F35: Aces

D

dhessel

Well-known member
For those of you who have not tried using ACES with slog/sgamut from the F35 you absolutely should. It has been giving me the best most neutral results I have ever had from the F35. Combined with the color chart feature in Resolve the results you end up with an excellent base for grading with very little work and are superior to just using the color chart feature without ACES. For any Nuke users out there, Nuke has an F35 IDT built in.

The only downside I have seen so far with Resolve is that once in ACES film emulation luts designed for Rec709 don't seem to work properly, interestingly I have not noticed that behaviour in Nuke but haven't fully looked into it either. I am not using them with the F35 anymore anyway. FilmConvert seems to work fine in ACES for both. Once you get used to how to ACES configured it is very simple to use and getting it setup is only a few simple steps. You also gain the advantage of being able to keep the wide gamut of sgamut if you ever want to go out to anything other than Rec709.


If you have not seen it below is a article on how to uses ACES in Resolve with the F35.

http://www.filmscientist.com/blog/2015/01/29/film-scientist-aces-workflow-revisited/
 
Awesome - I need to learn ACES asap. Also I'm not techincal - but going from sgamut as a source - doesn't that already bake in a look?
There is no way to record off a f35 in aces mode right - the most you can do is convert a sgamut and slog curve to this later?

Is it like going from a 8-bit pro res proxy file and transcoding it to 12-bit pro res 4444?
 
dhessel said:
For those of you who have not tried using ACES with slog/sgamut from the F35 you absolutely should. It has been giving me the best most neutral results I have ever had from the F35. Combined with the color chart feature in Resolve the results you end up with an excellent base for grading with very little work and are superior to just using the color chart feature without ACES. For any Nuke users out there, Nuke has an F35 IDT built in.

The only downside I have seen so far with Resolve is that once in ACES film emulation luts designed for Rec709 don't seem to work properly, interestingly I have not noticed that behaviour in Nuke but haven't fully looked into it either. I am not using them with the F35 anymore anyway. FilmConvert seems to work fine in ACES for both. Once you get used to how to ACES configured it is very simple to use and getting it setup is only a few simple steps. You also gain the advantage of being able to keep the wide gamut of sgamut if you ever want to go out to anything other than Rec709.


If you have not seen it below is a article on how to uses ACES in Resolve with the F35.

http://www.filmscientist.com/blog/2015/01/29/film-scientist-aces-workflow-revisited/
Click to expand...

that article is somewhat out of date, we are now on ACES v1.0 and Baselight 4.4, Nucoda 2016.1, Resolve v12.3.. there is both Slog2 and Slog3 IDT's on offer

a film emulation lut is only of use if you are going to print, and in 2016 not many films go to print anymore, and the one's that do tend to use P3 master for their filmout

i'm sure the folks who sell you look luts will start selling you powergrades soon....
 
Actually Dermot, a lot of films even though they don't go out to print, still use film emulation luts - because they normalize the film for every format, DVD, Blu Ray, VOD, etc.
I find the luts people sell can be a lot too over the top, but something, they also also prove useful as a starting point.
 
MeesePiece said:
Actually Dermot, a lot of films even though they don't go out to print, still use film emulation luts - because they normalize the film for every format, DVD, Blu Ray, VOD, etc.
I find the luts people sell can be a lot too over the top, but something, they also also prove useful as a starting point.
Click to expand...

ummmm, i've graded a feature every 90 days on average for the last decade ..

i don't think any of the so called film emulation luts will normalise anything for any format... a real film emulation lut is provided by the film out lab to match their chemistry alone, and they used to shift about on a constant basis... a technical re-creation of a given print stock at a given lab on a given week.

all the formats you list are derived from a single source, a 709 broadcast master, no need to normalise anything there, the spec's call for a common single input format in all cases.. only need to make a broadcast legal show that looks good on a callibrated 709 monitor... full stop....

