ACES PIPELINE FOR CG AND NUKE

What is ACES?

The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) is an industry standard for managing color and digital files throughout the life cycle of most any media production, from motion picture, to television, video game, or immersive storytelling project. From image capture through editing, VFX, mastering, public presentation, archiving and future remastering, ACES ensures a consistent color experience that preserves the creators’ vision. It also “future proofs” your project and simplifies the creation of the many deliverables that are required of today’s productions.

Working with ACES

After the shoot, the rushes get converted to ACES (or stored in its original colorspace) and then the proxies for offline editing are exported to a Display Referred space (like rec709).

When the edit is locked, most of the times (especially if during the shot no DIT is present) the editor will export a .AAF/XML to the colorist that will reconform the edit to ACEScct, match the different shots, do a primary correction and discuss a first grade with the DOP and the director.

To make sure the VFX pipeline is smooth, the colorist will conform the shots to ACEScg for the VFX department, and will provide a set of show LUT’s for the artists to have a first idea of the final grade.

Any CG elements are rendered out and saved in ACEScg or in Linear sRGB, and the CG is composited. It is very important the same View LUTs are used, otherwise the CG will look completely different to the compositor than it did to the CG artist.

The previews are rendered out with the show LUT applied. The completed shots are rendered out to ACES again and are sent back to be reconformed and finally to the colorist that will work on the final grade.

REMOTE GRADING WITH DAVINCI RESOLVE

Chapter 173 of the Reference Manual

Introduction to Remote Grading

To enable colorists to work interactively with clients across the globe, DaVinci Resolve offers a remote grading option. It allows two matching DaVinci Resolve systems to be synchronized via an Internet connection such that changes made on the colorist’s workstation are immediately applied on the remote client’s workstation.

Cue commands are also synchronized to ensure that both systems are always on the same frame in the Timeline. Starting or stopping playback on the colorist’s DaVinci Resolve also starts and stops the remote client system. While a remote grading session is in progress, input from the user at the remote client’s DaVinci Resolve workstation is ignored.

Currently, the remote grading feature supports only color correction and does not allow editing or conforming during a session. The two colorist and remote DaVinci Resolve systems must have matching timelines and the number of clips, clip durations and system resolutions must match. The requirements and limitations of a remote grading session are summarized below.

Requirements for Remote Grading

The following requirements must be met for remote grading to work.

• The same version of DaVinci Resolve must be installed on both systems.
• The display resolution must be the same on both systems.
• The Timeline to be graded must be conformed on both machines prior to the start of the remote grading session.
• The number of clips on the Timeline and the duration of each clip must be identical.
• While grading, the active Timeline and versions on the remote client system are constantly updated. Creating, deleting, or switching the Timeline on the client’s DaVinci Resolve is not allowed. Doing so will terminate the remote grading session immediately.
• You cannot make any grading adjustments on the remote client’s DaVinci Resolve workstation until the remote grading session has ended.

NOTE: Remote grading does not require a shared database.

Setting Up for Remote Grading

To start a remote grading session, the client’s DaVinci Resolve must be able to connect to the colorist’s system using TCP/IP.

1. Open DaVinci Resolve on the remote client’s workstation (the one that’s being remotely controlled), log in, and open the project that will be remotely graded
2. Choose Workspace & Remote Grading (Ctrl-G) on the remote client’s workstation. A window is displayed with text fields to enter the IP address and port number of the colorist’s system.
3. Set the IP address field to the IP of the colorist’s DaVinci Resolve workstation. If the colorist’s system already has a public IP address, the port number can be left at its default value (15000). If the colorist’s system is on a private network, the colorist or their network administrator should set the port number to one on the public IP router that is internally routed to port 15000 of the colorist’s DaVinci Resolve.
4. Once the remote client clicks Connect, the client’s DaVinci Resolve system will attempt to establish a connection with the remote colorist’s workstation.
5. Once the connection is established, a pop-up appears on the colorist’s screen asking for permission to accept a Remote Grading connection.
6. Click OK to accept, minimize the size of this dialog window, and continue grading normally.

The Remote Grading session will remain active until one of the users chooses to disconnect or an error occurs causing DaVinci Resolve to automatically terminate the session.

Remote Grading Restrictions

To allow operation over low bandwidth and a potentially long latency Internet connection there are some restrictions to remote operation.

• When playback is started, the playback speeds on the two DaVinci Resolve systems may differ. The frame positions are only guaranteed to be synchronized when playback is stopped
• Input/output/display LUTs applied from the Config page on the colorist’s DaVinci Resolve will not have any effect on the client system. LUTS selected on the client’s DaVinci Resolve will be applied instead.
• Presets applied from the Config/Color pages on the colorist’s system will not have any effect on the client’s system. Presets selected on the client’s DaVinci Resolve will be applied instead.