EXR and Alpha channels

[Syclone1]

So the thought of being able to save out all the render elements to a single file is very appealing, only major problem I keep running in to is when trying to open the dam files in PS it knocks out all the alpha channels and that's great for most of the passes except for things like the background, its a serious PITA and maybe because Im tried and a bit cranky lol I cant for the life of me figure out how to get around that other than saving out separate passes/files. anyone with any insight or workflow suggestions?

[dans]

Not sure I completely understood what you mean with "knocks out". Almost all V-Ray render elements really do not have their own alpha channel. What can make things confusing is that The V-Ray framebuffer window will always show you the alpha channel of the main beauty pass, but never the alpha channel of a render element even if it has one. One element that has its own alpha channel ist the VRayMtlSelect element.

Workflow-wise you could try psd-manager - there is control per element if you want to save the alpha channel as a layer mask or layer transparency or not at all. (You can overwrite the default options per element type, so you don't have to change this every time.) It uses the same logic as V-ray when saving, so if you let it for example save a VRayBackground element as a PSD layer with a layer mask then the main Alpha channel will be used as source for the layer mask because the VRayBackground element has no element specific alpha channel.

Daniel

[Syclone1]

basically what is happening is the alpha is forced in to being applied to all layers and anything in the alpha is seemingly deleted and there is no obvious way to have a layer(s) or the entire file ignore the alpha.

[Ihno]

I use http://www.exr-io.com/
Its free and adds the alpha as an extra layer instead of applying it to all layers.
Or use affinity

[Nicinus]

Daniel, will PSD Manager automatically recreate the beauty pass using all light select elements in 3.6? I've been meaning to take a closer look at PSD manager for a long time now.

[dans]

Daniel, will PSD Manager automatically recreate the beauty pass using all light select elements in 3.6? I've been meaning to take a closer look at PSD manager for a long time now.

Yes, please lets discuss the VRayLightSelect handling further in the Light Select inside VFB like other render engines thread, where I have just given a more detailed answer (don't want to hi-jack this thread):

Daniel

[Syclone1]

I use http://www.exr-io.com/
Its free and adds the alpha as an extra layer instead of applying it to all layers.
Or use affinity

I finally got around to trying this and it is exactly what I needed. I was using ProEXR but will be using EXR-io now thanks again!