Cineversity

Just wondering if anyone out there knows of a way to achieve similar functionality to Maya’s render layer system within C4D.

I have attached a simple scene file that illustrates what we need.

We essentially need to be able to render two or more separate luminance channels, each containing a unique texture that we can adjust in After Effects.  As you can see in the DESIRED_OUTPUT.tif file.  For example we might want to be able to dial the opacity of the top grass layer up or down over time.  I wasn’t able to figure out how to do this with object buffers.  Is there something we are missing or is it possible to achieve this with a custom shader?

Thanks

Hi Cam, the file you posted did not attach.

From what I can gather from your description I am going to say the answer is no.
From the render pass menu what you see is what you get in terms of rendering passes in one go.

To the same grass with many variations you will need to manaully render those passes.

you can some one speed up the process by hacking the “material passes”
you can use the material color, material luminance, and material transparency or material reflection to render out up to 3 different textures at once.
these passes will not contain any lighting information, and need to be combined with other passes to work properly.

Alternatively you will want to look into a pass management plugin like render elements: http://adamswaab.wordpress.com/category/3d-software/cinema-4d/plugin-development/render-elements/