is render elements a solution?

[rfellers]

I've got an animation where a building is being modified - roof flies off, new roof flies on; windows fly out, new windows fly on; etc, etc. I've offset the keyframes on probably 100 different objects and it creates a great effect. What I would like to do now is highlight (possibly glow) each object as it is moving and once it stops the glow will slowly fade. I would like to apply the effect in post (ae). In 3ds, is there some way to keyframe the 'highlight on/off' into each object (highlight not visible in the beauty pass) and output the result to a render element? Basically, all I am trying to do is create a mask for the highlight effect.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
Ryan

[instinct]

Set Object IDs for each "group" of moving objects and use as many MMREs as needed to output seperate masks for each.

Regards,
Thorsten

[rfellers]

Unfortunately, there are no 'groups' of objects. Each object is timed differently. For example, all the window animations are offset by 2 frames so they fly in from left to right. I would have to have 100 object IDs with that many MMREs. What I need is some sort of invisible material that only shows on a render element (not on the beauty pass). Kind of like a vrayextratex, but instead have each object use its own 'hidden' texture.

[instinct]

But that would not reduce the renderelements at all, would it? If you need masks for 100 objects, you need at least 100/3 = 34 renderelements. This is what MMRE needs also.

Regards,
Thorsten

[rfellers]

What I am thinking is one render element would render all 100 'hidden' textures. These 'hidden' textures would all be keyframed differently... white when the object is moving, slowly fades to black after it stops.

[rfellers]

Actually I think I found what may work... animate black/white via vertexpaint on each object. Then vrayextratex with vertex color in the texture slot.

Just tried it and it works perfectly!