Cinema 4D Tutorial - Z-Depth Pass (Octane & After Effects)

Support the channel on Patreon: www.patreon.com/NewPlastic
Get the new pack! 50 Procedural Concrete & Plaster Materials for C4D & Octane - newplastic.gumroad.com/l/ProConcrete
Follow me on IG: ojeng
In this Cinema 4D tutorial we'll go over a few ways to use the Z-Depth pass beyond the classic Depth-of-Field blur. I've been using a lot of these techniques in different projects throughout the years and I felt like sharing them. These techniques can work with a z-depth pass from any rendering engine, and on any post-compositing software. I'll be using After Effects.
eXtractor plugin - www.fnordware.com/OpenEXR/
Cryptomatte plugin - aescripts.com/learn/ProEXR-2-with-Cryptomatte/
00:00 - Intro
00:29 - Adding Z-Depth Pass
1:24 - After Effects Setup
1:42 - Adding DoF Blur
2:30 - Fog
3:10 - Mist
3:49 - 2D Integration
4:19 - Texture Transform
6:05 - Cool Effect
7:11 - Subtle 3D Displacement
8:14 - Outro

[@rubenscheer]

you saved my life and my render time. Thanks! :)

[@rowanwhile]

I cannot describe how much you and your youtube channel has helped me bro. Thank you for everything. You are easily in my top 3 fave educators.. Down to earth, easy to understand, not boring and mega clarity.

[@NewPlastic]

Aw man that's awesome. Thank you! Really happy to help

[@seredinsash]

+1 to your words 🤓

[@adilahamed4873]

Hey man thank for putting up more videos recently! really helpful!

[@NewPlastic]

My pleasure!

[@stokt_digital]

I love the excitement at 6:05. I'm excited as mush to discover this. Thank you!

[@NewPlastic]

Haha awesome!

[@paulalamkins]

Thanks so much!! The CC Threshold effect is precisely the touch that I need for what I'm working on...

[@NewPlastic]

That's awesome!

[@eddierobbertse8957]

Thanks for all the mini tips during the tutorials!

[@NewPlastic]

My pleasure !

[@guohy8194]

OMG, that anti-aliasing has been bugging me for years!!!! Thanks a lot for mentioning it!

[@NewPlastic]

Yup, it's huge!

[@HellaBAD]

Finally dove into figuring out how to use multi-pass rendering after seeing this (and combining info from some other useful explanation videos). Think I've finally got a pretty good grasp of it now and will keep this as part of my workflow going forward. Thanks for sharing!

[@NewPlastic]

That's amazing to hear! I'm currently working on a video that shows how to import all the passes into AE using ACES and AgX workflows. So stay tuned!

[@kuhgjfghgdhdfg]

@@NewPlastic hey can you make a scp-096 model's very accurat to mrklay scp 096 modeel pls

[@mathieudubost9730]

Helpfull, thanks a lot ! I had some troubles at the beginning, and could not make the depth of field clean. In case someone has the same issue, it seems it was because I had some post effects enable in my camera tag. Great tut !

[@guckmyman]

Love your tutorials man! Always learn so much! 😊

[@NewPlastic]

I'm here for it!

[@VisualMessiah]

You have saved me days of time with that fog trick thank you

[@NewPlastic]

Haha hell yeah, I used it so much

[@johnsalinero]

Thanks for these tutorials!

[@NewPlastic]

You know it!

[@theoryfound]

Learned a lot! Thanks for sharing!

[@NewPlastic]

Happy to know that!

[@WesselMeijer]

Wow, this is great. Thank you so much!

[@NewPlastic]

You got it!

[@mxbrnl]

OUTSTANDING! really quality content. you have earned another subscriber! 🤘Thanks for this!

[@NewPlastic]

W00t w00t happy to have you as a subscriber!

[@mxbrnl]

@@NewPlastic One by one my dear friend! Top tier content deserve it! ;-)

[@loudecho]

love your knowledg thanks for sharing ❤

[@NewPlastic]

Love that you love it!

[@drigogers]

that's soo cool mate, thanks a lot for it

[@NewPlastic]

I got you

[@ahmeduzair9999]

you saved my life , thank youu soo much!

[@NewPlastic]

My parents wanted me to be a doctor....and here I am saving lives with Octane

[@tim_tim_tim]

Great video, thank you :)

[@NewPlastic]

You're welcome sir

[@antondenisov6636]

Thank you! Amazing

[@NewPlastic]

My pleasure!

