I’m currently working with a friend on compositing an indie show that was filmed using Red cameras. The plates were exported through Red Cine X and provided to me for compositing. I’m using Nuke 16.0v6 for this project.
Here’s the issue: my friend is viewing the outputted plates on his workstation in Nuke 6, and the plates are being read as linear (in the non-ACES color profile that Nuke used to support before ACES was introduced). His Nuke viewer is set to sRGB.
In contrast, he’s sending me renders from Cinema 4D, which, according to him, were rendered using the ACES color profile.
I’m working in ACES on my end, so when I bring in his plates, they are being interpreted as scene_linear in my Nuke setup, and my viewer is set to RAW.
What I need help with is how to emulate the look he is seeing in his Nuke (which doesn’t use ACES) within my ACES environment. I need to ensure that when I render out the final comp, it matches the color profile of the plates he’s providing me, so the final render appears consistent when he views it on his workstation.
Maybe the pipeline can be streamlined and simplified. Why not also have your friend use ACES in Nuke? I’m not super familiar with version 6 but the older OCIOv1 ACES 1 LUT based configs should at least be compatible I think. That way the entire pipeline runs and is viewed in ACES rather than two different management streams.
When that is done the other thing to verify is what RedCineX was actually exporting? Was it ACES EXRs? Those would be ACES2065-1 which is AP0 primaries linear. If you’re using the default-nuke config, only tagging it as linear and viewing srgb would yield in not only a lack of tone mapping but also the wrong (or rather lack off) color primaries conversion. Not very useful for judging the result.
On that same topic in your own Nuke the plates should also be flagged as the correct linear space. scene_linear means whatever color space that role is assigned to which is ACEScg (AP1/Linear) in the case of ACES configs.
The Cinema4D renders are likely in ACEScg because that’s the rendering space if you use ACES. Unless the output color space was manually changed to something else for the export.
Your viewer should not be RAW, that means you do not apply any conversion from the workingspace. It should also be sRGB if using an sRGB display.