After Effects setup for ACES
NOTE: This workflow based on a video from YouTube. I don't remember which one exactly. But this workflow the most simple one possible.
UPD 24.11.2021: Previous version with sRGB fix turned out to be not correct, it was shifting\desaturating colors. After a lot of exploration I've found correct workflow, at least it gives correct colors.
It's quite tricky to setup ACES workflow in After Effects because it doesn't support ACES correctly. But there is workaround for it. I requires a bit of time but brings all the benefits of ACES in After Effects.
Change Project settings
First open Project settings by clicking 8\16\32 bpc button in Project panel.
We don't want After Effects to do any color management in our project. Color management will be done by OpenColorIO plugin. Set 32 bit depth and Working Space to None.
Add ACES -> sRGB converter on timeline
Above your render add Adjustment layer and apply OpenColorIO plugin to it. Select ACES config. For Input select ACES - ACEScg (generally speaking, here you should choose the same color space in which you were rendering out from your render engine. For CG it's recommended to use ACEScg), for output select Output - sRGB.
Important! For you EXR footages rendered out from 3D software in ACEScg color space you should disable color management.
Because After Effects doesn't know how to treat ACES linear footages it tries to convert in to sRGB by default which break colors. Select your footage and click this button in Project panel in Color management tab tick Preserve RGB. This will tell After Effects not to convert the footage.
Also if any footages you bring in After Effects will look incorrect you should disable color management for them or change color space to correct color space.
How to work with this setup
Do all the color work below color conversion.
Some effects of plugins might work wrong within ACES color space then try to use it after color conversion. But it's better to avoid this because you want to work in ACES not sRGB
The logic here is that you want to do all the color work in ACES color space to use its wide gamut.
Rendering
Output in sRGB
This is how you usually render stuff out from After Effects if you won't work in ACES in further pipeline or it's your "final final" render.
Just make sure that ACES to sRGB layer enabled and render a composition as you usually do.
Output in ACES
If you want to keep ACES color space to work with the footage later make sure to disable ACES to sRGB layer and then render in ProRes 4444.
Small tip
Your can setup environment variable for ACES config and OpenColorIO plugin will load that config automatically.
Search for Edit the system environment variables in Windows search, open it.
Click Environment Variables button.
In variable name type "OCIO", for value set path to your ACES config, you can do this by clicking Browse File...
Extra materials
If you want dive into color spaces, ACES workflow and learn extra information, here are some useful links for you.
ACES pipeline in After Effects and Resolve
If you have questions or having some troubles using this guide then use comments section below or hit me up on social media! 😊