Summary by usage and type of image¶

Final render/export¶

Animation, Graphics or Video¶

• DWA, (a bit) lossy. (use a small compression level) – not supported by ffmpeg (yet).
• PXR24, lossless*
• If exporting to YUV 422 or 420 video (e.g. h.264/h.265) or gray-scale, use the Luminance/Chroma option – not supported by ffmpeg (yet).

* In the specific case of a final export, PXR24 is considered lossless, as there should not be any need for 32-bit float data.

Grainy video or animation¶

• DWA, (a bit) lossy – not supported by ffmpeg (yet).
• PIZ, lossless
• If exporting to YUV 422 or 420 video (e.g. h.264/h.265) or gray-scale , use the Luminance/Chroma option. – not supported by ffmpeg (yet).

Solid colors, large flat areas (alpha and id channels)¶

• RLE

Intermediary 32-bit float¶

Texture maps, Animation, Graphics or Video¶

• ZIP
• DWA if you can afford a small quality loss
  Note that DWA will only compress R,G,B channels (or Y,RY,BY in case of Luminance/Chroma) and automatically select either RLE for alpha or ZIP for AOV (Z, U, V, Normal…). – not supported by ffmpeg (yet).

Grainy video or animation¶

• PIZ

Solid colors, large flat areas (alpha and id channels)¶

• RLE

Intermediary 16/24-bit float, 16/32-bit int¶

Texture maps, Animation, Graphics or Video¶

• PXR24, if unavailable: ZIP
• DWA if you can afford a small quality loss
  Note that DWA will only compress R,G,B channels (or Y,RY,BY in case of Luminance/Chroma) and automatically select either RLE for alpha or ZIP for AOV (Z, U, V, Normal…) – not supported by ffmpeg (yet).

Grainy video or animation¶

• PIZ

Solid colors, large flat areas (alpha and id channels)¶

• RLE

Stereo images¶

Texture maps, Animation, Graphics or Video¶

• ZIP

Solid colors, large flat areas (alpha and id channels)¶

• RLE

Real-time playback¶

• B44A or B44
• If unavailable: PXR24

Proxies¶

• DWAA (use a high compression level)
• If unavailable: PXR24, ZIP, PIZ