Hello, I’m trying to figure out what workflow should I use to capture footage and import it to nuke in ACES properly.
What Color Space and what gamma curve should I use in camera on-set?
What options should I choose in READ node in Nuke to correctly interpret the footage?
I have some test footage captured in DRAGONcolor2 / REDgamma4, but I had no luck figuring out how to read it correctly.
There are so many options and settings, and honestly I’m totally confused as this is my first experience. I appreciate your help!
I must say I am not really a fan of reading in R3D files into Nuke, because of the many combinations possible and therefore the many ways that this can go wrong.
I would rather recommend to convert the R3D footage to ACES 2065-1 EXR files with Resolve or RedCine-X PRO and use these in Nuke.
I loaded the EXRs vom Resolve and RedCine-X PRO into Nuke and then loaded the 3RD into Nuke 12.2v2 as well.
I had to set the read node to the following settings to get a match:
(I also had to click Load Settings from RMD.)
As a side effect when you using RedCine-X Pro, you also can keep all the metadata from the camera throughout the comp until the grading stage or eventually even mastering
Maybe your workflow is already to your liking but I’d like to add that the RED workflow with all the “previous” RED colorspaces/gammas are actually considered legacy and a better way would be to utilize it’s fairly new IPP2 workflow as it contains benefits over legacy when utilizing it’s tonemapper over starting in log or other setting. Here is a brief topic on what it is. And here you can find the page from RED.
Workflow wise with IPP2 there is always a single RED space and gamma for any RED camera. If your camera is pre IPP2 it’s possible you can’t record with that metadata. A solution would be to output the RedWideGamut/RedLog3G10 and use an IPP2 lut to tonemap it to the desired IPP2 setting.
Those Luts can be downloaded from RED or created with RED Cine-X Pro from the menu.
You could then use that same lut in Nuke to get your “starting point” from the log image.
Sounds a bit convoluted at first but really is a much simpler workflow when you get the hang of it and garuantees the same results in post as on-set.
Thanks for the reply Shebbe! I’m not sure that I quite get your point, I mean I don’t fully understand how IPP2 relates to ACES, and my workflow is ACES based as it involves vfx also rendered in ACES to be comped later. As far as I understand the RedCine-X Pro uses the IPP2 workflow internally, so when I export an ACES compliant exrs, I get the same look inside nuke as it is in RedCine with IPP2 output transforms. I definitely lack some in-depth understanding though and may be totally wrong
Ah, I see. I didn’t know you were utilizing IPP2 already.
I’m not that familliar with r3d’s and Nuke. But I wonder though if there is a way to skip exporting to exr to make data much more efficient.
As what colorspace and gamma do you export your R3Ds to exr?
I also wonder if there’s loss in data if you’d export in rec709/linear in order to presumably include the IPP2 tonemapping over directly converting the full RedLog3G10/RedWideGamut to ACEScg as working space.
I should do some testing on my own to get a better understanding on that too actually!
.