I am having trouble with accessing the multi passes in a EXR in After Effects. I have searched the forums here and google in general and I can’t find anyone with the same issue.
Basically I have been following various tutorials on how to render out multi pass EXRs out of the Movie Render Queue. In the tutorials, the users then import the EXR sequences into After Effects and use the EXtractoR plug to access the different passes.
However when I do this, the drop down menu in the EXtractoR plugin won’t give me passes to select.
To double check it wasn’t an After Effects bug, I rendered a fresh EXR sequence out of another program with multi passes and EXtractoR worked fine. So I guess the question is, is there any trick to making EXR multi-layer files ready for After Effects?
For reference I am working on an Apple MacBook Pro with M1, Unreal Engine 5.1, and I have tested it out on AE 2022, 2023 and even through Rosetta versions of these.
Thanks in advance for any help you can fire my way, cheers
Hey! I’ve been searching the forums for this exact issue. My setup is exactly the same as yours with the same hardware and engine version. Have you had any luck in figuring this out? In my experience, there seems to be some strange incompatibility between the EXR files rendered out of Unreal and the extractor plugin in After Effects. I also rendered out an EXR sequence from another program and extractor worked as expected, so I figured the problem was with my render settings in Unreal. After trying many configurations, all with no success, I just took a single EXR file rendered in Unreal and brought it into Photoshop. All of the multichannel layers were there! So Photoshop can read them but After Effects can’t. I’m wondering if there are alternate plugins to use in After Effects for extracting the multipasses instead of the built-in extractor/cryptomatte/IDentifier because none of them are working for this workflow. So far I’ve been unable to find another plugin. Guess it may be time to switch to Nuke since AE can’t seem to support the OpenEXR format which is becoming industry standard.
Yeah I suspect as you say its just something about AE/EXtratoR not dealing with Unreal EXRs. I did also try opening in photoshop and seeing the layers there, but I’m wondering if thats very helpful for making the depth pass work properly?
Anyways unfortunately it feels like it wont work until someone updates something so they talk to each other better right? Either EXtractoR or Unreal? I’m not aware of any other EXR options in AE. Or as you say Nuke time!
On another note, how are you finding working with Unreal Engine and Mac M1? I’ve tried both the Epic loader and source versions but not having much luck getting Lumen to work. I was under the impression the source version would have Lumen work.
No the only reason I mentioned Photoshop was, I used it as a tool to check if the exr’s contained the multipasses, and it proved to me that it did.
Not sure if Windows users are experiencing the same thing, but for some reason, I suspect it is only for Mac users. Every topic on the web related to this is by Windows users and no one seems to have this issue.
I’m pretty new to Unreal in general (background in motion design) but loving the real time rendering that Unreal offers. Outside of the EXR issue, I have noticed some strange behavior with lighting but haven’t quite delved into enough testing to pinpoint the root of the issue. I have noticed that I often turn off Lumen because I get better results without it, and certain lights just don’t work (I can’t get a Rectangle light to work, for example).
Anyway I think we’re in the minority using a Mac to run Unreal as there don’t seem to be any Mac-specific Unreal help resources available.
Hi guys, did anyway have any update on this issue. I’m in the same situation almost a year later from the original post. M1 Mac using AE 2024 and UE 5.3. UE 5.3 is running great so far, I’ve just started learning it, I’m also a motion designer so I’m more comfortable in After Effects than Nuke so we love to see be able to use the multiples EXR workflow in After Effects if possible.
I solved this issue with those settings from the EXreactoR.
The depth goes from white to blue instead of white to black but I can easily fix it with a Saturation and Curve Effect.
I really need it…