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I am relatively new to Octane for blender. Been using it on and off since its free version release but only more recently switched to it full time for commercial work but really have not yet taken the time to gather an in depth understanding of OCIO configuration inside of it.

Let me begin with what is confusing me, and it really wasn't confusing me until I upgraded to x24 from x23. Previously I just added the OCIO config file and then in my camera imager override just changed my OCIO view to filmic and it all worked as I assumed it would and it was great. After the upgrade it began making everything green and magenta across all my scenes. I figure this boils down to the ACES configureation as this is typically how that looks if it is configured improperly but my main issue is I really am not sure what to actually do about it. My understanding of what settings to change has effectively been thrown out the window.

Here is my configuration as is and perhaps you can tell me a) what I am doing wrong and b) what I should be doing instead, and if you have it in you, I learn best by understanding why things happen the way they do so if you are willing to take the time to explain why my settings were giving me problems and why the suggested changes resolve the problem I would really appreciate it.

(blender render properties) Color Management:
Display Device : sRGB
View Transform : RAW
Look : None
Exposure : 0.000
Gamma : 1

Octane Color Management:
Use other config file : Enabled
OCIO Config File : (routed to blenders config.ocio file)
Automatic(recommended) : Enabled

Octane Camera Imager(preview mode)
Override : Enabled
Order : Response,Gamma,LUT
Response Type : sRGB
Exposure : 1
Gamma : 1
(here's where it gets particularly dicey) OCIO view : Filmic (if enabled, highlights get a green glow in the highlights and shadows turn a bit magenta. Also, obviously gets even more washed out in compression because it is adding filmic to ACES. I basically just have to set OCIO View and OCIO Look to blank in order to get an image that resembles the colors I might expect to see)

I have had a particular workflow with both blender and maya for a long time and this is certainly switching things up a bit and testing my understanding with the OCIO panel on top of the render settings. My only thought is that its going out and going in ACES but perhaps I should switch to Linear but then things get super dark and the gamma is definitely off so if anyone knows how to set this up properly, I would appreciate it.

x24 was updated to OCIO 2.0, which also requires an updated 2.0 config file.
Filmic uses an older configuration file, that's why the colors are not displayed correctly.

btw, how did you get Filmic to work with OCIO on x23? Did you use the built-in Blender Filmic config file or did you download it elsewhere?
Because I can't get this to work on x23 properly, and have a similar look to Cycles. It always looks like the gamma is cranked up a lot (everything looks almost white and dull, like in a fog)

I really wish there was a "normal" color manager by default. Highlight compression looks outdated and makes the image look washed out and less attractive. I also tried ACES, but I don't like the way it looks and feels. Still wondering how Daz3D(IRAY) solved this problem with the highlights, since they use linear, and it's very hard to achieve overbright and burn image there, which you have to deal in Octane all the time

kabakZ wrote:x24 was updated to OCIO 2.0, which also requires an updated 2.0 config file.
Filmic uses an older configuration file, that's why the colors are not displayed correctly.

btw, how did you get Filmic to work with OCIO on x23? Did you use the built-in Blender Filmic config file or did you download it elsewhere?
Because I can't get this to work on x23 properly, and have a similar look to Cycles. It always looks like the gamma is cranked up a lot (everything looks almost white and dull, like in a fog)

I really wish there was a "normal" color manager by default. Highlight compression looks outdated and makes the image look washed out and less attractive. I also tried ACES, but I don't like the way it looks and feels. Still wondering how Daz3D(IRAY) solved this problem with the highlights, since they use linear, and it's very hard to achieve overbright and burn image there, which you have to deal in Octane all the time

You are awesome. Good to know that its not explicetly that I did something wrong. No, all I had to do was run it on auto and as long as it was set to linear aces I was set and good to go. No change in the scene at all unless I explicitly set the OCIO settings in the camera or override. Now it just straight up is always on. Which is fine... but I was super confused.

EDIT: Upgraded to OCIO 2.0. This is definitely a lot better. The colors look a lot cleaner. More correct. Filmic isn't a thing anymore which sorta sucks a little but its all good. At the end of the day as long as my view transform matches in all my editing software then I guess we are good. I only work on film compositing renders like 20% of the time so I think it will be ok... I guess I am gonna have to just play around until I figure out which OCIO view I like the most but out of the gate it is a lot more flat than even OCIO 1 with x23. Definitely good headroom.

Whites are a lot brighter and dont have as much detail unfortunately but I may just have to tinker. Do you happen to have any suggestions of which view/look to use?

In terms of the washed look. I grew up on full linear work flow. I didn't learn on aces or anything of the like. The way I learned was get it right in linear and edit from there. That is great and all except light sources look TERRIBLE (they just look straight bad) and hot spots look especially hot. I know the washed look is annoying but for someone like me who focuses mainly on materials and lighting, it makes it a breeze, and that sets you / your compositors up for success as the footage rolls down the pipeline. I will say, though, I am still sure I am doing something wrong because like I said, whites are right back to blown out with OCIO 2 and I really am just not in LOVE with the looks as they are without filmic. As I transitioned away from editing in a linear color transformed I moved immediately to ACES. This was some handfull plus years back now. I then moved to filmic as I moved back from maya to blender and fell in love with it, for better or worse. It is weird trying to get a workflow back for ACES and a lot has changed and to be honest I feel like I am back at square one.