makes me wonder what's being sold, but what ever it is, i've never found a need for it

i have used real film emulation LUT's from Technicolor, ADlab, DasWerk, Deluxe, CineByte and more over the years

i have taken all sorts of "look luts" often marketed as "film emulation" luts, and reverse engineered them to remove the quantaision errors and other destructive math errors that are evident if you apply over top of a linear gradeient and look at your scopes

on a dare i reverse engineered the koji Fujichrome film emulation lut to a point it could not be told apart on MARCIE and it took me just under 15 min to do so.. there's no dark magic there, someone smart has twiddled their knobs and sold their work to you.. you can twiddle some knobs too if you wish, or save the time

i do not use any luts other than one provided by a lab for a specfic film
 
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then it's "look lut" and if oyu can live with it cllpping / chushing / quantasation errors
-and-
if you can't just make something on your own that you like the looks of...

go for it

already there's Resolve transforms for sale that will do the same thing as lut's but without the dammage attached... nothing like that for Baselight, Luster and Nucoda, but most folks who use those systems can probbaly make it up as they go along anyway
 
a couple more thoughts about ACES... i've graded maybe 6 or 7 features with it over the last few years in Baselight, Nucoda and Resolve...

- would not use it in Resolve before v12.2, the low end roll off was probelmatic before that
- works best for me with film style gradeing tools, and the majority of folks who are using it seem to sue the same tools
- unfortunalty these tools are not well implemented in Resolve, some are completly missing, so Baselight and Nucoda are easier to work with in ACES
- all systems have weakness with some tools being written for display refered input, there's work arounds
- the good far out weighs the bad in total - for me
 
dhessel said:
For those of you who have not tried using ACES with slog/sgamut from the F35 you absolutely should. It has been giving me the best most neutral results I have ever had from the F35. Combined with the color chart feature in Resolve the results you end up with an excellent base for grading with very little work and are superior to just using the color chart feature without ACES. For any Nuke users out there, Nuke has an F35 IDT built in.

The only downside I have seen so far with Resolve is that once in ACES film emulation luts designed for Rec709 don't seem to work properly, interestingly I have not noticed that behaviour in Nuke but haven't fully looked into it either. I am not using them with the F35 anymore anyway. FilmConvert seems to work fine in ACES for both. Once you get used to how to ACES configured it is very simple to use and getting it setup is only a few simple steps. You also gain the advantage of being able to keep the wide gamut of sgamut if you ever want to go out to anything other than Rec709.


If you have not seen it below is a article on how to uses ACES in Resolve with the F35.

http://www.filmscientist.com/blog/2015/01/29/film-scientist-aces-workflow-revisited/
Click to expand...

I never tried aces. I get great result with normal lut work so I never saw need. But if it can make F35 look even better I must do one day.
 
dhessel said:
For those of you who have not tried using ACES with slog/sgamut from the F35 you absolutely should. It has been giving me the best most neutral results I have ever had from the F35. Combined with the color chart feature in Resolve the results you end up with an excellent base for grading with very little work and are superior to just using the color chart feature without ACES. For any Nuke users out there, Nuke has an F35 IDT built in.

The only downside I have seen so far with Resolve is that once in ACES film emulation luts designed for Rec709 don't seem to work properly, interestingly I have not noticed that behaviour in Nuke but haven't fully looked into it either. I am not using them with the F35 anymore anyway. FilmConvert seems to work fine in ACES for both. Once you get used to how to ACES configured it is very simple to use and getting it setup is only a few simple steps. You also gain the advantage of being able to keep the wide gamut of sgamut if you ever want to go out to anything other than Rec709.


If you have not seen it below is a article on how to uses ACES in Resolve with the F35.

http://www.filmscientist.com/blog/2015/01/29/film-scientist-aces-workflow-revisited/
Click to expand...

dhessel, I know you've been an ACES proponent and I'm wondering if you could help identify where I'm going wrong on my first attempts with it.

