It's always best to configure color management when you first start a new project or scene. This is because color management affect how color controls and lights work, so if you change settings after you have already applied materials and created lights then there will be a lot of adjustments to make later.
You can configure color management in several ways:
- You can individually set preferences such as the rendering space, default view transform, and other options. This can be done either:
- Manually, using the
Color Management preferences.
- Using MEL
or Python
commands. Search for "colorManagementPrefs" in the Technical Documentation.
The Color Management preferences are used for new scenes, with the exception that whether color management is enabled by default is set in the
New Scene Options. All of the settings are saved in scene files, but might be overridden when a scene is opened if you are using a color management policy or have set the OCIO environment variable.
- In the preferences, you can specify an OCIO configuration file for compatibility with other applications that support OpenColorIO. This determines which transforms are available as well as the defaults, and provides a single option for the rendering space and possibly other settings. The path to the configuration file is saved in scene files, but like the other settings it is overridden when a scene is opened if you are using a policy or have set the OCIO environment variable.
- The OCIO environment variable overrides the configuration file path and name that is stored in the scene, and allows configurations to be enforced across a facility, or on a per-project or per-scene basis. However, the OCIO environment variable is also overridden by a policy.
- After you have configured the color management settings, you can save out and load policies (color management preference files). These can be used to enforce particular color management settings when you start a new scene or open a saved scene. To specify a policy per project or per shot, you can use the MAYA_COLOR_MANAGEMENT_POLICY_FILE environment variable.