Quick Tip: Arnold AOV Bit Depth (Patreon)

Users might find it a bit unclear how Arnold handles the bit depth of AOVs, particularly in Maya. Here's the full story!

1. Leave Half Precision unchecked in Maya's Render Settings. All AOVs are saved in 32-bit float format.

2. Check Half Precision. All AOVs are now saved as 16-bit half.

3. What if cryptomatte is enabled? Cryptomatte automatically overrides the half-precision flag on all cryptomatte AOVs. With Half Precision unchecked you get a full float file.

4. With cryptomatte enabled and Half Precision checked you get a mix of half and float. Cryptomatte AOVs are float and all others are half.

One issue with using the half precision checkbox is that it's global. For example, you probably don't want your Z depth AOV to be half.

One workaround for this is to export an .ass file and manually edit the AOVs. You can add "HALF" to each one to force it to be 16-bit. In this case I added the HALF token to each AOV except for Z.

And here's the result. Z is float and the rest are half, as expected!