In the media & entertainment industry, streamlining color workflows and standards remains a critical undertaking. As the market continues to introduce new cameras for filmmakers, advanced technology for VFX artists and innovative display technologies for consumers, reducing color management complexity while preserving creative intent from start to finish becomes increasingly crucial. The open-source community has been developing both the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) as a technological standard, and the Academy Software Foundation's OpenColorIO (OCIO) as an enabler and applied solution.
This past year witnessed extensive collaboration across Academy Software Foundation projects to enhance the interchange of color information — an effort that will continue into the next year. In 2024, the Academy Software Foundation hosted its inaugural Color Interop Forum, providing a cross-project open platform to discuss the interoperability of color workflows and standards. The Forum's work culminated in adopting unambiguous color space names for texture and rendering, applicable across all DCC applications. Looking ahead, the Color Interop Forum will address topics such as improving file color metadata and developing an industry-standard representation of spectral data.
The year also marked two significant releases: ACES 2.0 and OCIO 2.4. ACES 2.0 incorporates the latest research in color appearance modeling to deliver enhanced output transforms, addressing several limitations of ACES 1.0 while supporting an expanded range of input and output devices. OCIO 2.4 introduced preview support for ACES 2.0, with full integration planned for all users in the coming year.
The OpenColorIO community has made significant strides in increasing adoption through the development of NanoColor, which was showcased at SIGGRAPH and Open Source Days this year, and is scheduled for wide release in 2025. NanoColor is designed as a lightweight, versatile color transformation system with no external dependencies, offering a streamlined API for users who may not need the full OCIO library. While OpenColorIO is comprehensive and complex, other libraries and frameworks, such as USD and MaterialX, often require only a subset of its capabilities.
2025 promises to be another pivotal year for the color science community in terms of both technological developments and open collaboration. As organizations like the Academy Software Foundation continue to provide neutral platforms for collaborative development, the entire media & entertainment industry benefits from these working groups' achievements.
Thomas Mansencal is an OpenColorIO Technical Steering Committee Member and part of The Academy Software Foundation (www.aswf.io). Developed in partnership by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Linux Foundation, the Academy Software Foundation was created to provide a home for open source software developers to share resources and collaborate on technologies for image creation, visual effects animation and sound.