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Cryptomatte
Open-source software by Psyop

Cryptomatte is a piece of open-source software created by Jonah Friedman and Andy Jones at Psyop. It is also used synonymously for the specific style of image created by the software or other software working alike.

Cryptomatte is a quasi-standard in the industry, because of its ubiquity, integration into popular 3D graphics software, and ease of use.

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Render processing

The program itself creates an ID matte of a scene that can be used to create for example image masks for single or multiple objects in the scene. The ID matte has a very distinctive look and itself is sometimes referred to as cryptomatte. These cryptomatte images are in general very colourful assigning each object or material a different random colour. The program creates mattes that support motion blur, transparency and depth of field using data that is already available at render time.1

Supported render engines

Cryptomatte images can be created by several 3D graphic programs like Blender,2 Autodesk Maya,3 Autodesk 3ds Max4 or Houdini5 and are usually exported using the OpenEXR file format.

Whether a program is able to generate a cryptomatte or not is determined by the render engine being used. If a program supports more than one render engine it is possible that it can generate cryptomatte images with one engine while being unable to do so with the other one. Blender, for example, had no option to create a cryptomatte image before version 2.80.6 With version 2.80, only the "Cycles" path-tracing render engine supported creating a cryptomatte whereas "Eevee", the newly added real-time render engine, did not. The support to create cryptomatte images was added to Eevee with version 2.92 that was published on February 25, 20217 one and a half years after Eevee was first published.8

The following render engines are known to support creating cryptomatte images:

Render engine nameShipped withAdded with version
Arnold910Autodesk 3ds MaxAutodesk MayaArnold 5.2
Cycles11BlenderBlender 2.80
Eevee12BlenderBlender 2.92
Mantra13HoudiniHoudini 16.5
Karma14HoudiniHoudini 18.5
Modo renderer / mPath15Modo16Modo 14.2
Redshift17Cinema 4D (CPU-only)Redshift 2.6.11
3Delight18Katana3Delight 1.7.3219
Unreal Engine (Movie Render Queue)20Unreal Engine4.26
Radeon ProRender21Radeon ProRender 3.1
Octane Render22
RenderMan23
V-Ray24

Supported compositing software

Compositing software nameAdded with version
Autodesk Flame202025
After Effects17.026
Nuke13.027
Blackmagic Fusion20
Blender (Compositing Nodes)2.8
Houdini (COP)16.528
V-Ray (V-Ray Frame Buffer)5 Update 129
Adobe PhotoshopExr-IO 2.030
Gaffer0.61.2.031

Workflow example

In a 3D scene a cryptomatte image can be created that assigns a unique ID to each object. The objects usually also have distinct colours that make a scene with many objects very colourful. The ID matte can be used to pick one or more objects in a scene. The ID matte can either be exported or it can be used by the 3D software itself for compositing.

An example workflow would be to use the cryptomatte image to generate a mask that itself is used to limit an effect to only a certain part of the image. It can thereby be used to quickly create masks without the need of re-rendering a whole scene.

The example workflow for images:

The same workflow for video files:

The masks in the examples can be used to limit a visual effect so that only the cube in the middle is affected.

Licensing

The developers published the program's source code and licensed it under the BSD 3-clause license "to turn it into an ecosystem around an open standard". Their goal was "to see a diverse ecosystem of renderers that can create Cryptomatte images and plugins for compositing applications to decode them".32

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cryptomatte.

References

  1. Cryptomatte on github.com https://github.com/Psyop/Cryptomatte ↩

  2. Cryptomatte Node on docs.blender.org https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/compositing/types/matte/cryptomatte.html ↩

  3. Cryptomatte in Maya on rmanwiki.pixar.com https://rmanwiki.pixar.com/display/RFM23/Cryptomatte+in+Maya ↩

  4. Cryptomatte on docs.arnoldrenderer.com https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AF3DSUG/Cryptomatte ↩

  5. Cryptomatte on sidefx.com https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/render/cryptomatte.html ↩

  6. Blender 2.80 Release Notes: Cycles on wiki.blender.org https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.80/Cycles ↩

  7. index of blender 2.92 release on download.blender.org https://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.92/ ↩

