z depth pass

[asamaniego]

Hello,

I'm having an issue rendering out a z depth pass.

My process:

I set up the render passes node and make sure z-depth is on. I right click on the ipr and show the pass and then adjust accordingly. In the rop I save out to: ...$OCTANE_LAYER-$F4.exr as a multilayer EXR tonemapped. I bring the file into AE and then extract using extractor. I then adjust using levels, but I'm not getting anything. I can't find any info on this in the documentation nor online. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[juanjgon]

Probably the Z information is there, but in real scene units as a floating value, not tonemapped like you can see it in the IPR window. If you want to share your scene I could take a look at it here.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[asamaniego]

moving_mtns.hip.zip

(93.21 KiB) Downloaded 165 times

. Thanks Juanjo! Here is the scene.

[juanjgon]

I've just rendered your scene and the z pass information in the EXR file is fine, as you can see in the attached image using djv as viewer, so somehow the problem is on AE side for sure.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[asamaniego]

I still can't seem to get a z-pass. I can get one out of c4d/octane, but for some reason I can't get one out of Houdini so I know it's not an AE issue. When I render out of Houdini, extractor is only picking up the z-depth for red and green. Would it be possible to list out the proper steps to get a z-depth render?

[juanjgon]

But this is the render from your scene, without any change in it! I've just rendered it and as you can see the zdepth information is there, at least when the file is opened using djv ...

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[asamaniego]

I don't use djv. I comp in AE. I don't understand how a z-depth pass done in c4d octane works, but a z-depth pass done in houdini does not work. There is some kind of change going on with the houdini render. I have tried everything and haven't had any luck. The documentation on passes doesn't mention anything about set up. I would even be ecstatic to get an example file with the proper set up, if possible.

[juanjgon]

The passes and files export is managed by the Octane core. There is nothing on the plugin side affecting them.

The render options things that can affect the output file and perhaps the Z pass are the file format (especially if it is tonemapped or not), the compression format, the EXR half precision, etc. You should check if these settings are the same in C4D and Houdini.

From the RenderTarget point of view, be aware that there is a "Z-depth max" parameter that can also affect the Z pass output. You should also check if this parameter is the same in both plugins.

I can't figure out anything else that could explain why the z pass is not the same in all the plugins. If all fails, perhaps you should export both scenes to the standalone to check what could be the difference in the render passes node.

Thanks,
-Juanjo

[asamaniego]

Okay. I'll check those. Thank you!