November 9, 2020

Host: Michael Dolan

Attendees:

• [X] Mark Boorer (TSC) - Industrial Light & Magic

• [X] Mei Chu (TSC) - Sony Pictures Imageworks

• [ ] Sean Cooper (TSC ACES TAC Rep) - DNEG

• [X] Michael Dolan (TSC Chair) - Epic Games

• [X] Patrick Hodoul (TSC) - Autodesk

• [ ] John Mertic - Academy Software Foundation / Linux Foundation

• [X] Carol Payne (TSC) - Netflix

• [X] Mark Titchener (TSC) - Foundry

• [ ] Carl Rand (TSC) - Weta Digital

• [X] Doug Walker (TSC Chief Architect) - Autodesk

• [X] Kevin Wheatley (TSC) - Framestore

• [X] Bernard Lefebvre - Autodesk

• [X] J Schulte - Industrial Light & Magic

• [X] Matthias Scharfenberg - Industrial Light & Magic

OCIO TSC Meeting Notes

• Response to ILM questions:

  • Doug: Wrote up answers for ILM, provided doc in last week's TSC notes. Also created issue #1199 to facilitate discussion on topics.

• Overview of new PRs:

  • #1183 - Add operator << for FormatMetadata:

    • Doug: Making more convenient to access file format metadata from python. Maps to __repr__ in python.

  • #1184 - Description in Config files

    • Doug: Improved descriptions in config files. Cases where single or multiline desc for color space, etc. Cleans up handling of those and adds unit tests.

  • #1189 - Named color transforms

    • Doug: Issue #1101, discussed at August v2 wg meeting. Sharing slides from wg meeting. How to integrate legacy transforms into OCIO. Sometimes users just want to apply gamma or log-to-lin (with no matrix). But want to specify them in OCIO config and access via OCIO tools. Example: "Utility Curve/Shaper" color spaces in ACES config, which are kind of broken (i.e. only a shaper if going to ACES2065-1).

      • Add named transforms section to config. Authors can define these transforms in that area. ACES config has these transforms, represented as color spaces, but problematic if you're not starting from the right color space. These curve/shaper color spaces could then become named transforms instead.

      • Apps could provide plug-in for accessing named transforms, or use with ColorSpaceTransform or DisplayViewTransforms. They do not show up in color space menus by default.

      • In ColorSpaceTransform and DisplayViewTransform, accepted like color spaces as arguments to these transforms. Would bypass the "other half" of the conversion. e.g. ColorSpaceTransform("Utility - Curve - sRGB", "ACEScg") -> apply the named transform and consider the result as ACEScg.

      • As mentioned in previous meeting, open to other proposals for how to handle this, but nothing has been presented. Made very clear that this is a hard requirement and want to do it within OCIO rather than as separate tool. See issue and PR for more info.

    • Mark B: Not excited about it. Not part of config authoring process so can't see how chain of operations ties together. Highlighted by ACES config, which ref color space is ACES2065-1, but people want to work in ACEScg, so problematic with the extra matrix and color shift. What users have hard requirement?

    • Doug: From users of thing like Maya and Flame, CG animation and rendering, or finishing or compositing.

    • J: More dangerous in those applications. Easier for UX, but breaks fundamental rules of moving to color managed process.

    • Doug: In big facility with color scientist, makes sense. A lot of users don't have that. Proponent of the benefits of working proper color managed way, but a lot of our users have not gotten to that point yet. Looking in OCIO example configs repo, one is called nuke-default, a Foundry config, made up of these sort of utility transforms as well.

    • J/Mark B: Legacy config, made to allow continuation of Nuke workflows with OCIO. Just proof of concepts to get Nuke color management outside of Nuke.

    • Mark T: Just to replicate Nuke color management system.

    • Doug: Not recommending this approach, just saying it's a reality that a lot of people want to work this way. Because of legacy. Users 5-10 years behind state of art.

    • Mark B: Talking about OCIO, not legacy workflows. Don't want to enshrine these workflows, allow people to break the model.

