Grr, combustion and Zdepth hassles / Maya

[aaron_johnson]

ok - just installed the trial of combustion 3. as far as i can tell, Zdepth only works with 3Dfog on maya files, but nothing else like 3D blur, 3Dglow etc. also tried rendering RLA files from maya but it rendered the Zdepth into a seperate sequence.

if combustion won't let me use zdepth, i can render fake zdepth images with maya - but is there any way i can import the sequence in combustion to use, or any other application that will let me do this...? i can't believe i would have to spend US$ 2 - 4 grand or so on shake just to get Zdepth functionality with maya, which is a pretty basic compositing concept.

any feedback greatly appreciated.

[mikedin]

Check out the COW at www.creativecow.net.

You can use the Z-depth of an iff file by adding a Show G Buffer to your footage and use this as your blur/motion blur etc.