I am currently rendering from Octane Max a 3 minute sequence of PNGs at 1980x1020, and plan to compile them into a video that I can post to YouTube and also on a crowdfunding campaign page, and also embed (via YouTube) in a web page. I haven't a lot of experience with YouTube, but I assume that it will adapt the resolution delivered (and therefore download size) to match the end user, so for example, a mobile device viewer can easily view the animation without having to download a big HD version of the video. For this reason it seemed to make sense to render the sequence at the highest practical resolution. Does this sound like a good strategy?
I'm used to doing short animations (usually under 1 minute) and at lower resolutions, so I'm breaking new ground for myself.
My primary question here is what is the best pathway for compiling all the images into an MP4 video and editing the video, given that I have Adobe Creative Cloud membership?
I've used After Effects a few times but not Premier Pro, but I am willing to figure things out to get the job done (I used to use Combustion).
The editing won't be much -- perhaps some speeding up sections or pausing at certain frames, with a possible flame effect (added on top of frames that have a 3D logo that was animated and rendered as part of the sequence). I will need to record a voice-over track and possibly add a music soundtrack to add to the video.
I tried importing the sequence that I have rendered thus far (still a few days to go to complete the full scene render) into Premier and instructing it to output to video, but when it opens Adobe Media Encoder, it takes forever to even do one frame. Should I just skip Premier Pro and import the sequence directly into After Effects? I'm not clear on whether I need Premier to do the things I plan to do -- If I do, perhaps there is a better approach than what I tried.
As an alternative, I tried importing the sequence into VirtualDub, but it stops any time there is a gap in the file number sequence (and no way to stitch sequences together). It was able to render what frames it did import out to AVI and Media Encoder was able to convert this to MP4 fairly rapidly.
Any tips from people experienced with this process will be much appreciated!