    • Carol: If not using the standard ACES config, using nuke-default, not making own configs. If you're trying to get facilities caught up in a non-disruptive way, this would be an ok way to do that since it's saying what it is explicitly. Not getting unintended results. I Like that.

    • Mark B: Disagree. This is enabling people. Those that don't understand color management are not are not going to be set right by named transforms. Going to be enabled to work how they want and think they have OCIO blessing. OCIO is an opinionated color management library, not just a toolbox.

    • J: Valid question, is there an appetite for something like this as a guiding path? Love to get input on that. Everyone has valid point of view, but as a whole, what is the missions statement here? Are we willing to compromise OCIO principles, or are there decisions and workflows we want the industry to move into?

    • Doug: To clarify, think its clear users feel a need for this. It's in the ACES config for a reason. Not that we're encouraging this, just calling it what it is. Right now masquerading these as color spaces, but they aren't. Reality that some want these and we should not call them color spaces. If you're worried about encouraging this behavior, I don't see that. See it as making it clearer to people how to do color management. If you say we don't want you to use named transforms, clear way to talk about the scenario. Don't want to frame the question as: is this a good idea for color management? Most on same page to not recommend it. If they are going to do it, and ACES config has it, and should be called what they are.

    • Mark B: Color spaces are a simplification to allow talking about OCIO. Just a block in chain that joins images together.

    • Carol: Should be explicit though, call this what it is, not a color space.

    • MArk B: Increasing complexity with little benefit.

    • Matthias: Sort of agree with Carol. Agree having them in there as first class citizen potentially perpetuating workflow and simplistic interpretation of color management to avoid. Don't like to compromise, but if have to have it, see benefit of it being explicit.

    • Mark B: Who needs it other than the config author? If you're the author you know where you need to_ref and from_ref. Current toolkit not complex and solves all these problems without extra level.

    • Carol: Another group pf people sit between authors and users. Those that don't have someone to write config for them and need to understand the config. This would aid those people and it's a big. Not everyone can be a config author, requires skill not all have. Need to support them.

    • J: The question is what is OCIO, who does it serve? A lot of that user experience is driven by applications that use OCIO. What do we want to enable those workflows to be like in OCIO. If there's a need for these, that's a thing. But does OCIO have an opinion about this? Or do we sacrifice some of that to give users accessible use of OCIO?

    • Matthias: Look at it from different point of view. Having transform is one thing. Doug, any idea what would look like when presented to end user, in say... Nuke. OCIOColorSpace node would not have this. Doesn't fit there. Would it be a separate thing? Just an OCIO transform or legacy transform?

    • Doug: Will vary based on application and task. For example, if importing something into proper color managed env. If using Maya and ACEScg as rendering space. May want to bring something in and call it ACEScg, but you're not sure what the original texture is. Don't have info so going to apply inverse gamma curve and call it ACEScg. Same workflow as textures where you do know color space. May have other scenarios where want to apply transform itself like FileTransform.

    • Kevin: If I know how to read config, and just want to get transform, this is a convenience. File transforms don't encapsulate all new transforms, so harder to put this in file.

    • Mark: Config author could do that.

    • Kevin: Convenience for mocking up a config, but once done, not have it. Could create separate Nuke node with obscure name for special use, but not to be used by default.

    • Matthias: Feels like amalgamation of old Nuke 1D input color space for read node, and the new ability to use specific color space. Feels like jamming those two workflows together. Could cause confusion down the line, if you have color managed workflow.

    • J: From user perspective, having one thing that does full transform, or one that does just the 1D path, does this make it harder for people? User may not know what the differences are. Are we making it harder?

    • Carol: Like the analogy of using this in place where would have used FileTransform before. As simple as that.

    • Mark B: Who uses raw file transforms though? If this is just a shortcut to a 1D LUT.

    • Kevin: If it was just 1D LUT, no point, but encapsulating other transforms has more benefit. Have a lot of users who will try to decipher how to get between two images. Would be handy for that. Once you figure it out, put it into color space.

