No -- you do NOT transcode.  You can temporarily render so it plays faster but, again, you hold off any compression until the output.  

Nearly all NLEs will "render" a sequence so it plays faster on the timeline, you just need to find how to do it in yours. 

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

G'day Mike! ... Yes - I well remember your advice on this in the past re .PNGs (I hadn't forgotten).
I guess it's more a question of 'once it's in there' (the NLE) .... Do I keep it that way (my PC struggles playing PNG sequences) - or is there a recommended format to transcode into, and if I do, to keep in mind:
● Minimal or no loss to be incurred
● something 'other than' uncompressed, (huge file sizes - just as sluggish)
● keeping the alpha channel as well
???

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

And let me clarify that last -- you don't EVER use a codec until you're ready for final output.  You do not want to be compressing or decompressing your footage until the very end (which is why you work with stills for animation and other rendered stuff, and uncompressed video for the rest).  Only when you are finished do you bring up your final codec (and, of course, you save your project so you can render in different codecs depending on your delivery needs).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

No real debate -- everyone I know who does animation (and that includes a lot of Pros) just renders to still frames.  So no file "format" to worry about.

For any video they bring in, of course, it's lossless AVI for the most part.  But for iClone projects just render to PNG (which contains alpha) and you're home free.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

This is for those who're accustomed to using a Non Linear Editor for combining or compositing 'layers' to obtain their final video result....
Which would be your *preferred* Format (and Codec) to work with?
The only criteria is that the 'alpha videos' rendered in iClone, can be imported into the NLE and 'layered' (+ adding FX) - to produce the final scene.
I'm interested to hear 'different views & experiences' from anyone doing this... Btw, my NLE is Vegas Movie Studio 15 by MAGIX - the little brother to Sony Vegas - (the currently available formats and codecs are shown in the pic). Any suggestions?...  thnx ... ;)




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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1