what frame format?

Started by PeterSwift, March 28, 2018, 04:16:05 AM

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PeterSwift

What is actually the differences between the Frame formats we can choose for output an animation? I mean pro/cons.
What gives the best quality etc.   

Of course jpeg and png is obvious but for the rest of us the rest it a bit of a confusion and I can't find any info online for keyshot.

mattjgerard

SO, to quote the online help- https://luxion.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/K7M/pages/40421927/Still+Image+Output

Format
Choose from JPG, TIF, EXR, TIF 32 Bit, PNG, PSD, and PSD 32 bit. All formats other than JPG can include an alpha channel. When PSD or PSD32 is selected you will see a checkbox appear in the Layers and Passes section to Add to PSD


The deeper description might be this-

JPG, PNG- Like you said, pretty straight forward, only difference really is PNG doesn't have a compression setting option, but can hold a 4th channel for transparency (alpha channel) so it is the most common file format that is flat and can display transparency. JPG will fill the background in white by default.

TIF (TIFF) - Older image format which is more of a container format originally developed for scanners, in that it can hold jpeg compressed image data or lossless packbits image data. It can also hold metadata and sometime image sequences, though I can't think of anyone that uses that feature. IMHO, this is only used for specific purposes, like compositing programs that work well with tiff images. I know the old chyron machines would only read tiff and targa files (loaded from a 3.5"floppy!!!!!)

TIF 32- 32 bit color image of TIF file. Large and uncompressed, hold lot more color data than a standard 8 or 16 bit tif file. Specific use usually if compositing in animation programs like After Effect, Houdini, etc...

EXR (OpenEXR) Developed by ILM- Multipurpose image container that can contain any number of channels beyond RGBA into spec, diffuse, reflection, etc all within one file. Usually 32bit or floating, these are normally huge uncompressed files suitable for compositing programs, give the highest range of colors and flexibility in post production. Specific usage as well, and probably not a first choice unless required.

PSD- Native photoshop file, cool thing is that this is the only file format that Keyshot will pack all the render passes, layers and channels into (except the depth pass) into one neat tidy little file. If you are rendering out clown, spec, reflection, AO and such channels, use a PSD file to organize them into one file instead of having many files per frame rendered out. Full color quality, larger files, uncompressed. My go to for stills.

PSD 32- Same as PSD, but 32 bit. Useful for doing HDR, tone mapping and other specific post production trickery.


So, for stills, my goto is PSD or sometimes PNG if I know I'm doing something simple that I just need to pump out to someone for a simple use. For animations, I almost always render out PNG sequences. They hold transparency wonderfully, are high quality without being too large, and nearly everything out there can open a PNG. Plus there is no way I can accidentally render out with a bad compression setting. I did that once with a jpeg sequence, rendered them out at a 2 quality accidentally. Had to redo the whole thing. Never again!

Hope this helps:)

Furniture_Guy

Quote from: mattjgerard on March 28, 2018, 06:16:40 AM

The deeper description might be this-

Hope this helps:)

Mr. mattjgerard,

I've been around awhile and that's as good a description of the various formats I've ever read...

Thanks!

Perry (Furniture_Guy)

mattjgerard

Most of that  came from my years in the video end of the industry. Dealing with animation and motion graphics, keying and compositing.  So many file formats between softwares, cameras, codecs, delivery systems etc...

Kind of nice to be on this side now, I only worry about 1 frame at a time :)

Furniture_Guy

Yeah, me too. After years in the printing industry, it's nice to have only one color profile, sRGB...  :D

mattjgerard

Quote from: Furniture_Guy on March 28, 2018, 09:46:08 AM
Yeah, me too. After years in the printing industry, it's nice to have only one color profile, sRGB...  :D

I hear you there. With all the colorspaces and every camera company coming up with thier own color science and workflows it was a nightmare trying to keep up. Fortunatly the owner of the company kept us down to 3-4 manufacturers that I had to learn. BUt every once in a while we would have people coming into the studio bringing their own gear and have no idea what to do with it. Lets just say I got really really good at researching stuff fast and became ever-present on certain forums.

theAVator

I'm pretty sure your post should be copied into the next release of the KeyShot manual. It's a great explanation!

Having worked with many of these formats outside of Keyshot I was familiar with them, but adding the whole application of why you would pick it in Keyshot is exactly what is sorely needed.