Here's an untouched slog frame brought into davinci, with default color science/management:
acesfail_1.1.4.jpg

When I switch the color science to davinci ACES (no input transform, sRGB output transform), it looks like this:
acesfail_1.1.1.jpg

Now when I apply the filmscientist LUT to the clip (in lieu of an input transform), it goes real dark:
acesfail_1.1.2.jpg

If I try ACEScc color science instead of davinci ACES, the clip with LUT applied blows out:
acesfail_1.1.3.jpg

My understanding is that once davinci is in ACES mode, the filmscientist lut should put it in a neutral place from which to begin grading. Am I missing a step?
 
You left out the IDT. You have to use the IDT and ODT in concert. They're integral to the chain with ACEs.
 
Grug said:
You left out the IDT. You have to use the IDT and ODT in concert. They're integral to the chain with ACEs.
Click to expand...

Thanks Grug, but now I'm confused. The filmscientist link says that his LUT serves as a replacement for the IDT, which doesn't exist in davinci for the F35. If this is out of date info, which IDT should I be using?
 
You are right, you use the lut in stead of an IDT in the color management settings. Without seeing your settings it is hard to say for sure but what you have posted seems like you are doing everything correctly. The lut should be applied to the clips in the media pool not the color tab. Is that where you applied it? If so are you sure that your shot was not underexposed to begin with? You won't necessarily end up with a perfectly neutral grade right off the bat, you willl need to WB.
 
dhessel said:
The lut should be applied to the clips in the media pool not the color tab.
Click to expand...

That was exactly the issue! When the lut is applied as a 3d input to the project it all just works. Very natural and rich skin tones with minimal tweaking. Think I was expecting a baseline ACES image to be flatter, but they are real punchy.
filmscientist said on another thread:

"If ACES is viewed without a proper gamma curve (as linear data) then it can look super contrasty and saturated."
 
MikalZ said:
That was exactly the issue! When the lut is applied as a 3d input to the project it all just works. Very natural and rich skin tones with minimal tweaking. Think I was expecting a baseline ACES image to be flatter, but they are real punchy.
filmscientist said on another thread:

"If ACES is viewed without a proper gamma curve (as linear data) then it can look super contrasty and saturated."
Click to expand...

This is refering to something a little bit different, if you don't set an ODT then you will be viewing it linear which is very contrasty. What you have is just normal Rec709 contrast with its 8 or so stops of DR. It looks so contrasty just because we are so used to seeing it flat shot in log.

It shouldn't be flat at all it should look like you shot in Rec709 rather than a log profile. Everything is done in linear floating point space so all of your highlights are still there they are just super white you can bring all of it back down if you want. Doing this in combination with Resolves color chart tool will give you a very neutral starting point.

Using this approach in combination with the color chart tool in resolve will get you a very neutral starting point for grading.

Would be great to see a final image.
 
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dhessel said:
This is refering to something a little bit different, if you don't set an ODT then you will be viewing it linear which is very contrasty. What you have is just normal Rec709 contrast with its 8 or so stops of DR. It looks so contrasty just because we are so used to seeing it flat shot in log.

It shouldn't be flat at all it should look like you shot in Rec709 rather than a log profile. Everything is done in linear floating point space so all of your highlights are still there they are just super white you can bring all of it back down if you want. Doing this in combination with Resolves color chart tool will give you a very neutral starting point.

Using this approach in combination with the color chart tool in resolve will get you a very neutral starting point for grading.

Would be great to see a final image.
Click to expand...

Ah, he was referring to viewing without an ODT. That makes sense. Thanks for the further info dhessel, I'm sold. No more film luts!
Here's how the colors look in ACES:

aces-grade_2.1.1.jpg
 
Looks great! When I apply my ACES Lut I seem to get a lot of noise. Was this the case for you until you dialed it back?
 
odshannon said:
Looks great! When I apply my ACES Lut I seem to get a lot of noise. Was this the case for you until you dialed it back?
Click to expand...

Thanks odshannon. I only saw a noise increase when my ordering was wrong above. Now that the lut is a project input without an IDT specified it looks about right. Is that same footage not noisy when viewed under davinci yrgb color science with a film print lut applied?
 
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