[@MrKlayVFX]

So many awesome tips! Anti-aliasing zdepth pass was a great one 👍🙌

[@thomascollier7754]

👀

[@MrKlayVFX]

@@thomascollier7754 eeeyyyy Thomas!

[@NewPlastic]

Yup that always used to kill me, I remember a different approach a few years ago but this one is much simpler. The only problem with that is that it won't apply motion blur on the AOV, but I mostly add motion blur in post anyway

[@yannick1508]

sick! again!

[@NewPlastic]

[@NebMotion]

wow amazing

[@NewPlastic]

[@gestrade1]

Thanks a lot !

[@NewPlastic]

You got it!

[@kushsapra98]

absolute goat

[@NewPlastic]

Thanks Kush

[@SidharthGanguly]

Awesome!

[@NewPlastic]

[@hannaj9156]

Sending you LOVE 🤍

[@NewPlastic]

Sending you love back baby

Perfect

[@NewPlastic]

thanks

[@NewPlastic]

You got it

[@rw3452]

I’m back again !

[@metulski1234]

nice!

[@NewPlastic]

[@slackdave]

Sweeet techniques!!

[@NewPlastic]

We having fun over here

[@arseniyzibarev8788]

thaanks

[@NewPlastic]

You welcome bud

[@user-pb5rf6sj3e]

Thank you for the tutorial! Does FL depth of field work on Pre comps?

[@prettygrotesk254]

Tremendous.

[@NewPlastic]

Phenomenal.

[@Halllbert]

Awsome

[@NewPlastic]

[@MRLosaren]

Damn, Eric Hu is one of you Patreon supporters? That's dope!

[@NewPlastic]

Hah yeah! I had to double check his email make sure it was actually him, I'm super humbled! Love his work

[@MRLosaren]

@@NewPlastic Same with Baugasm! Super cool man

[@yanxir1674]

quick question, for the TIFF file, do I need to rerendering the image by change the file into TIFF or the exr setting suppose to have a tiff file. Because for me there is no TIFF file after rendering.

[@pierre9018]

Hey ! is it possible to rotate a texture OSL ?

[@hihihing7302]

wowww

[@NewPlastic]

:) :)

[@PavloArshynnikov]

How to download the frischluft depth of field ?

[@1n_AengDuu]

Hello. I have a question while following a tutorial video. After changing the option to Sharp Zone, I adjusted the radius value. However, unlike the video, the white part doesn't appear consistent and there is a blurry smoke overlay on top of the original image. Also, when I increase the value of radius or focal point (even by 0.001), the blurry smoke disappears and only the original image is visible. In summary, when the radius value is 0, the entire image appears covered in smoke, but when it's between 0.001 and 50, the original image is visible. Do you know how to resolve this issue?

[@NewPlastic]

You have to adjust the Focal point, to tell the plugin on which part of the image to focus. Under the "Radius" there will be the Focal Point that you can move around (or even under that, there's a "select depth" you can click on and then click on the part of the image you want to focus on). Then once you d id that, you need to change "show" part from Sharp Zone back to Normal Blur

[@christopherfernandes5349]

Do you have something to replace FL depth ?

[@NewPlastic]

Hmm not sure, I know AE has a built in depth of field effect that doesn't work as well as Frischluft's. I bought FL's plugin like 4 years ago and I don't regret it for a second!

[@zackantell2278]

do you have any idea why my zdepth would be missing the yellow channel in AE/the EXR?

[@NewPlastic]

I think the zdepth channel only uses the red channel, since it's a single channel pass (b/w), no?

[@zackantell2278]

@@NewPlastic yeah I mistyped but I was having a glitch where the third channel wasn't loading in automatically, just had to add it manually

[@muartive]

Hello, first of all, thank you for your tutorial videos. The EXtractoR plugin in After effects doesn't work for me. When I click on the Layer tab, there is no change. I can't select z-depth.

[@NewPlastic]

Are you sure you Passes were enabled in Octane? Are you sure you were on the right Render Setting? Are you sure you chose the right file?

[@muartive]

@@NewPlastic Thanks for reminding me. It didn't work because I didn't activate the Multilayer File tab. I was generally using the Folder option. I guess that's why EXtractoR was not working but after selecting Multilayer File the problem was solved. Thank you again!!!

[@NewPlastic]

@@muartive Yes! Glad it worked. It's usually the simplest things we forget

[@yannick1508]

z-depth is soo powerfull but i just hate, that it doesent go through glas!

[@NewPlastic]

Ffff I know buddy. I know.