Cryptomatte in After Effects

[tompkins.ge]

Can't figure out how to get this working. Tried setting up an EXR driver and using the native C4D multi-pass output in EXR, both with and without merge enabled. When I bring it into AE it says "No Cryptomatte layers found".

Also tried following this tutorial to the exact step and still nothing. What am I doing wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2zJv7__mis

Edit : Got it working. Was an AE import problem.

[molora8946]

cryptomattes are only supported in CPU so if you're rendering in GPU this is why if not. you would have to create a cryptomatte shader and go into render settings and scroll down to advance and put the shader in there. then you will need to set the materials by adding an AOV_write_RGB to the shaders you want to use cryptomattes and plugging them into the appropriate ports. hope this helps 🙂

[tompkins.ge]

Using CPU. Eventually figured it out. Just had to be imported into AE correctly.

Only thing I can't figure out now is how to get the crypto_material aov to work with stacked material alphas, like labels applied as multiple material tags in the object manager, each with their own alpha.

[jamesVT8PS]

I'm also trying to solve this problem - can you share the solution?

[tompkins.ge · Accepted solution]

Have to use an Arnold EXR driver to output Cryptomatte. Using the native C4D saver doesn't include whatever metadata Cryptomatte needs to work. Doesn't matter if its merged with other AOVs or not. I prefer mine as a separate file so I let C4D output the beauty pass with a straight alpha and set up an EXR driver to handle the AOVs. In the Driver settings you can have it use the naming and paths in the native C4D multipass settings by setting the Driver to "render settings ( multipass )" which is needed if you're using something like Deadline on a farm.

In AE, import as usual but make sure to set the color settings of the cryptomatte aov to "preserve RGB". Add it to the timeline, apply the cryptomatte effect, click on the effects settings to bring up the dialogue, click OK, then make your selections.

[jamesVT8PS]

Thanks Tompkins, yeah this is the workflow I usually use. The issue I have is that sometimes the cryptomatte output is still blank in AE - but what's slightly different to your problem is that the Cryptomatte plugin doesn't give a 'no cryptomatte layers found' error - it finds the matte, just displays it as blank.

As a workaround, I've found that renaming the display driver and setting it to an Arnold EXR driver solves the problem. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong when I set it up manually. And again the problem doesn't appear in every project. Possibly a bug?

[tompkins.ge]

I've only ever changed the Beauty driver to EXR so maybe that's why I've never run into that one. Sometimes the result will appear so dark after the cryptomatte effect is applied that's its hard to tell if anything is there, but selections still work so I never bothered to try and fix it.