Why match your DCC to game engine viewport?

It’s handy to know that the color you’re seeing in one software will be equally matched in the other. This is extremely important when doing things like virtual productions and the like, but is also handy for authoring textures.

How to match your viewports

Generally speaking you want to match your DCC to your game engine, not the other way around. There are 3 core concepts to consider:

  1. Matching color spaces (mostly talking about Display Color Space for game creation purposes)
  2. Matching (or eliminating) tonemapping and post processing to avoid color distortion
  3. Lighting (best done via an HDRI as that’s easiest to share between softwares)

1. Enabling OCIO in your DCC

If your DCC supports OCIO profiles you’re in luck. Follow the DCC specific steps to use OCIO profiles and choose ACES - sRGB for Display Space settings.

Painter/Designer

Set color management to OpenColorIO, use the latest ACES version, and in the viewport display use whatever setting you want to use. ACES - sRGB (not REC709) is usually the one you’re looking for.

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We can also use custom profiles, like Tony-Mc-Mapface or AgX.

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GitHub - h3r2tic/tony-mc-mapface: A cool-headed display transform

https://github.com/sobotka/AgX

Blender

For Blender it’s best to use Environment Variables. Make a new one called OCIO and have it point directly at the config.ocio you want to use. The best part; you can have as many of these as you like, although only one can be active at a time. Just redirect your Variable to a new config.ocio et voila.

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Make sure you’re bringing in the LUTs or luts folder as well these are required for it to work. Then, under Color Management, you should find everything you’ve installed.

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