I'm not brilliant with filters and planes, so this suggestion might sound more than I problem I have moreso than the solution for the problem.

In some situations, you might want to apply a filter to a specific group of atoms such as when you have an alpha mask filter that makes specific atoms/overlays transparent when the player gets close. The most obvious solution for this is using a plane, but using a plane results in it messing up your render order, as you can no longer layer it inbetween specific objects in a different plane, or use handy functionality like the projection from SIDE_MAP.

To avoid this, It'd be nice if there was a separate way of handling post-processing effects like filters (but for my use case, specifically alpha-masking) without relying on planes.

I'm sorry if this request is a bit vague, I'm no rendering pro. :)