Problem with Maya iff in Photoshop and After Effects

[Anonymous]

Hello AREA-community,
I'm doing my BA project (Autodesk Maya 2011, short animated movie, Germany) and I have problems with Maya iff
in Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.
After Effects opens the rendered iff-images just fine, but it cannot open the depth cannel iffs.
I created a new render pass(camera depth) in the Maya render settings. For example fcheck displayed the images but
when I try to import them in After Effects, it says: "After Effects Error: t he file format could not parse the file. 45 :: 35".
My idea was to open the iff files in Photoshop an make an action which automatically saves the files as TIFF, but Photoshop won't
open the Maya iff images either.

The time is running against me and I have to deliver the BA project in four weeks - I really hope you can help me!
If you haven't noticed by now: I'm no professional in Maya (just getting started). I would really appreciate your advice!

Thank you!

[whisper1]

Is there a reason you can't use jpg files?

[Anonymous]

You'll need the iff plugin for photoshop that can distinguish between amiga iff and maya iff. It's supposed to be on the installation CD/DVD.

[Anonymous]

I read about the iff plugin and in my Photoshop Plugin-Folder is already an iff-plugin.
But I have tried an other way and rendered tiff images as depth-channel. This is working and I hope it will last 🙂

Why jpg? Can I render depth channels as jpg?

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

I have no idea how you intend to use the depth files, but you'll probably want to make sure you use a format that supports 32-bit depth.

[Anonymous]

I intend to use them for postproduction in After Effects (Lens Blur). So I need a file format that is supported by Adobe and as I said before, Maya's IFF isn't working 😞
But my solution with TIFF is working so I think I will stick to that.

Thank you!

[n8skow]

Can you post one of these .iff files that Photoshop/AfterEffects is refusing to load?