Also, don't forget to change "white light spectrum" to legacy in kernel settings. This is set to D65 by default which gives a warmer tint (bug).

EDIT: Upgraded to OCIO 2.0. This is definitely a lot better. The colors look a lot cleaner. More correct.

Sounds interesting. Can you do a comparison image between OCIO 1 and 2.0 please? It's a shame we didn't get any visual comparison from the devs, just a mention that the color conversion has been improved.

kabakZ wrote:Also, don't forget to change "white light spectrum" to legacy in kernel settings. This is set to D65 by default which gives a warmer tint (bug).

EDIT: Upgraded to OCIO 2.0. This is definitely a lot better. The colors look a lot cleaner. More correct.

Sounds interesting. Can you do a comparison image between OCIO 1 and 2.0 please? It's a shame we didn't get any visual comparison from the devs, just a mention that the color conversion has been improved.

Yeah I will do a side by side comarison of sRGB. Comparison of filmic or ACES would be a bit hard because as it turns out, I seem to not have filmic anymore. I wrote in presets myself into v1 so depending on how much it has changed I may be able to port filmic to V2 but I need to do some research on that. If I can do it successfully ill post a download for my config.ocio file to download. Ill upload the comparison results in another post later when I can get to it.

Ill upload the comparison results in another post later when I can get to it

Can't wait to see the results!

I seem to not have filmic anymore

Well, as far as I know OCIO 2.0 support is on Blender's to-do list, so Filmic config will be updated to 2.0 too, but that could take a very long time, about a year or so...

kabakZ wrote:

Ill upload the comparison results in another post later when I can get to it

Can't wait to see the results!

I seem to not have filmic anymore

Well, as far as I know OCIO 2.0 support is on Blender's to-do list, so Filmic config will be updated to 2.0 too, but that could take a very long time, about a year or so...

So in the end I ended up doing a comparison of ACES to filmic because what I realized is another setting was affecting how it looks out of the box, but I did a lot of tests just to compare.
I am not entirely sure which if any of these I would actually like to integrate full time. To be completely honest, I am not overwhelmingly impressed with anything except maybe SDR video but the highlights worry me a bit on all of these except filmic. If you look at the gradient from highlight to shadow in the false color you will see what I mean. I dont feel like its actually packing more data into a smaller spectrum of values... I feel like its packing maybe a small bit more data in and then clipping off the rest. You can see from the large block of yellow with no real gradient followed by a short gradient in the light falloffs. Something just feels wrong about the curve, but I also havent tried any of them in an editor to compare how they edit. I am making this statement purely on my visual analysis I feel as though there must be some info out there on what kind of workflow to integrate with this.

Hi TStrolia,

TStrolia wrote: OCIO Config File : (routed to blenders config.ocio file)

It is recommended to avoid using the default Blender3D color management folder and instead, download it from the official source: https://sobotka.github.io/filmic-blender - long story short, the Blender3D developers made some changes to the naming convention - the files are the same, so is the result.

TStrolia wrote: (here's where it gets particularly dicey) OCIO view : Filmic (if enabled, highlights get a green glow in the highlights and shadows turn a bit magenta. Also, obviously gets even more washed out in compression because it is adding filmic to ACES. I basically just have to set OCIO View and OCIO Look to blank in order to get an image that resembles the colors I might expect to see)

I am confused about this part. Filmic by Troy Sobokta has nothing to do with ACES - In very short, ACES is a color encoding system, Filmic is considered to only be a "view transform" - the difference mostly lies in the rendering-working-space, Filmic uses the default sRGB/BT.709 primaries, while ACES uses ACEScg AP1 primaries for rendering. In the case of Octane, a rendering-working-space is absent as Octane is calculates the scene spectrally but encodes the rasterized result of the rendered image in a linear-scene-referred or display-referred sRGB color space, by default. Filmic is being applied "on top" of the default linear-sRGB (scene-referred)output/image file (unclamped 16-bit beauty EXR).

TStrolia wrote: My only thought is that its going out and going in ACES but perhaps I should switch to Linear but then things get super dark and the gamma is definitely off

"Linear" is not a color space. I strongly suggest reading my post: https://www.elsksa.me/blog/understandin ... al-imagery

kabakZ wrote:x24 was updated to OCIO 2.0, which also requires an updated 2.0 config file.
Filmic uses an older configuration file, that's why the colors are not displayed correctly.

Dangerous misleading information - .ocio configuration files from previous versions are readable.

kabakZ wrote: I really wish there was a "normal" color manager by default. Highlight compression looks outdated and makes the image look washed out and less attractive.

