Blender and Fusion

Hello,

if I render out the z-pass as open EXR (single layer, full float) it is white - of course I can correct this with map range (better for animations! no jumping) or normalize in the blender compositing and add an file output.

But I would like to do the compositing in fusion. So I would like NOT to use the MapRange node in blender - so I can later on set these values in fusion. I know blender saves the depth information anyway - because if I open the rendered openEXR-file in a new blend file in the compositor it is first white - after adding maprange or normalize the information gets visible, I can see the depth pass again.

So what is the correct node setup in fusion to use my blender openEXR file only storing a depth pass (,that is displayed white first.) I am quite new to fusion and the fog or depth blur node don’t work with the opneEXR-file from blender so far.

Thank you!

the image may look complete white, but it isnt! it has probaly values above 1 (or white) in it. this is one of the advantages of a floating point image, you can store HDR values.
fusion is able to work with these floating point images without problems, but every zPass can be different and every software expects something else. if i remember correctly fusion expects as default a zPass with negative values of the real distance from the camera and not a normalized one between 0-1.
to just see the zPass as a normalized one on fusion hit the button with the 2 little gradients in the viewer. this will just normalize the viewer and change nothing in you data
there is also a “auto gain” node in fusion, but this will calculate the normalisation from frame to frame. in a animation this will lead to jumping values

you can always normalize the values by yourself with the Brightness/contrast node: in the gain put (1/you max Z Value)

if you could share a rendering (beauty + z) i could take a look and send you a comp back

Sorry for checking back so late - lol just found the answer right now googleing the question :wink: Thank you very much for your detailed answer, works just all right! Exactly what I needed.

What is a bit of a pain are the very small values I need in the brightnes and contrast node:
Gain: 0.01
Lift: -0.00953
Gamma 1.0
Contrast: 0.3142857142857
Brightness: 0.0952380952381
Saturation 1.0

georgheller.de/fusion%20test.zip

What doesn’t work in my setup is the boolean node to combine the z-pass. And I don’t get a nice godray effect I would like with the last node. Would be very happy if you ore someone else could habe a quick look at my first test with fusion.