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FCP – animation codec best solution?
Hi,
My animators have given me png stills and I’ve completed the compilation on the timeline until my computer starts crashing and a red screen with “out of memory” or “display unavailable” error messages crash my project files. I have been reading many posts on possible fixes. And when I finally manage to get the project to work, it crashes at the exporting stage stating “File error: Wrong type”.
Are pngs or stills in general a bad idea?
I am new to this and am not quite sure how to remedy so any advice is most welcomed. My animators have just given me .mov using animation codec. Is this the best format to work with in FCP as the files are huge. Would working with tiff files be a better solution? I am looking for the best workflow as time is never enough.
My final output is Digibeta and so I have my sequence set to PAL 8-bit uncompressed.
cheers
jean -
5 Replies
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Hi Jean,
I don’t have experience using png sequences, but I used to do animations and render to targa sequences which I would make into QuickTime movies before bringing into FCP. The files were big, but I never had any problems with them. If your animation files are too big, you would ask the animators to render them to ProRes, or Photojpeg which would be even smaller.
Have a wonderful day.
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Jean,
The most important thing is, do you need an alpha channel to super the animation over video? If not, then you can use QT Pro to export your PNG sequence to ProRes or any other QT fromat, as Chris mentions, but if you do need the alpha channel the animation million+ is necessary.
BTW, image sequences in general directly use RAM in FCP on a one to one basis, so if you have a large high quality PNG sequence with each image at nearly 1Mb, every 1000 frames will eat up 1Gb of available RAM.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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Thanks Chris and David for your responses!
Chris – Yes I would think it is better to have the animators render them out as QT files. I am just wondering what codec is most effective in retaining high resolution and yet keep the file size down.
David – No I do not need an alpha channel. Thanks for the headsup, now I understand the part on ram usage.
I notice that you’ve both suggested I use ProRes, is there any reason as to why because upon testing with the same sequence of stills, a ProRes file gives me larger file sizes. The only upside is not having to render to view in FCP. Would you have any suggestions as to what other QT format might give me smaller file size than say animation or proRes and yet retain a high level of resolution?
Thanks! Much appreciated!
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Jean,
Well, I did mention Photo JPEG for smaller file sizes, but another one you might look at is Sheer. It’s an amazing lossless codec that’s about half the size of Animation.
Have a wonderful day.
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Ah yes indeed, Chris.
Thanks!
Have a wonderful day.
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