can work so well that it automatically shows you the correct output on the broadcast monitor whilst working, why can't you select an option to export exactly what the broadcast monitor was seeing? In my case its a Rec 709 monitor, and i want to export a Rec709 file - surely its not such a big task to re-purpose the output Flame is already showing?

I'm giving up on Aces - too many hoops, not enough time!

regards

Adam

[Grant.Kay]

Hi Adam,

I had this conversation with the design team when colour management was being implemented and there is a valid reason what you see in the viewport cannot just be translated into the export.

When you are looking at a sequence with mixed colour spaces, the viewport automatically does the colour transformations as it moves between each frame.   In fact you can think of it as dynamic colour space updating to give you the correct result in the viewport.    However this is an interactive tool and the colour spaces are still infact different on each segment/frame.   

Now that sounds like an ideal scenario that could be thought of for exporting.   However the issue is that all media file formats expect one colour space.   There are no formats to my knowledge that can hold multiple colour spaces, let alone dynamically switch between them.    This is the main reason why the colour space on the first frame of your sequence is applied to the export.   This is for the exported files and not for Flame.

So there are two different pipelines.   One allowing you to work freely with the colour spaces in a sequence as you create and one that meets the guidelines of supporting formats that only contain a singular colour space.

With all that said, and apologies as its a mouthful, once you are finished your creative production, you need to prepare your sequence as a singular colour space for export.   This involves getting everything into your deliverable colourspace or you will get errors and anomalies.     This was an important session I learnt with Dolby Vision deliverables.

Bearing this in mind, you should find this a lot easier in the future.   I just want to say that this applies to all colour spaces in general and you shouldn't blame ACES for this.   Don't give up on. it.... It's not that bad 🙂

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if my post fully solves your issue or answers your question.

Thanks

Grant

[adamt]

hmmm...it may well be a dynamically switching output, but surely by the time its switched and then sent to the monitor its in Rec709, its not the monitor doing the switching. Its at that point, afgter the switch/conversion, that the signal should be exported.

probably my simplistic thinking not grasping the nuances, but it seems to me the point in the flow of data at which you take the signal and divert it to the export rather than the viewer is the issue, rather than the fact the sources are different.

Oh well...back to editing