I don't mix live footage with CG content; my stuff is 100% CGI (that the point, for a variety of reasons, I no longer wanted to use video footage shot with a camera).

Since I do all my simulation work inside of C4D as well, there is really no need for me to do that with outside tools (thus, no compositing). Again, I see the point for multi-layer EXRs and compositing, as you say, in VFX heavy film work but not really for my use cases (or for those of most hobbyist iClone users).
There may also be cases for compositing, when being able to change DOF (by way of a z-depth render pass) or to "re-light" scenes in post may be useful, but I'd rather get it right the first time and not fix it in post. ;-)


My YouTube channel: Animations made with Cinema 4D and Reallusion Products

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

because the 4080 is so fast

Don't you mean 4090? The 4080 is not all that fast.
BTW: I have an RTX 4090 in one of my systems and it can still easily take me several minutes to render a single frame (not in iClone; I don't have iClone on that machine); the same is true for GPU-based simulations. The problem is that it is quite difficult to find (somewhat affordable) systems with more than one 4090 because of the size of that card most mobos will only accommodate one (and the pro version of the 4090 for multi-GPU use, the RTX 6000 Ada, is way too expensive for hobby use); I certainly hope the 5090 will help in that regard.

Also, as I said before, with EXR the problem (in my experience) is not so much the GPU but the throughput of the storage system; although, if you only do 1080p, that should not be much of an issue then either due to the smaller file sizes.


My YouTube channel: Animations made with Cinema 4D and Reallusion Products

You have likely already seen something online that was created /rendered at  8k but it’s 8K resolution was moot as your 4K monitor can only display up 4k resolution

OK, to be more precise what I meant was: I have not seen native 8K content on a native 8K display in real life. (I'm afraid if I did, I might feel the need to upgrade everything to 8K...)

Native 4K content on a native 4K display is just normal to me. All my TVs (some of which I use as computer monitor or as a preview monitor for video editing) are 4K (or UHD to be more precise), and almost all the computer monitors (with the exception of a few notebook displays) are also UHD (although, the very first UHD display that I got back in 2016 was the one on an HP Omen notebook, which I still have). Unless I render shorts (at 1080x1920p30), my own content is usually 4K (3840x1622 with 24 or 30 FPS), with the exception being "draft resolution" test renders.

One guy complained about an SUV model with dozens of parts ( all with 4k textures)and it would not fit into the VRAM of his GPU to render unless he bought another Daz product to scale down the maps in the scene or do it manually himself in photoshop etc.

OK, in that case 4K textures on dozens of (small) parts seems a bit much. I not familiar with Daz content; I don't use Daz and I don't use their marketplace either. Characters and clothing (and a few props) I buy via the RL platform, for other models I usually go to cgtrader, kitbash3d, and occasionally turbosquid; most of the non-character models available on the RL platforms are too low-poly for my taste (since they were primarily designed for RT or game use and I have no interest in either).

But yes back on topic:  layered EXR’s are a most vital output format for the film /VFX industry for layered compositing of render passes and most the the major 3DCC render engines( except blender )can output them.

I guess so. However, I don't use different render passes and I don't do compositing either. Instead, I only render a beauty pass as an EXR image sequence and turn that into an HDR  video (usually) in Davinci Resolve Studio. I may do a little color grading and add my "logo" and audio (usually music and/or sound FX) in DVRS, but no real "compositing". I stopped using all paid Adobe products years ago, so no After Effects for me, and I'm not particularly looking forward to trying to learn Fusion, either.



My YouTube channel: Animations made with Cinema 4D and Reallusion Products

Wow - kind of gotten far afield and I apologize if I'm the one who drifted this so OT.

In any case, yes, my 4K monitor is configured for HDR and these (old) eyes do see a difference.  My machine is more than capable of handling what I am doing, however, because I'm not doing 4K work (I render in 1080p).  While there is a slowdown in rendering (my gut tells me it takes about twice as long per frame in iClone) and a *somewhat* slower workflow in Premiere (but there it's not even noticeable  - because the 4080 is so fast Premiere actually both works AND renders in near real time) I don't think I'd have an issue even if I worked in 4K.

In any case, at least we have another tool in our toolset (always helpful).

---

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

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

Slightly off-topic, but I think I need to comment on this:

I have had so many frustrating debates with Daz studio users over why uber bloated4- 8K textures maps on Daz products are essentially wasted unless you are viewing them on an monitor with 8K resolution in a non compressed format.