  8. Blender 2.92 Release Notes: EEVEE on wiki.blender.org https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.92/EEVEE ↩

  9. Cryptomatte Shader docs.arnoldrenderer.com https://docs.arnoldrenderer.com/display/A5AFMUG/Cryptomatte+Shader ↩

  10. Solid Angle ships Arnold 5.2.1. CG Channel. October 23, 2018 http://www.cgchannel.com/2018/10/solidangle-ships-arnold-5-2/ ↩

  11. Blender 2.80 Release Notes: Cycles on wiki.blender.org https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.80/Cycles ↩

  12. Blender 2.92 Release Notes: EEVEE on wiki.blender.org https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.92/EEVEE ↩

  13. What’s new in Houdini 16.5 Side Effects Software https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini16.5/news/16_5/index.html ↩

  14. Karma Renderer FAQs. SideFX https://www.sidefx.com/faq/karma/ ↩

  15. Foundry ships Modo 14.2. CG Channel. November 13, 2020 http://www.cgchannel.com/2020/11/foundry-ships-modo-14-2/ ↩

  16. Foundry announces strategic decision to wind down development of Modo. Foundry.com. November 7, 2024 https://www.foundry.com/news-and-awards/foundry-winds-down-modo-development ↩

  17. Redshift Version 2.6.11リリースノート (in Japanese). Born Digital. June 12, 2018 https://support.borndigital.co.jp/hc/ja/articles/360005820093-Redshift-Version-2-6-11%E3%83%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9%E3%83%8E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88 ↩

  18. Changelog - 3DELIGHT. DNA Research https://documentation.3delightcloud.com/display/3DFM9/Changelog ↩

  19. Changelog - 3DELIGHT. DNA Research https://documentation.3delightcloud.com/display/3DFM9/Changelog ↩

  20. Movie Render Queue Render Passes. Epic Games https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/AnimatingObjects/Sequencer/Workflow/RenderAndExport/HighQualityMediaExport/RenderPasses/index.html ↩

  21. AMD ships Radeon ProRender 3.1 for Blender and Maya. CG Channel. April 1, 2021. http://www.cgchannel.com/2021/04/amd-releases-radeon-prorender-3-1-for-blender-and-maya/ ↩

  22. CRYPTOMATTE on aoktar.com http://www.aoktar.com/octane/OCTANE%20HELP%20MANUAL.html?Cryptomatte.html ↩

  23. PxrCryptomatte on rmanwiki.pixar.com https://rmanwiki.pixar.com/display/REN/PxrCryptomatte ↩

  24. Using the Cryptomatte In V-Ray for 3ds Max on tutorials.cgrecord.net https://tutorials.cgrecord.net/2017/07/using-cryptomatte-in-v-ray-for-3ds-max.html ↩

  25. Autodesk ships Flame 2020. CG Channel. April 16, 2019 http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/04/autodesk-unveils-flame-2020/ ↩

  26. Adobe ships After Effects 17.0. CG Channel. November 4, 2019 http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/11/adobe-releases-after-effects-cc-17-0/ ↩

  27. Foundry ships Nuke, NukeX, Nuke Studio & Nuke Indie 13.0. CG Channel. March 17, 2021. http://www.cgchannel.com/2021/03/foundry-ships-nuke-nukex-nuke-studio-nuke-indie-13-0/ ↩

  28. What’s new in Houdini 16.5 Side Effects Software https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini16.5/news/16_5/index.html ↩

  29. Chaos releases V-Ray 5 for 3ds Max Update 1. CG Channel. February 24, 2021 http://www.cgchannel.com/2021/02/chaos-ships-v-ray-5-for-3ds-max-update-1/ ↩

  30. New: Exr-io 2.00 with cryptomatte support. Exr-IO is a third-party plugin https://www.exr-io.com/exr-io-2-00/ ↩

  31. "Release Gaffer 0.61.2.0 · GafferHQ/gaffer". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-07-21. https://github.com/GafferHQ/gaffer/releases/tag/0.61.2.0 ↩

  32. Cryptomatte on github.com https://github.com/Psyop/Cryptomatte ↩