OpenEXR in After Effects CS3: Open Source Plugin Imports/Exports All Channels in Float
This brings tears to my eyes; a free plugin that will let you import, rearrange and use all the available channels in OpenEXR files into After Effects CS3 float projects. Brendan Bolles has kindly provided the world with a beta version of a set of four 32 bpc-aware plugins, complete with a sample project and a 49-channel OpenEXR image.
As always; read the installation instructions, you need to disable AE's own format plugin, and then drop the four new ones into the same folder.
On OS X you need to rename the default OpenEXR plugin so it has this character in the beginning of the file name: ¬
The path to the plugins folder on OS X is:
/Applications/Adobe After Effects CS3/Plug-ins/Format/
On Windows XP and Windows Vista, the path to the correct folder is:
%PROGRAM_FILES%\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS3\Support Files\Plug-ins\Format\
where you rename the OpenEXR.aex file to (OpenEXR.aex)
Make sure you send a Brendan a thank-you-email (and bug reports) to the address included in the readme file!
Update: Sadly, many 3D packages can't render multichannel OpenEXRs, at least not without modification. It isn't possible in Cinema4D R10.102, which will output every channel as a separate file. If you want this feature to be added, let the developers know: Cinema 4D Feature Request form
Houdini, Blender, Lightwave and 3ds max (both via mental ray and the standalone renderer Brazil r/s) can render to multi-channel OpenEXRs. With some mr wrangling they can apparently be produced with mental ray from Maya and XSI, as well.
- Jonas
As always; read the installation instructions, you need to disable AE's own format plugin, and then drop the four new ones into the same folder.
On OS X you need to rename the default OpenEXR plugin so it has this character in the beginning of the file name: ¬
The path to the plugins folder on OS X is:
/Applications/Adobe After Effects CS3/Plug-ins/Format/
On Windows XP and Windows Vista, the path to the correct folder is:
%PROGRAM_FILES%\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS3\Support Files\Plug-ins\Format\
where you rename the OpenEXR.aex file to (OpenEXR.aex)
Make sure you send a Brendan a thank-you-email (and bug reports) to the address included in the readme file!
Update: Sadly, many 3D packages can't render multichannel OpenEXRs, at least not without modification. It isn't possible in Cinema4D R10.102, which will output every channel as a separate file. If you want this feature to be added, let the developers know: Cinema 4D Feature Request form
Houdini, Blender, Lightwave and 3ds max (both via mental ray and the standalone renderer Brazil r/s) can render to multi-channel OpenEXRs. With some mr wrangling they can apparently be produced with mental ray from Maya and XSI, as well.
- Jonas
Labels: AfterEffects, CheckItOut
3 Comments:
Great entry. This is going to be extremely useful.
Cheers,
Andrew Kramer
Video Copilot
By
Anonymous, at Thursday, April 19, 2007
Hey Andrew,
I just want to say I'm a big fan of your tutorials. Did you look at Brendan's sample AEP project with a multitude of comps and layer modes? Having that project as a starting point is almost half the battle.
As I've recently switched from Maya and max to Cinema 4D, I'll try to make the time to render out a multi-layered OpenEXR and see how it works.
By
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Thursday, April 19, 2007
WoW! what a great info!!
Thanks a lot!
By
VFXJimmy, at Monday, June 11, 2007
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