MATCH SWATCH COLOR SPACE – OVERVIEW

The Match Swatch Color Space tool corrects shader swatch colors between the new ACES, Linear and other rendering spaces in Maya.

This tool is mostly used for correcting colors from older models or FBX that have been imported into Maya 2023 and above; but it can also be used to roll back or convert from ACES to linear or other rendering spaces.

For example, below is a model that has been imported from an older scene, Maya 2020 (linear rendering space) into Maya 2023 (ACES rendering space). You can see the skin color is noticeably sun-burnt before running the tool (left), the tool corrects the colors (right).

Image Credit: Based on concept art by Ashline Art .

Fixing a scene imported from 2020 (left) to correct colors (right) with 2023 (ACES rendering space).

Rendering space is found here in Maya’s Preferences window in 2022 and above.

Note: A limited amount of shaders and attributes are supported (scroll down).

THE PROBLEM

Importing scenes made in previous versions of Maya or FBX models from other programs can load with overly saturated colors.

This is because Maya has upgraded its default color space from Linear color space in Maya 2020 to ACES color space in version 2022 and above.

Note that Maya’s textures are color managed so textures usually appear correctly, however Maya’s swatch colors are not color managed and appear overly saturated with no easy way of correcting colors without this tool.

THE SOLUTION

The Match Swatch Color Space tool corrects untextured shader colors in a scene to match the underlying rendering color space. (ACES/Linear etc).

Select the previous color space that the scene or model was using (usually scene-linear Rec.709-sRGB) and run the tool; all supported shaders in the scene will be corrected.

SUPPORTED SHADERS & ATTRIBUTE TYPES

This tool supports a limited number of shaders and attributes, more support will be added in the future.

Supported shaders:
Lambert, Blinn, Phong, PhongE, StandardSurface, AiStandaradSurface, Redshift Material, VRay Material, PXR Surface

Supported attributes:
Diffuse Color, Specular Color, Clear Coat Color, Emission Color.

Supported Maya Versions:
Maya 2023 and above. This tool is not supported in Maya 2022 due to Autodesk API code changes.

TOOL SETTINGS

Previous Rendering Space (Combo Dropdown)
Set the scene or model’s previous rendering space.
Usually: scene-linear Rec.709-sRGB

If upgrading from older scenes use the default settings.
The current rendering space is detected automatically.

Match Shaders (Combo Dropdown)
This setting specifies the shaders that will be matched/converted.

All Shaders In Scene: Finds all shaders in the scene and converts their untextured colors.

Selected Objects/Shaders: The shaders are automatically detected from the object selection. Shader nodes can be selected too.

See Supported Shaders (above).

Match Shader Swatch Colors (Button)
This button converts shader swatch colors from the previous rendering space to the current rendering space.