large project settings.

There is no right answer for this. It applies to both CG and video BUT If you had a long project to do, like a documentary or a movie, or whatever....Something long.

What filetypes would you all use during the stages of your project?

What I mean is would you save the chapters in PNG seq in a mov container? Would you use neoscene?


Honestly I might use photojpg sequences because they rerender faster, but you cant rerender jpeg too many times because compression (of that type) over and over is bad. Im thinking start in neoscene, rerender chapters or 'segments' into 90% jpeg sequences and final output rerender jpeg2000. I might also use 24p NOT because it looks better, but because less frames saves time, and a res of 1280 by 720 for time sake.

BTW by long I mean like 1 and half or 2 hours.

The way I do it is I use proxy files first until I am happy with the specific segment. (Purely to save time on renders) - then to have a good look at what the finished product will look like. I chop big projects down to smaller ones (hence - chapters or scenes) as this will suffice when I need to make the DVD or whatever. For final render, I then replace all the proxies with the best possible quality original I can get my hands on. It sounds like lots of work, but actually it is a really cool way to discover quirks, mis-timings, frame adjustments etc. - An alternative way is to start with he best quality footage and do some pre-renders in a lower res or mp4 for example just to see if it is all working. In Vegas this is easily done by simply "rendering to new track". Once complete and happiness occurs, only then do I do the final render - but again in segments. This is also a great way to get down timing and lengths of any special stuff - such as special effects, compositions - stuff I need to do in AE or whatever. If done correctly it is a sometimes tedious process, but that pays for itself when you get a nice final project. I also change up the method depending on the final quality requirements: Web only vs actual dvd, vs actual full blown motion picture vs. music vids.. and so on. AS you stated - there is no "right' answer for this, so rest assured, I typed this whole message with my left hand. ;)

Aye, I agree with Vader... I did a 2 hour memorial video for a friend and I rendered everything out at SD wide-screen low-quality and used that as proxies to build out the project. Once I had it completed, I swapped in the high quality HD footage for the final render. Made my workflow SOOO much faster.

are you going to do some special process like color correction, tracking or something like that? if so I recommend you to use animation codec. it is "probably" as powerful as targa sequence. I see no difference in the quality between targa sequence and animation mov. but there is difference in colors between targa and photojpeg mov. personally, I do it as long as my system allow me. (But you should be ready to share very big space on your harddrive)

Thanks for the precomposing ideas Andy!
The problem with pngs and animation codec is that the AE preview is kinda slow, but when you start doing a long project jpegs start to look more attractive. With Jpeg sequences the preview speed in AE is practically real time for me.

I once made an educational video that was SD 25 minutes long about biology. I found the easiest approach was to create the different sections or chapters. Then I could say "im done with That section." Some of the chapters where uncompressed and they took up a lot of space and it was hard on my small laptop to play them back.

I usually make my CG renders in PNG seq. So I don't usually use jpg often actually. My plans right now are sort of vague so I cant go into what exactly Im going to be doing.

I would like to mention that many of the RED stills that I see on the internet (and on REDS site): http://www.red.com/shot_on_red/
are JPEG images! HA! I think that is hilarious!!! its like, look how great uncompressed footage is, and the still is a jpeg image. Unbelievable

yeah, animation is really slow, but it is best video codec as I know, and that's why I am choosing it most of the time. you can make color corrections with seeing what is going on.

Sinse you are compositor, you probably already know it But just reminding, do not save photojpeg (or motion jpeg) videos multiple times. just like jpeg photos, jpeg videos start to loose their quality if you save over and over again. (rendering out/exporting from photojpeg to photojpeg)

and one question, why you choice PNG, is it better? I am asking this because I really don't know the answer, which is better: targa, tiff, png or photoshop sequences?

PNG it's smaller with less quality loss especially if you want the alpha info included.

Bryans probably right, I don't remember why exactly other than its supposed to be more efficient.

I heard jpeg2000 is used in movies I havent tried using it much though.