In this tutorial, we are going to render a Depth Matte. A Depth Matte is a grayscale representation of the distance from the camera to objects in the scene. These mattes have literally hundreds of uses in compositing applications such as After Effects™ or Discreet effect*.

This tutorial requires:

Pixels3D | studio | v3.x

The ideal scene to showcase this effect will have lots of depth & variation. I've chosen a simple model of an alley.

Create a new scene, or duplicate an existing one.

Select the Camera.

In the Object Info Window, click the Fog checkbox. There are two fog parameters, Inner Radius, and Outer Radius. These determine where the fog begins & ends in relation to the camera.

Adjust the Inner & Outer Radii so that they hug the scene.

This method produces 256 levels of variation, and to get the best depth sample, 0 should be located at the first object the camera sees, and 255 should be located at the farthest visible object.

The Color Picker will open.

Select Black as the fog color, and click OK.

We've managed to darken the image based on distance from the Camera. But, this is not yet a depth matte. Notice the diffuse shading is still prevalent in the image.

We'll be applying the Matte-White Shader to every object in the scene, so set the Apply To: popup to All

With any object selected, click an empty swatch in the Shader Manager window.

A navigation dialog will appear. Click the New Shader button.

Use these settings:

The diffuse value is not necessary for the final render, but is required for shaded preview.

Click OK.

This is the finished Depth Matte. It can be used in a compositor for a number of effects, like:

• Depth of Field
• Compositing Fire/Explosion Footage
• Color Correction & Stylistic Effects
• Animating Rack Focus
• Compositing Fog/Smoke