Z-deph and the .iff .rpf file format

[painmonster]

Hi @ all - first post - big Problem

It's simple: I want to render single images in Maya or/and animations to use them for an compositing in Combustion. As far i know i have to activate the Z-deph button in the render globals and safe the image as .iff or .rla. To check the Z-chanel i tried to view it in FCheck.
Unfortunatley i'm stupid - so it didn't work!

FCheck displays "no Z buffer" and because i'm stupid i don't know what that means. But i guess it means - Maya rendered the Z-deph but it isn't integrated in the file for some reason??!
I tried hardware/software rederer and all kinds of render options but no way.

Also Combustion displays a warning that Z-Channel is not available (wrong forum for that i know)

So i would be happy - no - delighted if anyone could give me a hint (or rather a step by step instruction) and relieve me from my misery.

Because i think this is only my stupidity causing the prob i have to apologize for the post, for my nogood english (me ger) and for the horrible long text.

PLEASE HELP!!

THX

[gmask]

Sounds like you did everything correctly

What version of Maya are you using and what OS?

[painmonster]

I'm using Maya 5 unlimited and WinXP Pro.

I guess that shouldn't be the problem.
I also used an Cinema .rpf with z-deph in combustion so i know it can work with my config - but not with maya and .iff .rla files so far.

[gmask]

well fcheck says there is no z channle then somethinng is wrong because there should be one

There is an upgrade for Maya 5 on the alias website although as far as I know this worked before this update came out..

also just to be sure create a new scene with a primative object and render a still with zdepth selected

[painmonster]

O k - i did that just a minute ago.
Simple torus rendered with software with z-deph active -
saved in rederview as .iff - opened as image in FCheck and pressed z and/or ShftZ - FCkeck: "no Z buffer"
cry! any suggestions?

[gmask]

I guess it could be prefs related.. move the prefs folder out of your maya/user directory and relaunch maya to see if that makes a difference

[painmonster]

Sorry - didn't work. I did the same as before without any prefs - No Z buffer.

In the case u are annoyed now and decide to declare this prob as unsolveable - i understand.
THX anyway

or... another idea??

[gmask]

Yeah sorry that is messed up.. try installing the 5.0.1 patch from alias.com it's a free download

[painmonster]

Ok - it... didn't work

Update to 5.01 and tried everything again.
I still think it's my fault.

Still any ideas?

[charlie123]

the only way to get your z-depth (afaik) is batch rendering, who knows why they forgot to tell you this in the documentation...

[painmonster]

@hulk THX

That worked. It actualy doesn't solve my problem because sprites seem to have no usable z-information for compositing - but thx anyway. The only question for me is - why batch rendering only? I assume Alias had a reason to do it this way but i can't imagine one.

[sentry65]

fcheck doesn't always display the z channel when you press the z key.

If you launch fcheck and do a File-->open image, it'll show it fine.

If you do File-->open animation, it will not show the z channel, but it is still there.

so try opening a single frame and pressing the z key