OpenEXR playback and export¶
AlexPearce3D Studio uses floating-point processing for compositing and color operations. Processing precision and the OpenEXR file representation are separate choices: selecting half-float or a compressed file does not mean the graph performs all processing at that storage precision.
Playback compatibility¶
The development application recognizes common scanline and tiled OpenEXR layouts, including multipart and multichannel material used in compositing workflows. Actual playback performance depends on resolution, channel count, compression, storage, and available memory.
Cryptomatte workflows require the relevant ID channels and metadata. Companion denoise passes must match the beauty render in resolution, frame range, and camera state.
Export choices¶
OpenEXR output may expose choices such as:
- scanline or tiled layout;
- half-float or full-float channel storage;
- lossless compression such as ZIP or PIZ;
- lossy production compression such as DWAA or DWAB, where available;
- tile sizing for tiled output.
Choose settings based on the next application in the pipeline. Preserve channels and precision needed downstream; use a delivery-oriented compression only when that tradeoff is acceptable.
Automatic tile sizing¶
Automatic tile sizing is intended to balance parallel work and memory pressure. Very high-resolution, multichannel frames can require substantial temporary memory even when the written file is compressed. Validate unusual resolutions and channel sets with representative footage.
Current boundaries¶
- Codec choices can differ between Comp Export and Process destinations.
- OpenEXR support does not imply support for every vendor-specific metadata convention.
- Benchmark numbers are meaningful only with their hardware, frame layout, channel set, storage, and codec settings; this public guide intentionally does not publish context-free benchmark claims.
See Import and composite and Export and delivery.