What is the best file type for animation output?

[Streetwise]

I've heard EXR and I've heard PNG. The sequences are about 150-180 frames of 1920x1080 with beauty passes such as AO, Diffuse, and Cryptomatte. Ideally, I would love to be able to pull a mask for the diffuse pass for color correction purposes.

Currently, I'm using a PNG output workflow in AE, but not able to do anything with masking. I was just wondering what is a standard practice. Thanks!

[sirio76]

Provided you have enough disk space I would say .vrimg. You will have 32bit, all the layer needed, native compatibility with VFB tools, you can read it in AE using the ProEXR plugin, if needed it can be converted in multilayer exr using the dedicated Chaos tool. I’m pretty sure there’s also a plugin for cryptomatte editing in AE.

[Streetwise]

I might give that a whirl. Thanks for the tip!

[Streetwise]

Provided you have enough disk space I would say .vrimg.

I have OpenEXR, but that (.vrimg) is not a file format AE recognizes as an import. So maybe .exr is best. I'm playing around with that now.

[sirio76]

I have OpenEXR, but that (.vrimg) is not a file format AE recognizes as an import. So maybe .exr is best. I'm playing around with that now.

The plugin is ProEXR not OpenEXR

http://www.fnordware.com/ProEXR/ it’s free and you can read .vrimg format in many software

[Vizioen]

I have the same, can't open vrimg in after effects. Even with this ProEXR plugin (which they say comes standard with After Effects since CS5 or something).

If I download the ProEXR, the plugin for AE says it's OpenEXR so it's the same. Still can't open vrimg. Or .vri like they say neither. If I try to open it says Adobe animate is necessary to import an .fla file (but that's Flash, so no clue what that has to do with anything).

Edit: I needed to download 2.0 version (not easy to find just replace the 2.6 string in the download with 2.0 to get the "correct version") this one contains a ProEXR plugin. Bit to me it seems weird they removed VRIMG support in later versions. But still works if you install the "older" ProEXR plugin as well. I just put this plugin next to the newer ones and it seems to work all just fine.