open EXR or Tiff?

#1

I guys i am working in new production house and we are into our first Product… I have few questions and i hope to find answers here…

  1. Which is the best format to render out files… open EXR or Tiff?
  2. What is the added advantage of rendering in 32bit flot compared to normal 8Bit?
  3. What are the general passes u need to take for Composition? For Better Composting in Post?
  4. When i render out passes in Exr i get only one file? and that file contains all the passes…is it easy for composing or its just to save space?

Thanks
Utsav

#2

While I might not be an expert on EXR like some other people here , I do have a bit of experience with EXR, so i will try to answer some of your questions :

 1. like always, it depends what you need , but generally speaking, EXR  has more color information which translated to allowing  for more channels than  just your standard Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha channels. The EXR file format  allows ANY NUMBER of channels from G-buffer. So you could put diffuse, shadows,  reflection,specular into their own buffers for later use in composting.
 
 2. the added advantage is that you have much more information per pixel (to see an image comparing 16 and 8 bit, look here [http://www.ruffstuffcg.com/journal/linear-workflow-with-vray-in-3dsmax.html](http://www.ruffstuffcg.com/journal/linear-workflow-with-vray-in-3dsmax.html))[](http://forums.cgsociety.org/)Also here : [http://www.behrmann.name/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=73](http://www.behrmann.name/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=73)
 and ultimately here :[](http://forums.cgsociety.org/)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth)[](http://forums.cgsociety.org/)basically you will reduce the chances of posterization especially when you have soft gradient areas (more color depth)
 
 3. That also depends on the what you need to do and what software you output from, but the usual basics ones are :
 
 - Alpha
  - Background
  - Diffuse 
  - Reflect
  - Refract
  - Shadow
  - Specular
  - GI
 - Z-Depth
 
 Others can include :
 - AO (Ambient occlution)
  - RawGI
  - RawLight
  - Light
  - Velocity
 - Wire Color
 - Object ID
 - Node ID
 - Multi Material
 - MatID
 - RAW GI
 - RAW Reflections
 - NORMALS
 - 'Etc..Etc...Etc...Etc...Etc...
 
 4. yes , you generally get only one file, but it has ALL the wanted channels stored inside. It is not saving space, it is actually taking more space, especially when you are using direct writing method (like vray can support) , but it is more for compositing reasons. think of it like layers in a PSD, whereas each layer can be a pass.[](http://forums.cgsociety.org/)
#3

Thanks a lot man…its been great help…

#4

It’s a waste to render out every buffer pass into an EXR just because you can. Generally passing buffer data like diffuse, shadow, etc don’t take any additional time (except that to save it to disk) and can be useful in post. However, it can be hell when each frame is taking 70-100MB of storage space because you put normals, direction, GI and a bunch of other passes you never needed in there. Talk to your compositors and do some tests to figure out which passes you need and if an EXR workflow is ideal for your project.

I like EXR sequences, even if it is just the beauty pass because of the bit rate, good file size and flexibility. The fact that it supports these passes is really nice too.

#5

what are you compositing with ?

Nuke hates tiff.

#6

Well Most of it will be done with Fusion sometimes NUKE too

#7

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