renderpasses newbie???

[chicco012]

hi,
i've watched the free tutors on renderman renderpasses and compositing them in adobeaftereffects, i'm sure that this is also available at maya software or of course at mentalray,
so now i have 2 questions:
1. where to do this at mentalray

2. the most mportant DO I HAVE TO RENDER IN SEPARATE IMAGE FILES???? I MEAN THT CAN'T I MAKE A MULTILAYER FILE LIKE .PSD WITH THE RENDER PASSES AS LAYERS???


this is so important,, otherwise it's useless in video compositing in adobe after effects,.... i can't composite 100 frames times * 5 or 6
this will be impossible
thank you sooo much you are a big help... :headbang:

[laxman]

actually you can composite 100s of frames, and thats how everyone does it. All you need to do is check off image sequence in after effects, that way it will import all your frames as a movie, and display 30 of them every second. So instead of compositing a picture you composite the footage, so you only do it once. Lots of people use after effects for simple stuff. Even though you can do some very compicated stuff in it, many people prefer node based software like shake.

To render passes in maya, you have to use the render layers. Look them up in the help documents cause there not very complicated so they should make sense. You could also try searching the forums here cause rendering layers has come up a few times. Also the new mental ray kit goes over passes:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/product.php?productid=2009&cat=41&page=1#tabs