[NoStr0m0]

So, any ideas/knowledge on how to achieve something like this?

Is there a video format that lightwave can export that combines the image with the alpha?

Or is there another way to create a video from .png images that's quick and creates small file sizes?

[Warlock 279]

Not sure what your end goal is, so I'm not sure how to answer but heres a few options.

The first that came to mind would be an animated .gif since those can have transparency, I've never had much luck with .gif's tho so I can't advise on the settings for that.

As far as rendering out a video format with an alpha, I can't say for certain that LightWave has any that do, but for some reason, I think that "full frame uncompressed" might, because I think its renders out essentally RGBA frames. This is by no means going to give you a small file tho.

Your best option is to render out and 32 bit PNG sequence, since file size seems to be an issue for you. Any of the 32 bit formats will have an embedded alpha, but the PNG format gives you a pretty good looking image in a small file size, its what I render out as almost all of the time.

Are you using a non-linear video editor [AfterEffects, Vegas, Premiere, or the like] for comping the rendered sequence onto a pre exisiting video plate? If so, that editor should be able to load the sequence and work with it that way, allowing you to easily do the composite there. Also some non-linear editors do have video formats that support an alpha channel, not sure whether any of those formats are also avialable in LightWave or not tho if you have the codec installed.

If you're not using something like those editors, then you can always load the video plate into LightWave and composite what you're rendering out of LightWave onto it that way, because LightWave will respect the alpha of your image sequence, and if you do compososite it in Lightwave, you may not even need to render out the image sequence because you can set the background image to your video plate, and render it all in one pass as whatever you want the final format to be.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not sure what you're intent is, so if you could say more about we're you're tring to accomplish, myself or someone else might be able to recommend a more precise means for going about it, rather than just a breeze over of everything as I have now.

[TowerFan]

If you have a video editor that composites then it probably will import image sequences. Go with Warlock's suggestion and render out a sequense of png or tga. Much better results than an animation. There are also several other practical reasons for exporting as a sequence as well.

If you must use an animation file for comping then use a Quicktime Movie. It's a 32-bit format with an embeded alpha.