I'm trying to render a scene in several passes, but After effects doesn't display a z channel. I've tried rendering as softimage, but no joy. (I didn't forget to tick the depth channel box) usually I just delete all geometry except for anything that passes in front of the object I'm trying to isolate. Then apply a black surface shader, and remove all light links, but this leaves a lot of geometry in a scene that I don't need. I don't know how badly this effects render time, but surely, if the z channel was working I could just render the isolated object. Is there something I'm doing wrong in Maya, or Aftereffects?