A built-in advanced tone-mapping/color-processing is not only difficult to engineer, but also costly and time-consuming. At the moment, it is not a number one necessity since solutions (in post, packages like Filmic or custom proprietary ones, etc) are available, and that has been the case for many years.

kabakZ wrote:Still wondering how Daz3D(IRAY) solved this problem with the highlights, since they use linear, and it's very hard to achieve overbright and burn image there, which you have to deal in Octane all the time

I have never used Iray, besides a few times in Substance Painter but "linear" is meaningless in this formulated sentence. I have two blog-posts that explain about the meaning of linear in digital imagery, color management fundamentals and some more: https://www.elsksa.me/blog/understandin ... al-imagery and here https://www.elsksa.me/blog/cgi-color-ma ... rvival-kit.

TStrolia wrote: No, all I had to do was run it on auto and as long as it was set to linear aces I was set and good to go. No change in the scene at all unless I explicitly set the OCIO settings in the camera or override. Now it just straight up is always on.

I am not sure to correctly follow this thread - are you setting Octane's Intermediate OCIO color space to ACES 2065-1 while using Filmic OCIO by Troy.S? If yes, then you should let it on auto, it will use Linear-sRGB as default and is the only correct way.

TStrolia wrote: EDIT: Upgraded to OCIO 2.0. This is definitely a lot better. The colors look a lot cleaner. More correct. Filmic isn't a thing anymore which sorta sucks a little but its all good. At the end of the day as long as my view transform matches in all my editing software then I guess we are good. I only work on film compositing renders like 20% of the time so I think it will be ok... I guess I am gonna have to just play around until I figure out which OCIO view I like the most but out of the gate it is a lot more flat than even OCIO 1 with x23. Definitely good headroom.

The one from Troy Sobotka? If yes, then it is still viable. Beware that not a single online solution such as Filmic and ACES, are perfect. They respectively have their set of issues and improvements to do. Explaining it here would not be appropriate and very lengthy to write and read. I do plan to do so via on my website.

TStrolia wrote: Whites are a lot brighter and dont have as much detail unfortunately but I may just have to tinker. Do you happen to have any suggestions of which view/look to use?

Filmic OCIO By Troy.S did not change at all. If you had a working setup before, I assume a correct one, it did not change. It is still scene-referred linear-sRGB to Filmic Log to display-referred with contrast looks (in short).

TStrolia wrote:I will say, though, I am still sure I am doing something wrong because like I said, whites are right back to blown out with OCIO 2

There seems to be an enormous confusion here. OCIO is a color management framework, it does not make sense that OCIO 2.0 allows for better or worse highlights or any drastic different result. OCIO allows for importing external color encoding/management solutions, OCIO itself without anything loaded to it, does strictly nothing.

kabakZ wrote:Also, don't forget to change "white light spectrum" to legacy in kernel settings. This is set to D65 by default which gives a warmer tint (bug).

It is not a bug. "D65" is referring to the CIE Standard Illuminant D Series D65.

TStrolia wrote: Comparison of filmic or ACES would be a bit hard because as it turns out, I seem to not have filmic anymore.

If I understood correctly, you made your own OCIO configuration file containing both ACES and Filmic by Troy.S?

kabakZ wrote: Well, as far as I know OCIO 2.0 support is on Blender's to-do list, so Filmic config will be updated to 2.0 too, but that could take a very long time, about a year or so...

I suggest to read my answer relating to OCIO configuration readability.

TStrolia wrote:
So in the end I ended up doing a comparison of ACES to filmic because what I realized is another setting was affecting how it looks out of the box, but I did a lot of tests just to compare.

OCIO_LINEAR.png

OCIO_LINEAR_FalseColor.png

OCIO_V1_Test_Filmic.jpg

OCIO_V1_Test_Filmic_FalseColor.jpg

OCIO_V2_Test_sRGB-LOG.jpg

OCIO_V2_Test_sRGB-LOG_FalseColor.jpg

OCIO_V2_Test_ACES-SDR-Video.jpg

OCIO_V2_Test_ACES-SDR-Video_FalseColor.jpg

OCIO_V2_Test_Un-tone-mapped.jpg

OCIO_V2_Test_Un-tone-mapped_FalseColor.jpg

I am not entirely sure which if any of these I would actually like to integrate full time. To be completely honest, I am not overwhelmingly impressed with anything except maybe SDR video but the highlights worry me a bit on all of these except filmic. If you look at the gradient from highlight to shadow in the false color you will see what I mean. I dont feel like its actually packing more data into a smaller spectrum of values... I feel like its packing maybe a small bit more data in and then clipping off the rest. You can see from the large block of yellow with no real gradient followed by a short gradient in the light falloffs. Something just feels wrong about the curve, but I also havent tried any of them in an editor to compare how they edit. I am making this statement purely on my visual analysis I feel as though there must be some info out there on what kind of workflow to integrate with this.

All these images look abnormal and technically wrong, besides the unclamped ones.

The issue is unreleated to OCIO, Filmic or ACES. Remember that for Filmic OCIO by Troy.S to work properly, you need a linear-sRGB scene-referred 16-bit beauty unclamped OpenEXR file. I explain this part in the following link: https://www.elsksa.me/blog/octane-rende ... management