I’d like it if we could output RPF files, with each render pass saved as a different layer. How cool would THAT be?
- Chad
what about the shadows for example?
should they be rendered for each layer at once and than be separated… that is no time saving
maybe I do not understand the question, but… you can render as many layers as you want, by enabling/disabling what ever you want in the scene, even particles in different partitions or anything else…
hm…
Bandu
Krakatoa draws particles from back to front and shows in the frame buffer 10 steps of the buffer update (the number 10 is arbitrary and gives enough feedback about what is going on without slowing down the process).
I guess the request here is to save 10 (or an arbitrary number of slices) to separate layers WITHIN the RPF, which would allow compositors using Combustion to dissect the particle cloud and insert anything between the slices, or remove portions of the cloud.
At this point this is unlikely to happen (mainly because of our dislike of Combustion and the RPF format ;o), but… never say never.
BUT, the next version will finally support camera clipping planes, so you would be easily able to do animated slices through the cloud…
Borislav “Bobo” Petrov
Technical Director 3D VFX
Frantic Films Winnipeg
RPF…!
my small brain :-9
maybe Z Depth is better for this compositing stuff?
Bandu
RPF layers are also used in Fusion, I can’t stand Combustion either. The problem with them is that they make for higher rendertimes, and raytracers don’t support them.
But with Krak, you’d just have the i/o overhead and a little bit of compression to do.
OpenEXR also supports “layers” but as an open standard, it’s not so standard. But you can store arbitrary numbers of images in the EXR file, so that might be a good choice, too. Fusion will load those, too.
It’s a crazy wish, I know, but compositing with Krakatoa is really hard right now.
- Chad
As to z-depth, that’s pretty much hopeless for compositing of Krakatoa. The volumetric density largely precludes such use.
- Chad
I’d be interested to know what techniques people are using to comp krakatoa passes right now. So far with our stuff, we’ve gotten away with simply using the image alpha channel and gradated masks in After Effects. Be nice to give the compositors more options - dangerous as that can be… 
Can’t help wishing we could use deep shadow maps. We used them at DD for “Flags” and “Letters” on all our volumetric rendering - they were just about the best thing ever.
Without a means to use the deep shadows, yeah, comping is impossible. We just render all in one go.
- Chad
Scroll down to bobo’s post #8 for some comping goodness… Need to do some experimentation with this.
Ah, but there are no shadows cast by the particles onto the teapot. That’s what we’re waiting for. Beta 11ish or so.
- Chad