    • Carol: For many users, try in Nuke to figure out what happened, get to place of confidence of where they are at, and work on image.

    • Doug: A lot of people on OCIO/ACES forums that don't understand how OCIO config works, but in positron of having to use it to solve problems. Think there are a lot of those people out there.

    • Matthias: Maybe needs clear distinction that this is not a color space, with no to and from ref, just forward or reverse with name.

    • J: How do you solve this without offering up these workflows. At least gives them something over nothing.

    • Mark B: Just documentation, teaching how to use it. Adding named transforms not going to improve that.

    • Doug: Don't see how to solve this with documentation. Would need huge number of color spaces, for this audience who aren't config authors. If these are color spaces, would need every possible combination of color space and non-linearity. Another workflow is unfortunately that some apps allow a color transform where you specify independently a matrix and a non-linearity. Can create a lot of trouble by mixing and matching weird combinations. Sometimes people get things from these other software. Nightmare to include every combination, but with named transform, have way of undoing what had been done.

    • Carol: Seems like added complication, but could look at it as building block of step in direction of where we want to be. More educated users knowing what they are doing in color managed scenario. Until we get to that point, could view this as interim. Helps to teach and educate. Like in ACES gamut mapping wg, all agree it's not ideal, but we have to do what helps.

    • Mark B: Having multiple named transforms to reconcile error from another user. Are you anticipating a user assigning multiple named transforms in Maya UI, or still picking single transforms from named lists. If the later, still at mercy of config author, at which point it's just a doc or training session to explain choices.

    • Doug: Tried providing combinations in SynColor, many options, huge list of matrix and log-to-lin combinations and nightmare to deal with. Not desireable way of solving the problem.

    • J: Does TSC have a point of view on what color space interaction and user experience should be.

    • Michael: Think that's an important topic for discussion. Created issue #1174 for UX discussion where some of this could be determined.

    • Kevin: What I really need is a Nuke node, op builder, to put ops in a row.

    • Michael: Suggested a GSoC project to create OCIO GUI last year for exactly that reason. Would be awesome to have visual method for authoring configs.

      • Let's bookmark this conversation for next week. Gives us time to think this through more and can follow up to make an agreement.

• CUDA support:

  • Doug: Larry brought up topic about CUDA support, pressing issue for OSL and a number of CG rednderers.

  • Michael: We should follow up with Dennis about his OpenCL renderer. Could perhaps influence other GPU compute implementations like Metal, Vulkan, etc.

  • Mark B: Think this need is dying, since we now have OpenGL compute shader.

  • Michael: CUDA requirement might be tied to OptiX. Could also explore tools to emit to multiple APIs. Spir-V.

  • Mark: Spir-V builder needs large dependency graph, needs LLVM. Not stable dependencies.

  • Patrick: Something to keep in mind. A lot of effort in current impl to not have direct OpenGL dependency in core. Clear distinction between core and shader language. Try to keep that. Advantage of OCIO.

  • Michael: Could be like OIIO which has plugins depending on optional dependencies. More ideal to only depend on runtime though.

  • Mark B: Windows has HLSL, Mac has Metal. Don't want to support all that stuff in the GPU impl. Emitting HLSL on Linux, etc. Could have call to get native shader code.

• Misc:

  • Michael: Please have a look at my question in PR #1197 about workarounds to support Python API docs on RTD. somewhat controversial choices so would like input. Also to TSC, please have a look at the ASWF survey questions. Could use some input on multiple choice answers.

  • Patrick: New API docs very helpful. Built branch locally and looks good.

  • Mei: Pavel, engineer from SPI starting using OCIO v2. Provided feedback that overall very happy. Performance is faster, and has not been any issues. Happy with it. Can get more feedback if there's specific questions for him.

• Items for next TSC meeting agenda:

  • Continued discussion on named color transforms.

  • Follow up on AD response to ILM feedback and questions.