Digital Art Zone

I’m rendering a depth map,but I cant seem to activate the antialiasing checkbox in the multi-pass tab? Or the Options for that matter. Im using C8.1…..Does 8.5 work…what gives…I will just have to try and manually blur them out for now…..boo hoo!

Hi Stu

I just did a couple of tests, and as far as I can see, there’s still jaggies in the 8.5 beta. :(
As you say,. a bit of blur should fix it, ...but it’s not ideal, depending on how you’re using that layer in post

there’s also still no depth recognition of dynamic hair,.  which is probably tougher to do than the edge Anti-Aliasing.

Ta for taking the time to check 3DAge!  Its appreciated.I did a one pixel blur which helped a lot. Thanks for reminding me about the hair also.I remember it not rendering from a couple of years ago. Cararra doesnt seem to be moving on at all…..but it is easy, thats why I persevere. And i really need the hair for my stuff.And it supports Normal maps,Im not sure if Blender does yet,though I heard rumours. This is the bit where I poke around the C4D site and see I cant afford it and come scurrying back to Carrara.
  I spend a lot of time over on the 3dCoat site.They have just announced they are updating the manual.Which will be first ,the Carrara manual update or 3dcoat….mmm I wonder.

What I usually do for a good smooth depth map is turn off all the scene’s lights and render the depth map at twice the size of the desired finished art - then rescale it down in Photoshop or whatever post render editor you’re using.

The depth map will render very quickly and doesn’t need the lights turned on to be rendered.

Pure lateral thinking genious Howie…..slaps forehead. Thanks!

stu sutcliffe - 29 October 2012 01:17 PM

..And it supports Normal maps,Im not sure if Blender does yet…

Blender supports everything now.

Well mebbe not really but almost anything one could think of and definitely everything that is mainstream across 3d apps. The only things it doesn’t support that I’ve seen are things that specific apps support that no or hardly any other apps support, ie somewhat esoteric functions. It isn’t necessarily as easy or as good at some functions as commercial packages in areas is the real issue. For instance, it’s 3d brushes are quite robust relatively, but don’t hold a candle to zBrush.

The real question usually is, where is it in Blender and how well does it work

Thanks, I would like to try a different renderer,But I’m in no mood to learn yet more software.I could just have a go at the rendering part I suppose,but like you say package specific things will not be supported,like hair…I would then have to learn that in Blender also….....stand back my brains going to explode!!
I had a go a year or so back with Blender…all I can remember was that the camera in the main view port was a pain in the ass to move about….like some sort of video game!! What is wrong with “Alt-Left mouse button” Maybe I had the prefs set wrong.

FWIW, this is a common ‘problem’ across CG apps. However, it isn’t really a problem, it was designed that way. You don’t want an anti-aliased depth pass, because it will, in fact, create more visual artifacts. It will make the edges turn darker, and your compositing software will interpret those pixels as being further in the background causing worse results than what you started with. 

What you’re supposed to do is as someone mentioned earlier: double the depth pass resolution and scale it down by half. It’s essentially the equivalent of what antialiasing does, but doing it this way will keep those data values intact.

Thanks for the additional info on the render pass vs anti aliasing. It helped some things click.

stu sutcliffe - 30 October 2012 08:27 AM

... with Blender… Maybe I had the prefs set wrong.

Blender has it’s own way of doing things, which is very efficient but unique. That’s why people love/hate it. The ones that love it, have put in the time to learn it’s unique ways and find them very efficient. The ones that hate it find it too different for various reasons, such as having to use many different packages where Blenderthink is too different. That’s what I’ve picked up anyways from the many various discussions on it. Blender definitely forces people to rethink things they may have learned differently.

Thanks Joemamma, that actually makes sense!