Can someone break down the steps to use Arnold z-depth passes in After Effects?
Can someone break down the steps to use Arnold z-depth passes in After Effects?
Getting z-depth AOV passes from Arnold within AE is actually quite simple. Generally I always render either full or half-precision .exr files. If I plan on using them in AE. I never combine the passes into a single multi-channel .exr and always simply render out each AOV as an individual .exr sequence. AE can extract channels from multi-channel .exr files, but it can make things very slow, so individual sequences work better IMHO.
Set up your AOVs as you usually do in Cinema 4D and leave the z-depth setting at its default setting. I’m not going to get into whether anti-aliased or aliased depth passes are better, but for my uses aliased always works better which is default. If you rather have z-depth passes anti-aliased, simply change the Filter Type from closest_filter to gaussian_filter.
Once you’ve rendered out the .exr sequences, import them into AE as you usually would. Set your project to either 16 bit or full 32 bit, either will work, it just depends on how you need or want to work. Now create a new comp using the z-depth AOV sequence that you previously rendered. Don’t worry, it will appear either pure white which is fine… there’s plenty of information in those seeming empty pixels. Now follow the steps listed below:
I wouldn't worry about the gradient banding you're seeing in the viewport. This is usually more of a display artifact and in my experience never causes issues once used either as a depth buffer or fog layer. If you plan to use it as is, simply add a tiny bit of grain to help reduce the amount of banding.
Thank you for your answer. It was very useful and solved my troubles. But I had a problem with the production of this step, the z-depth is not smooth, I tried many times, including setting the ae project to 32-bit still did not solve the problem.@Dade Orgeron
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