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Originally Posted by dlavery
For example, when you are creating the final output from 3ds Max, save all the frames in a raw uncompressed format (e.g. TIFF). Don't use any compression on these images (e.g. don't save as JPEG).
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Originally Posted by BruceJ
If you plan to do any compositing, then the rendered images should be a format that supports alpha channels such as TIFF or TARGA. As far as I know, JPG doesn't support alpha channels.
These formats are a larger file size, but once it's all loaded into a program such as Adobe Premiere, then the editing program will compress it when it is converted to the Quicktime movie. I suggest the output from the editing program be the only and last time a compression such as Quicktime is used.
In other words, use raw TIFF/TARGAs for images and WAV for music/sounds until the entire movie is just the way you like it, then convert it all to Quicktime...
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Outdated.
TIFF/TGAs offer no beneficial advantages over more superior formats, but instead merely take more hard disk space. The notion that compression reduces quality is largely relegated to the lossy JPEG format. For example, TGA and TIFF both use compression (optionally). I recommend PNG. See my test with a generic rendered still from Max:
- TIFF/TGA uncompressed - 1229148 bytes (1.2 MB) 1
- TGA with simple RLE compression - 1014744 bytes (991 KB) 2
- TIFF with (proprietary, i might add) LZW compression - 513076 bytes (501.1 KB) 2
- PNG output from Max - 408870 bytes (399.3 KB)
- PNG compressed more efficiently (pngcrush) - 391914 bytes (382.7 KB) 3
1 I don't know whether Konqueror measures in Mibibytes or Megabytes (i think megabytes), but the filesize in bytes is provided.
2I don't know whether Max can output compressed TGA (RLE) or TIFF (LZW). It should be able to.
3 I don't actually expect you to do this. It appears that Max's PNG exporter is competent.
Further details: Original is 24-bit PNG with 8-bit alpha channel. pngcrush was passed no arguments when run. The GIMP was used for converting. There was absolutely no quality or information loss among the formats tested. LZW is only the most common TIFF compression; there are others, including JPEG compression (lossy). TGA only has simple RLE. LZW, more commonly used in GIFs, have a patent attached to them. While the infamous Unisys GIF/LZW patent has since expired, another one by IBM expires later this year. Similarily, the FLAC format is a losslessly compressed sound format, although I don't know about software support. More information on any of the above-mentioned topics can be found at Wikipedia. Somebody spotlight this post and add to my reputation.