Hasta La Motion!

I’m working an old Renderman project and retuning it for my website. I’m using Apple Shake as a compositing program, Maya my animation software, and Renderman Studios my renderer.

I’m trying to implement my z depth pass in my final composite. Unfortunately the z depth pass workflows I’ve found regarding Shake aren’t working for me.

The footage is good, as I’ve gotten the z depth data to work in Nuke, but for purposes of this project, I must stick to Shake.

I have a 32bit float Tiff z depth AOV.

The filein node describes the AOV as : BW float 640×480 :

I’ve tried FileIn > ReOrder (zzzz) > mult (local parameter that works as brightness to bring the -1/Z ratio into viewer range)

Most workflows I’ve read recommend this. From what I understand scene size differentiates how much ‘brightness’ is needed to bring the pass into viewable.

However in my case: No amount of ‘brightness’ local variable brings the rgb of the AOV into view. Leaving me scratching my head.

the RGB of the mult node are R [-1 * brightness) G [R] B [R]. Even with brightness variable pushed up to unrealistic amounts like 1,000 the AOV on the viewer remains black.

Am I missing a step? Has anyone had similar frustration with Rman z depth?

I gratefully appreciate all feedback~

Salute.