3D Compsiting and RLA's

[sivrat]

Hi!

I've got the following problem:
I want to render out several layers in Maya, which I then plan to bring together in combustion. For example, a line of cylinders is one layer and a character, running sometimes in front and sometimes behind the cylinders, is the second layer. Is it possible to combine these two layers in combustion without changing the z-depth of the layers every time the character changes its position?
I thought that what .rla files are good for, but that doesn't seem to work (or I am too stupid to press the right button)

It would be really great, if someone could help me with this
Alex

[macaronikazoo]

Hi Alex,
I did a quick test in 3dsmax.
Placed cylinders and moving a cube in front and behind them. Rendered seperately to RLA, saving the Alpha and Z-depth channels (should work the same in Maya I believe)
Imported in Combustion, adjusted the order of the layers in the Workspace. Checked Color+Alpha in the top layer(s)(bottom layer shouldn't use alpha ofcourse in this example).
Then in the Composite Controls of every layer, check the 3D Depth button (Under RPF Options) in the Layer tab.
That's about it. Let me know if it works, Idon't want my first post here to f*ck up your work

Good luck,

Dennis

[sivrat]

Hi GeneralMagic!
Thanks for your reply, but I am sorry to say, I found out what was the problem. The thing is, that RLA isn't the same as RLA, in the computer graphic world. Maya puts out another RLA format then the one used by discreet products. So what works for 3DMax and combustion, doesn't work for Maya and combustion. That is a bit unprofessional I think, but that how it is and I hope Alias|wavefront is doing something to fix this "bug". It is a known problem anyway.

Alex

[adreamtraveler]

Yeah, right, the RLA-Formats are different. The problem is: The Maya-Format is the correct one. Alias Wavefront (or better said: Wavefront) developed the RLA-Format and discreet took it and changed it to add features that were not initialy planned. So since the discreet-format is not correct and I don

[gmask]

What we really need is more support for RPF especially in Maya. AE and MAX allready support it.

g

[ryan3d]

Im not sure what your askin so dont get mad if I got you all wrong, but in render globals cant you click the little render z depth box and just render out tga's?

In reply to:
Hi!

I've got the following problem:
I want to render out several layers in Maya, which I then plan to bring together in combustion. For example, a line of cylinders is one layer and a character, running sometimes in front and sometimes behind the cylinders, is the second layer. Is it possible to combine these two layers in combustion without changing the z-depth of the layers every time the character changes its position?
I thought that what .rla files are good for, but that doesn't seem to work (or I am too stupid to press the right button)

It would be really great, if someone could help me with this
Alex

[sivrat]

Which possibilities do I have then, despite MayaIFF's and AE 5.5? Is there no way to do 3D compositing with Maya-files and combustion? What other programm are there to do the job in combination with Maya?

Alex

[daanbanaan]

there is a distance shader plug in on this site...i think you should be able to do a second pass and use the distance render as a layer to do the effects......plus, it would be anti aliased...better than z depth

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