[brodie_geers]

I've noticed a couple things that could be improved with the channels. For example, the Embedded option. When it's checked the output should always be as embedded as possible. At the very least this should mean that a .TIF will contain the alpha information however that doesn't seem to be the case unless you open the MXI and save as a .tif. The standard output files you get when you hit render come out separate. The next level would be something like an .exr which could contain all of the layers (Vray has this capability). I would think that a .tif could work this way too since .tif's can contain layer info. You can bring .MXI files into Photoshop of course but I rarely use it at this point because it's very slow.

Also the Opaque option. This seems to work fine with regular glass and such but not AGS. In archviz, where AGS is used a lot the Opaque option ends up being pretty worthless. It'd be nice if Opaque worked for AGS.

-Brodie

[Mihai]

Just tried it and I don't separate files when using the embedded option with a tif. I just get one tif file that already has the background cut out.

I find it really convenient to use an MXI in Photoshop, what operations are slow for you? Which version of PS?

[brodie_geers]

I ran a render early and it did embed the channels. I'll have to run some test sometime to find out when it wasn't. I think one of those cases was when I ran a network render but I'd have to do a test to find out for sure.

I really like the idea of the mxi import into Photoshop. It's just that particularly on large renderings (i do a lot of renderings at or around 4,000 px wide) it takes a very long time to open the file. You drag the MXI into Photoshop and it just doesn't really do anything for awhile. So I work on something else for a minute and sometimes miss the box that finally pops up asking if you want to open it in 8,16, or 32 bit. Then you hit that and grab a coffee while it thinks for awhile longer. A lot of times I've just resorted to doing it manually because it seems faster.

I'm using CS 5 with a computer with the following specs
Intel i7 980x 3.33 Ghz 6-Core Processor
nVidia Quadro FX 3700 512Mb
18.0 G RAM

-Brodie