I’m having the same problem. The client wants a smooth gradient for the background so I use a background object but the multi-pass render doesn’t save it out. Also, the entire image is to dark. Not sure what I’m doing wrong but I’ll do another render and use the Material Layers as well. Sucks because it’s a 3 hour render. I may just turn the background off, render with an alpha, and add the background in AE. But that’s a work around. It should just work.
Any advise would be much appreciated. Thanks!
(using R14 and AE CS6 but don’t get me started on why the Import plug-in doesn’t work for CS6)
Jeff