Hi Maverick Mongoose,
Perhaps time to dig a little bit deeper, to answer this and what to do now.
I have gotten many questions about ACEs over the years. After a while, this leads me to ask, what is the reason for using ACES, and how is it managed along the pipeline?
The main answer (subjective summary) was the filmic look of the result.
This is kind of a problematic idea, as ACES is all about color fidelity based on the filmed content. So what makes this look appear for some? When a larger dynamic and colorspace needs to be converted into a very tiny space without clipping.
This means it happens only if pushed in the small used color space, sRGB or REC 709. Here, strong Gamut Compressions and Tone Mapping are applied. There is the reason for color shifts; There is no Look change without color value changes. (But that is also one of the most common complaints: the Logo color doesn't match anymore.) If the same content is exported into an HDR format(BT 2100, for example) with a REC 2020 Color Space (which modern Laser can reproduce already, then there is very little need for Tone Mapping. Since it is smaller than AP0, the ACES 1.3 Color Compression might be very useful.
The next point is how the scenes in Cinema 4D and Redshift 3D are exposed. We can produce ACES 2065 or ACES cg (even cc or cct) in Cinema 4D/Redshift 3D, allowing for HDR values and giving us the option to ignore any ACES IDT. The IDTs are developed carefully for using cameras, for example, linearize the data and expect the gray value to be set precisely, individually for each camera model! After all, this is a system that mixes and matches cameras. In all these years, no one has asked if that is important, to set the exposure right. Imagine to do what we do on set with Cinema 4D/Redshift 3D: move a stop or two up/down and look at what the Tone Mapping does with it when exported to the tiny sRGB/REC 709 space.
The next question is, how has someone handled it during the decade we worked in Linear Light Workflow (LLW) with 32bit/channel float and OpenEXR files? How was the workflow to not clip the gamut or the dynamic exporting to the various color space targets?
All of that is very similar to ACES, which linearizes the data, then works in float to reproduce photorealistic behaviors of light and move out to different Color Spaces. LLW and ACES are very similar in this regard. ACES is not so new. It is just more defined and supportive here.
After all, if one needs ACES, playing it safe would be recommended with the current release and either using the Linear Light Workflow, as it is the Default now, or staying for a moment until it is solved in 2024.
My best wishes.