I'm not sure that high-resolution textures are wasted even on monitors with less than 8K resolution, because:
a) If you have one texture covering an entire character and you do close-up at a render resolution of 4K (my standard for non-Shorts content), you do see the short-comings of textures that are only 4K (if you have separate 4K textures for, say the head, body, arms, legs, etc. that is a different story because then the entire character has more than 4K texture resolution but even then 4K may be too little for a Leone-style close-up).

b) Very large props, such as landscapes, buildings, ships, etc. suffer from low-res textures because, often, only a part of the entire thing is visible at any time but shows the limitation of the texture resolution that is covering that part. That is why I prefer procedural materials/textures for landscapes, rocks, etc. because they have "infinite" resolution (AFAIK iClone does not support procedural textures/materials as of now).

c) it is usually easier to down-scale textures (if you don't need the resolution) than to up-scale them (although the latter has gotten better with AI scalers); so I'd always prefer higher resolution over lower.

d) If a creator uses textures for clothing/characters with less than 4K I will remark on that negatively in my Marketplace Reviews for the reasons mentioned above.

Nor the fact the human eye’s technically do not “see” in 4K or 8K anyway  which is another discussion entirely.

Yes and no.
You are correct when you talk about taking in an entire screen at once, However, especially for large-size screens, we usually focus our attention (and thus the best resolution our eyes can muster) on only an area of the screen (which is the point of interest, guided by DOF or other ways) and then you do see a difference between 2K and 4K (I have not personally seen 8K, so I can't comment on that). As I write this text, my eyes are focused only on these words on my 42" 4K monitor; I'm not even "seeing" the task bar at the bottom of the screen.
Also, my preferred viewing distance is 1.0 to 1.2 times the screen diagonal for 4K content on a 4K screen; if your viewing distance is greater than that, you mileage may vary.




My YouTube channel: Animations made with Cinema 4D and Reallusion Products

RAG DOLL COLLISION ANIMATIONS FOR ICLONE 8 & 7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ghost Origins

My latest Feature length film created with Iclone.

My Sci- Fi Graphic Novel on Amazon: https://a.co/d/9k3cwoY

My IMDB listing
Anabran Abdhul Quarnain - IMDb

@Kelleytoons
I've been using EXR (usually 32, sometimes 16 bit) for final renders for several years now, but I need source material that has more than 8 bits for HDR content, so I have some hands-on experience with this.

As you probably know, mp4 is just a container format; the important thing is the codec in that container. If you intend to produce only 8-Bit SDR (standard dynamic range) content (for example for most YouTube uses), using EXR is probably not going to do much for you except provide a little more latitude for color grading. However, if you need material for HDR (which has commonly at least 10 bits), EXR may be a good choice. (I'm talking about "real" HDR as the stuff on UHD blu-ray discs, not what iClone calls "HDR"). But for HDR content, you also need to do post production work as well as have video editing software and playback capabilities compatible with HDR (e.g. a video (not graphics) card for driving an HDR-capable monitor/TV). And that is a whole new can of worms. (I produce my HDR content for personal consumption and for YouTube, meaning I can upload HDR content to YT and the viewers can watch it as HDR as long as certain conditions are met (i.e. the YT app on their device is HDR-capable and so is the viewing device itself; modern TVs and smartphones usually are). Everybody else will be watching an SDR version automatically created by YouTube (the same way as YT automatically creates lower resolution versions of any high definition content you may have uploaded).

So, unless you have a way to view and work with content at more than 8 bit color depth, EXR is probably not worth it for you. When editing your videos using EXR, you will also need a beefy machine. Your new one may (!) be capable of doing that in RT without pre-rendering or proxies but you would have to test that with the NLE of your choice. (The problem is not so much the GPU but the fact that EXR files are large: at 3840x1622 pixel and 32 bit mine are usually 65-70 MB per frame, which means that depending on your frame rate you may need between 2,000 and 4,000 MB/s data throughput from your storage media for playback plus, of course, any processing by the computer itself. My video editing system's storage cannot do that in RT, but there are ways to work with that.)

there is a definite perceived increase in dynamic range

Well, if you are watching/comparing this on an 8-bit monitor/screen, I kind of doubt you are seeing more dynamic range (because 8 bit is all you can see); it may look that way to you because of the gamma used. If you are watching this on an HDR-capable monitor and have configured Windows and your machine properly to output HDR, then possibly.


My YouTube channel: Animations made with Cinema 4D and Reallusion Products

Well, not to belabor this (because I already feel like I'm wasting too much time pondering :>) clearly I DO see a difference between PNG and EXR - there is a definite perceived increase in dynamic range.  Whether this holds after I render out as an MP4 remains to be seen (I guess I can figure out some way to compare realistically - perhaps side by side comparisons set up in Premiere or some such).  And that's all I'm after. 

So I guess I'll just play around and see.  But thank you for at least asking about this because it's something I never would have even thought of.

---

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