The tool has become the Academy Software Foundation’s second project, an open source association led by the Linux Foundation
OpenColorIO (OCIO), the tool which helped give Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse its iconic look, has now been released as an open-source program for use by the open source community.
OCIO is a complete colour management solution geared towards motion picture production with an emphasis on visual effects and computer animation. It is compatible with the Academy Color Encoding Specification (ACES) and is LUT-format agnostic, supporting many popular formats.
Released as version 1.0, the tool has been used to help create movies like Hotel Transylvania 3, Alice in Wonderland, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Now, it has become the Academy Software Foundation’s second project, an open source association led by the Linux Foundation, as per a report in Shacknews.
The reason behind open sourcing the tool
By contributing OpenColorIO to the Academy Software Foundation, Sony Pictures Imageworks is looking to encourage the open community to use the tool and help expand it beyond what it’s currently capable of.
“We want to contribute OpenColorIO back to the community that relies on it, and the Academy Software Foundation is the natural fit,” Sony Pictures Imageworks vice president Michael Ford was quoted as saying in the report.
“The developers and companies that use it every day will guide the project roadmap, starting with the features and release cadence for the new 2.0 version,” he added.
The Academy Software Foundation was founded back in August 2018 as part of an effort to get open source software development going in Hollywood.
Its founding members include Epic Games, Cisco, DreamWorks, Autodesk, Google Cloud, Intel, Walt Disney Studios, Foundry, and more. Sony Pictures Imageworks was one of the latest companies to join the Foundation.
