How to enable ACES in Anchorpoint

If your rendering and compositing workflow relies on ACES, it makes a lot of sense to have an image viewer that can display them correctly. Anchorpoint is able to view EXR files and can apply any OCIO color spaces such as ACEScg, ACEScct, Rec. 709, or Raw. The following video will show you how to do that.

How to enable ACES?

Firstly, all color settings are applied on a project level and not globally. This means that you can have multiple projects with different color settings in Anchorpoint. To enable ACES, just follow these three steps:

How to use my own OCIO configuration?

It makes sense to use the .ocio file from your DCC or compositing application. Go to Color Config and choose Custom Config. This will open a browser where you can select your .ocio file.

This will have an impact on the Input Color Space and Output Color Space options.

Frequently asked questions

What is ACES?

ACES stands for Academy Color Encoding System and is a standard for storing color information in digital files and maintaining a consistent color workflow among applications and devices, such as cameras. In case of rendering, you can see this as an alternative to the linear workflow.

Why should I use ACES?

ACES is becoming an industry standard. Understanding it is a must-have for every industry professional.

The real benefit of ACES is a consistent color workflow across the whole CG pipeline. For example, you save a lot of time adjusting the color of your renderings with your camera footage once they are both in the ACES space.

ACEScg vs Linear

In short: ACES has a much bigger space than Linear. The render can store much more colors that facilitate color grading.

Linear is gamma, while ACES is a gamut, which can be seen as a huge palette of colors. When rendering ACEScg, you’re actually rendering linear gamma in the ACES gamut. Depending on the render engine, rendering in “linear” mode could mean that you are using sRGB primaries (essentially rendering in the sRGB gamut) or similar limited gamuts. ACES is a very wide gamut designed to capture more variations in color and it reaches as close as possible to the full visual range of colors that humans can see.

OCIO and ACES

OCIO stands for opencolor.io, which is the technical framework for storing ACES profiles. These profiles are stored in .ocio files, just like pixels are stored in a .png file. OCIO is a complete solution that helps developers integrate ACES into their applications, so that artists don't need to deal with the technical details.

Do all applications support ACES?

Almost. It’s a work in progress. While some applications like Cinema 4D and After Effects support ACES natively, some others require plugins that will convert your images to the ACES color space.