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OpenColorIO (OCIO) is a complete color management solution geared towards motion picture production with an emphasis on visual effects and computer animation. OCIO provides a straightforward and consistent user experience across all supporting applications while allowing for sophisticated back-end configuration options suitable for high-end production usage. OCIO is compatible with the Academy Color Encoding Specification (ACES) and is LUT-format agnostic, supporting many popular formats.

OpenColorIO is released as version 1.0 and has been in development since 2003. OCIO represents the culmination of years of production experience earned on such films as SpiderMan 2 (2004), Surf’s Up (2007), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and many more. OpenColorIO is natively supported in commercial applications like Katana, Mari, Nuke, Silhouette FX, and others.

Mailing Lists¶

There are two mailing lists associated with OpenColorIO:

ocio-user@lists.aswf.io: For end users (artists, often) interested in OCIO profile design, facility color management, and workflow.
ocio-dev@lists.aswf.io: For developers interested OCIO APIs, code integration, compilation, etc.

Quick Start¶

Most users will likely want to use the OpenColorIO that comes precompiled with their applications. See the Compatible Software for further details on each application.

Note that OCIO configurations are required to do any ‘real’ work, and are available separately on the Downloads section of this site. Example images are also available. For assistance customizing .ocio configurations, contact ocio-user.

Step 1: set the OCIO environment-variable to /path/to/your/profile.ocio
Step 2: Launch supported application.

If you are on a platform that is not envvar friendly, most applications also provide a menu option to select a different OCIO configuration after launch.

Please be sure to select a profile that matches your color workflow (VFX work typically requires a different profile than animated features). If you need assistance picking a profile, email ocio-user.