Z Depth with Maya and Nuke

So large environments just don't look right without atmospheric depth, and z depth outputs are usually the easiest way to get such an effect. I figured I'd make the whole process easier by automating the creation of z depth shaders in a scene.

The shaders use samplerInfo nodes so they're compatible with pretty much any renderer in maya. The other advantage is that you get motion blur, depth of field, and the same antialiasing as the beauty passes rendered into the z output, so the results are very accurate. There are also a lot of nodes for tweaking falloff such as a remapValue and blendColors node, so you may want to look for them to get more precise control.

Anyhoo... with one button you'll be able to apply z depth shaders to all objects, while preserving displacement shaders as well as materials with transparency. Give it a try and let me know if it helps. I've also put together a 15 min tutorial on how to use it, as well as comping the outputs in nuke, so check it out!


bohdon.com/scripts