Blender Support for ACES

WHAT IS ACES? The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) is becoming the industry standard for managing color throughout the life cycle of a motion picture or television production. From image capture through editing, VFX, mastering, public presentation, archiving and future remastering, ACES ensures a consistent color experience that preserves the filmmaker’s creative vision. In addition to the creative benefits, ACES addresses and solves a number of significant production, post-production and archiving problems that have arisen with the increasing variety of digital cameras and formats in use, as well as the surge in the number of productions that rely on worldwide collaboration using shared digital image files.

ACES is a free, open, device-independent color management and image interchange system that can be applied to almost any current or future workflow. It was developed by hundreds of the industry’s top scientists, engineers and end users, working together under the auspices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

ACES 1.0 is the first production-ready release of the system, the result of over 10 years of research, testing and field trials. It includes support for a wide variety of digital and film-based production workflows, visual effects, animation and archiving.

WHAT PRODUCTIONS HAVE USED ACES? ACES 1.0 is currently being integrated in many of the hardware and software tools you already use. There have been many significant and successful uses of pre-release version of ACES. For a partial list of productions, please have look at ACES listings on IMDb or ShotOnWhat.com .

WHAT PROBLEMS DOES ACES 1.0 SOLVE? Today’s motion pictures and television shows are complex collaborative efforts, involving many separate companies using digital image capture, image creation and editorial workflows that are much more difficult to integrate than film-based workflows.

On a typical production there might be three or four different digital cameras as well as a film camera in use, all recording to different devices and media using different data formats. During post-production, especially on major motion pictures, multiple facilities may be engaged for editing, visual effects, mastering and other work. Digital image files arrive at these facilities in any of a dozen (or more!) formats and color encoding schemes, often without essential metadata. At the end of the process, studio deliverables could range from large-screen film prints to mobile device encodings.

All along the way, the integration challenges increase – and on the horizon there are undoubtedly emerging technologies and new all-digital distribution platforms that will add complexities of their own.

ACES 1.0 solves numerous integration challenges by enabling consistent, high-quality color management from production to distribution. It provides digital image encoding and other specifications that preserve the latitude and color range of the original imagery, allowing the highest-quality images possible from the cameras and processes used. Equally important, ACES 1.0 establishes a common standard so deliverables can be efficiently and predictably created and preserved. ACES 1.0 enables filmmakers to manage the look of a production today and into the future.