Thank you for your reply!
I realize there will be loss of data but I hope the results will be sufficient using 8-bit format. If not, I will have to change the implementation later. This is not a pressing concern however so I will leave that for later.
You say that the normals are in -1/+1. Does that mean that I could use the following formula X_N = (R-128)*127 and similarly for y and z? That is what I’m currently doing and the length of each normal appears to be 1. (For 8 bit channels)
I may have misunderstood what camera space is. I assumed that camera space was the same as view space i.e. a translation and rotation from world space. I didn’t think transforming to view space would make the normals relative to the field of view since the field of view is not used until the scene is projected. “If you want to transform them you will have to use the fov of the camera.” How? :). You don’t have to give me a step by step approach or anything but I don’t understand what space the normals are in so I don’t know how to use the fov to transform them.
Regarding “depth vs. distance”. According to this post by Vlado:
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?48869-vignetted-Zdpeth-pass&highlight=vrayzdepth+scanline
“V-Ray calculates the Z-buffer as the distance from the camera position, whereas the scanline renderer calculates this as distance from the camera XY plane.”
It is a lot easier to find the view space coordinates using the distance from the XY plane rather than the distance from the camera.
Regarding SamplerInfo. I had not heard about it before this post. A quick google search later and it seems that it is for Maya? Is there anything equivalent for 3DS Max? Could you direct me to any info/tutorials?