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CoDex Codecs...

Now here's some really geeky stuff that doesn't seem like it would matter that much to most BUT when in production your format choices are important....

My process for HSM is... Rendering 1920x802 24fps EXR image SEQUENCES out of Cinema 4d... with at least an RGBA pass and a depth pass out of ZBluR... I did a bunch of tests and EXR produced the SMALLEST files out of the 32bit formats which I want with my 3d renders so I can push em hard in After Effects if I want too... So yeh if ya don't know...32bit files are pretty much the highest quality you can make right now as opposed to 16bit and 8bit..... So EXR out of C4d...

So then I have to composite these thangs in After Effects and then render out the quicktime MOVIE files to edit themS... The codec chose to render out the final movies that will make up the master version of the film is the SheerVideo 10 bit codec... Its a lossless 10 bit codec but only a fraction of the size of the other lossless codecs... for WATS I used uncompressed which makes for HUGE files... which is fine wif todays mega hard drives but smaller files travel around the network faster and they are easier to work with because the SheerVideo files only require 33 megs a sec to playback whilst uncompressed is 125 megs+ So that means you need a RAID to playback uncompressed BUT the SheerVideo files can play back on any decent 7200rpm sata drives... like the one in this old Macbook Pro ^ ^ So yeh with Sheervideo I can playback lossless 10bit 1920x802 files on a 4 year old laptop...I think thats pretty suite... So yeh check out the SheerVideo site if you need a 10bit codec made of pure win.

Oh yeh! Also to speed up working with image sequences in After Effects I bought the "Immigration" script for AESCRIPTS there's ton of awesome free ones too like Panorama for yer 2.5d matte paintings.

Comments

  1. Video codecs have been driving me nuts for the last month. But even in all the research I've been doing, I haven't come across SheerVideo. Looks tasty. I will definitely follow up at that site. Thanks a bunch for outlining your export plans from c4d and into post.

    Am going to be getting c4d at the end of the month, so this is super helpful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooh tech talk. I love it! Um though when you said you were rendering at 1920x802 does that mean that's gonna be the video size or will not? and if it is why choose that size?!

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Ricky- Yeh EXR out of C4d and into After Effects... work in 32bi in AE... then render out 10 bit Sheervideo to cut as your master.... that will give you small file sizes and the best quality...Awesome! If you need any c4d help feel free to ask me! ^ ^

    @Drainage- Yeh thats the video size... thats 2.39:1 ratio... roughly the same as WATS but to fit in a 16.9 frame for DVD and stuff have to add black bars to make it 1920x1080 which is a standard high def format as you prolly know.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Actually I didn't know that yeT D:

    I'm still learning all kindas of stuff so I'm glad you told me that.

    I've been making alot of video with some friends of mine and I've been the main editor for them and stuff so I've had a lot of learning to do about file formats and stuff lately. But It's knowledge gained so its WIn :)

    So ya still learnin.

    ReplyDelete
  5. So many questions man! I really wanna know all this stuff, even if it is totally technical stuff. I wanna understand! I wanna learn! And don't computers have like like higher resolutions and framerate than on an HDTV or am I wrong? I heard something like that..

    ReplyDelete
  6. What about the textures format? should we use jpegs (if there´s no alpha channel) or do you recomend something else?
    I´m using uncompressed but for shorts

    ReplyDelete

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