Depth

Depth is a Utility effect.

What it does

Reads the shot with a trained model and files how far away every pixel is, one plane a frame. Point a Depth of field’s Matte row, a Set matte or a track matte at this layer and the depth is what they read.

The numbers have no unit. Each frame’s plane is scaled to that frame’s own nearest and furthest, and nearer is brighter.

The model is an addon, installed from Settings ▸ Addons. Without it the effect wears a badge naming the pack to install and leaves the picture alone.

The planes are kept at the model’s own size, a few hundred pixels on the long side.

Parameters

Parameter	Control	Range	Default	Unit
Analyse	Button	-	-	-
Cancel	Button	-	-	-
Model	Dropdown	Depth Anything V2 Small	Depth Anything V2 Small	-
View	Dropdown	Depth · Source	Depth	-
Invert	Checkbox	On or off	Off	-
Frames	Dropdown	All frames · Layer in to out · Work area	All frames	-
Save to folder	File		None	-

What each control does

• Analyse: read the shot and file its depth. Only one analysis runs at a time.
• Cancel: stop a run and keep the frames already read; a later Analyse carries on from them.
• Model: which trained model reads the frames.
• View: the depth as a grey picture, or the layer’s own picture untouched.
• Invert: draws the plane the other way up, so far is bright.
• Frames: which frames Analyse reads. All frames is the whole footage however the layer is trimmed, Layer in to out is the frames between the layer’s in and out points, and Work area is the frames inside the composition’s work area.
• Save to folder: a folder each plane is also saved to as a 16-bit greyscale PNG at the model’s own size, named by source frame (depth_000123.png). Frames already in the folder are read back rather than analysed again.

Notes

Frames the analysis has not reached render untouched.

Related

• Depth of field
• Set matte
• Mattes
• Utility
• Effects