Request: Export depth maps with chunky's images

[gabriel101x]

Not sure how hard this would be, but I would love you forever if you added the ability for chunky to export a luminance depth map with its rendered images. This would add so many possibilities for compositing Chunky's images in a 3d compositing program such as After Effects or Nuke and adding stuff like particles and fog.

EDIT: I have no idea how to add 'feature request' tag to this..

[JochemKuijpers]

You can already import Minecraft maps in most 3D studios which gives you way more features than Chunky does. You may not be looking for the right tool here ;)

[gabriel101x]

Yes but the 3d programs are much more time consuming than chunky. For instance you have to manually place lights on each torch for maps you import.

[Gentz013]

Just bumping this thread because this feature would be very useful. Some people (including me) are using chunky to render very huge scenes with 50k+ chunks. You can't load so many chunks in advanced 3d programs with the same amount of RAM. So using 3ds max, cinema 4d etc. only to extract depth map is out of question. Depth mask can be used to apply perfect DoF effect or atmosphere after the render is done in photoshop or similar software. Why not apply them in chunky you might ask? Well because getting DoF effect right in chunky is pretty hard and you can't set intensity of atmosphere at the moment. In addition if something in these effects won't look right you will have to re-render the entire image. With the help of depth mask you won't need to that. All you'll have to do is change some options in photoshop and it's done. And finally you will have unlimited control over these effects.

[MarcelloNicoletti]

I think this is a good feature too!

[jackjt8]

An example plugin does exist to produce a Depth Map.

See https://github.com/llbit/Chunky-DepthPlugin

A built, ready to use copy can be found here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sYXJ2XU9tSaPLiMJiCQBsOWLfLJ34Zvc

Unfortunately it does replace the renderer so you would need to have it disabled in the Plugin Manager when not in use.

[leMaik]

@jackjt8 We need a plugin api to register multiple renderers and switch them. I already had to hack around a few things to make the denoiser work with three different renderers.