BMPCC Color Space in Blender

Support Lighting and Rendering
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Hi everyone! I’m on someting a bit tricky! I think I got the right setting, but just to make sure, I want to double-check!

SO! I have a BMPCC (original) camera and I want to make some SFX in my shots! To do so, I need to make 3D stuff and render those FX. The problem is that the color space is differents and I want to make sure that I have the same. Do you guies know any ressource on this specific subject (Rendering BMPCC color space in Blender!)

Thanks in advance!

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There are some videos from the YouTube channel InLightVFX where he shoots on a Blackmagic, renders in Blender, and grades in Davinci Resolve all using the ACES color space. The first of the series can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/aJF2sAjRsy0

Hope this helps!

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First of all, thanks for the link!

I already saw this one though. I’m not a big fan of converting my footage twice. I might sound like an old coot here, but I always feel like I’m loosing quality doing it. I’m really trying to work directly work in the same color space as my original footage here…

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You’re welcome! For someone whose music library is completely backed up as FLAC files, I get your concern with converting more than once.

There are probably pages that could be written on the subject (and can be read here: https://blog.frame.io/2020/02/17/vfx-workflow-best-practices/), as color space isn’t the only thing you need to be concerned with when compositing footage. But the short version is - just do it how the professionals do it. The medium answer is that by converting to a scene referred, linear workflow in an at least 16-bit OpenEXR format, you are stand to gain much more than you stand to lose.

I’d recommend reading that whole blog post as it goes further in depth as to pros and cons of those recommendations. Hope that helps even more!

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I did take a look! And I found something else on the side. Someone coded an add on to NATRON to accept the BMPCC color space. I might use it to make my comps! :smiley: I’ll do tests and I’ll come back to you and tell you if there something better I find! :wink:

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SO!

I look at Natron, I’ve not been able to run the plugin properly, so I forgot it!

What I found though is this workflow

I used Davinci Resolve to convert my plate from BMPCC color profile to linear. I then tried to convert it back to BMPCC. There was a big difference in the saturation, so I used the scope and the waveforms to give them back the exact same look as the original plate. I then baked this color transformation into a LUT.

So, now, if I render a shot in linear color profile and convert it to BMPCC profile, I just have to use this lut to make my CG compatible with my original shot. Hope it will help someone in the futre!

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