Animation formats

Mouser

The animation format AVI is lets face it not the best (possibly the worst) format due to size & corruption issues.

Yes you can use image sequances and I often do using Davinci Resolve but sometimes I would prefer as direct one step render.

cant we have some alternative options as there are plenty out there.

Example H264, MP4, MOV etc

Diaspora

The general consensus is that it's a waste of developer time and resources to put more resources into better video output options when things like handbrake exist for free.

Gordig

Image sequence is also preferable because if the render fails at any point, you can simply resume rendering on the last frame instead of having to start from frame 1.

wsterdan

Mouser said:

The animation format AVI is lets face it not the best (possibly the worst) format due to size & corruption issues.

Yes you can use image sequances and I often do using Davinci Resolve but sometimes I would prefer as direct one step render.

cant we have some alternative options as there are plenty out there.

Example H264, MP4, MOV etc

I'm not sure if I have extra options because I'm on a Mac or because I'm using the DAZ 2026 BETA, but. I have multiple format options besides AVI.

I normally use .mov; what happens is that as the frames are rendered, individual frames are saved in a system temp folder. Once the full animation has been rendered, a .mov file is saved. The .mov file is very small, as it's only a link to the temporary individual frames saved in the system library's temp folder for DAZ. The .mov file on its own is unplayable, but if I open it in iMovie (and I assume other movie editing software) the entire movie is there and I can then save it out as a proper .mov or .MP4, etc..

Should the movie fail before it's fully rendered, the individual frames are still there up to the point the failure happens.

The only thing to be aware of is that if you go to render another animation without having opened the .mov file in an editing program and exported a full animation file, your temporary files will be overwritten with the new animation.

The advantage for me over rendering individual frames is that the audio file is part of the .mov file, so when I open it in iMovie it's all there, audio and visual.  

Mouser

The point being missed is that AVI is possibly the worst animation file format.

If you are going to have the option of a one stop animation format, you dont use the worst one.

There many perfectly reasonable formats to chooses from and that are free, even 20 years ago when DS was released.

Richard Haseltine

Free to license doesn't necessarily mean free to develop, and as others have said image sequences are the better option in most cases.

cain-x

Image Sequence is the best and most reliable way. I get you want to eliminate the "middle man" in the workflow, it would be nice to have but there are ways to quickly automate this.

Here's a batch script I use to run against an Image Sequence (keep in mind your images need to be named TEST###.png - you need ffmpeg):
@echo off
X:\Video\FFmpeg\bin\ffmpeg -framerate 30 -i TEST%%03d.png -pix_fmt yuv420p test.mp4
pause

wsterdan

Again, when I choose mov format I *get* the image sequence *and* a mov file that, when opened in a film editor, also has my audio synced. Should the movie render fail, I *still* have the image sequence files that were successfully rendered.

I get both the image sequence AND a mov file with audio, no scripts needed and no audio syncing needed. There's literally no advantage for me to render out *just* image sequence, only guaranteed extra work.

Is this not available under Windows?

Richard Haseltine

The image sequence is created during rendering, then if you choose the movie option those images are used to build the result - but they are in the temp folder as far as I know, so will be cleared 9at the latest) on the next application launch. Maybe Macs, or your system in particular, hold on to them.

wsterdan

Richard Haseltine said:

The image sequence is created during rendering, then if you choose the movie option those images are used to build the result - but they are in the temp folder as far as I know, so will be cleared 9at the latest) on the next application launch. Maybe Macs, or your system in particular, hold on to them.

Thanks Richard, much appreciated.

I believe it works the same on the Mac. My method:

1. Generate .mov file; if the generation is successful, I open up the .mov file in iMovie (I assume it would work in other editing software) and the frames are copied automatically into the software with any audio file automatically synced; iindividual frames aren't needed (but can be exported afterwards if they were) and they're deleted from the temp folder when the application reboots or another animation is generated.

2. Generate .mov file, it fails partway; copy the frames from the temp file and generate remaining frames needed; open sequence frames in Quicktime Player and export an .mp4.

Frames are there if needed and cleared if they're not. Opening .mov file in iMovie is automatic, there's no explicit importing of frames and works the same as if the file were an .mp4. No extra steps needed.

As far as I can see, attempting to generate the .mov might save you steps but if it fails, you copy the temp files the same as if you'd generated individual frames to begin with. You might save steps with .mov generation but you never make extra work and can only come out ahead in the long run.