Hi, I hope this is the right section..

I know this is not a new topic, but I was hoping the SESI team could give advice on the correct settings for the color editor.

This issue existed for me in different versions of Houdini: 18, 18.5 and 19, as well as with and without ACES installed and with two different monitors (which where admittedly not the best).
We have the option to pick a color space three times: View, Pick, Input.
Maybe that's what I did wrong?

I have attached a screenshot, showing how I used a converter to convert RGB 0-255 to RGB 0-1.
Supposedly this should give me the exact same color.
However when typing the numbers in Houdini the color doesn't match up with the original color.

I hope that it was my own ineptitude and would gladly be corrected and pointed to the right settings.
However if it isn't my fault but Houdini's then that would be quite frustrating and I hope SESI could address it soon.

I see 3 different colors.

This is quite the can of worms to open. The color picker for sure has it's problems, but entering numerical values completely circumvents the color picker, as the numerical values are used directly.

In your screenshot, an ACES config is in use, but the linear scene referred values being entered are sRGB values. This will not produce the same display referred (8bit) value as in the chart as ACES as not only a different color gamut, but uses a filmic tone-mapping curve before the ODT. Basically, if you're trying to match on screen pixel swatches in an ACES environment, you're going to have a bad time.

Using an sRGB config without tone-mapping would be more appropriate if matching swatches in sRGB space is a requirement. Houdini ships with an example sRGB config in the install folder. When used, the numerical sRGB values in the table produce an on screen color that matches the sRGB8 values in the table.

Producing a match with an ACES config is (sort of) possible, but requires inversing the ODT-RRT transform applied when displaying scene referred values, which may produce overbright values not possible for use as albedo colors.

Thank you, I guess that is a relief.
But I am not sure if you I understand what you are saying.
So it is simply because I setup ACES?

How would you approach this problem then?
Should I remove the ACES setup?
Can I simply turn it off temporarily in the settings, without having to remove the line in the houdini.env every time I want to do something like this?

Or is it just due to these three options that I choose in the color editor?

View: sRGB
Pick: ACEScg
Input: Role - Scene - Linear

And if so, which ones should I choose instead?

Thank you.

cheesetroyer
Thank you, I guess that is a relief.
But I am not sure if you I understand what you are saying.
So it is simply because I setup ACES?

Yes, because the numbers being entered are not ACES values. The values as calculated in SRGB represent a different color in the ACES color space.

cheesetroyer
How would you approach this problem then?
Should I remove the ACES setup?
Can I simply turn it off temporarily in the settings, without having to remove the line in the houdini.env every time I want to do something like this?

It's quite complicated to solve this in ACES. There's more than one line of thinking when it comes to inputting colors from different spaces for use in ACES. If matching known swatch colors exactly is of high importance, then removing ACES might be the only solution. It can't be disabled temporarily, since the color will go back to being wrong when restored.

cheesetroyer
Or is it just due to these three options that I choose in the color editor?

No, the color picker doesn't affect picking color when entering values directly. It only changes what the preview looks like.

Using an ACES configuration requires transforming the color values into ACES.