Correct way to import srgb images into maya to render in arnold with ACES ??

[gaboherrera3d]

Hi, I´m learning ACE workflow,  Whats is the correct way to load a srgb texture downloaded from intenert  in material and make looks equal as looks in phothsop or windows photo viewer ?? Do I need apply a color correction in a program that support ACES before import the texture into maya ? I´m using maya 2022c   


 

[damaggio]

There’s no additional steps needed for that, the image is ready to be used.

[gaboherrera3d]

But I dont want that my textures and renders  look too dark an saturated,  at the moment they  look completly unatural. 

[damaggio]

If you download HDr, normal textures and roughness maps from the internet they should be set to Raw, although roughness can also be srgb depending where is coming from.

For Arnold users there's some good tutorials from Arvid         https://www.youtube.com/@arvidurs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVYg8ZyljLs&list=PL8hZ6hQCGHMUhE8z0oD99MMYxJq2s2goa&ab_channel=MayaL...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt_TR-7HcGM&ab_channel=DavidBittorf

Aces is more saturated than the older methods, you just have to get used to it and color correct afterwards to your liking or use Luts as you did before in Photoshop.

[gaboherrera3d]

 Thanks, I have watched some of this tutoriala before, but the  jpg albedo color textures   donwloaded from the intener sill looks saturated and dark, and I dont like. Is it possible avoid this or the only "solution" is edit colors of my final render afterwards ???

 

[nobody_b]

"saturated and dark" is "correct"
file color space of sRGB correctly transforms the sRGB image into ACEScg, which is used for calculations in maya.
Then the ACES 1.0 SDR-video (sRGB) view transform transforms the ACEScg values into what you see, which is darker and more saturated. This is the "look" of the default ACES view transform
you can always change the view transform to Un-tone-mapped (sRGB), transforms the ACEScg values back to regular sRGB. This is kinda like not uses ACES at all, except the colors are still calculated in ACEScg.

i think the default maya ocio config doesn't have the ability to just set the input images as the output view transform

if you used the ACES configs that you can download online (https://github.com/colour-science/OpenColorIO-Configs), you could just set your file to Output - sRGB and it will convert your images to ACEScg with whatever insane values it needs to be to look identical to your sRGB images outside of maya

[gaboherrera3d]

Thank you very muck, so as I can see I have two solutions 

Solution 1: Use untone mapped that is the same as not use ACES. I have two LUTS that read the exr file in photohsop in the same way as untod mapped. 
Solution 2: Apply a levels and saturations correction to maps before imported into maya

  I understand that the advantage of using ACES is I will get a wider color gamut, but I don´t undertand whats the point in saturaed and darkered web images, this is the opposite to get reallistic renders.