Z-Depth Compositing

Trapcode’s Particular is probably the most popular 3rd party plugin for After Effects, and amongst its many powerful features is the ability to read a z-depth map.  What it doesn’t have, however, is an obvious way to render out its own z-depth map – but by manually adjusting some of the settings we can generate one in Particular and Form, which opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities.

Source: ProVideo Coalition