Using filmic color profiles in After Effects

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1

I’m editing a 32-bit float OpenEXR image sequence in Premier/After Effects and am having trouble applying one of Blender’s built in filmic color profiles to the strip. I believe I have things set up correctly but the final result is much darker than what I see in Blender.

These are the steps I’ve done in After Effects:

  1. Install OpenColorIO plugin
  2. In Project Settings: sRGB IEC61966-2.1 working space and Linear Working Space checked
  3. Interpret footage with Preserve RGB checked
  4. Added the OpenColorIO effect to the strip and loaded filmic_to_1.20_1-00.spi1d
  5. View->Use Display Color Management - checked (default)

What am I missing here?

Pictures are:

  1. In Blender with Default view transform
  2. In Blender with Filmic - Very High Contrast
  3. In After Effects, only after applying the OpenColorIO effect

1.jpg1919×1079 161 KB

2.jpg1919×1079 164 KB

3.PNG959×544 569 KB

Thanks for any advice.

2

All of Adobe’s rubbish is display referred nightmare. As a result, Adobe programs will never deal with EXRs properly, nor make for a manageable system.

With that said, you’d need the full chain, not just the contrast transform. I’m unfamiliar with the OCIO plugin, but it should work assuming you can set the View transform. You might need to uncomment the VRay / Nuke configuration lines in config.ocio, as some integrations of OCIO leave out the Look portion.

Optionally, save your work as a 16 bit TIFF with the Filmic Log Base Encoding, then apply only the contrast transform of your choosing. This will result in a near perfect 1:1.

With respect,
TJS

1 Like
3

Hm I tried loading config.ocio and got the error: BuildColorSpaceOps failed, null srcColorSpace. At least in my file there doesn’t seem to be any lines to uncomment.

After reading your advice from a separate thread I was already already in the practice of saving my renders as 16 bit TIFF with the filmic encoding applied. Would there be quality loss if I baked the contrast transform as well?

4

If you pull from my original repository, there are a few views commented out. Leave the Debug commented.

Some applications may throw a fit with spaces in the OCIO names, at which point I would suggest trying Maxime Roz’s Filmic Nuke configuration, which has no spaces.

Depends on the nature of your manipulations in Photoshop. If you are doing an aggressive grade such as increasing contrast, you are going to likely see posterization, where basing off of the base log encoding might save things.

Think of the base log encoding as dense data. Contrast adjustments spread the data.

The other option is to convert the contrast of your choosing to dot cube, and apply it to the base log as an adjustment layer. Better still might be to give Resolve a try, or master CDL grades in a compositor.

With respect,
TJS