I am newbie and got the bake and rendering down pat. when I render, the output is a image sequence. How do I encode to video. I can do it with other apps but it comes out looking like crap. it is blocky and shading is HORRIBLE!
thank you to anyone that can give me any tips.
I found it.
The professional approach actually is to render it to an image sequence.
IMO the render to video option is soley to “export” videos from the VSE - one does not use it to render directly to a compressed video.
It would be helpful to other users if you shared your solution.
Here is what the answer would be, or could be …
The best way to output any sequence of frames is to output to a series of individual, frame-by-frame files. (I further recommend that you use the MultiLayer file format.) Blender will create files in which the frame-number is encoded in the name of each file.
Now, whether in the VSE editor or in a compositing node, you select and reference “all of the files.” Blender will instantly understand that it has been given a collection of predictably-named files, and it will know that those files represent a sequence of individual frames.
Throughout all of your work, you simply create directories, and point each of the outputs into those directories (emptying the directories of all of the existing files before you start again), and you think, “directory = film strip.”
When you’re ready to generate your “deliverable” output files, in .MOV or QuickTime or whatever, then you will be generating a single file … and the blend-file that does this should simply be taking all of the files in your “final master copy” directory, as an image-sequence, as its input. This then is the only point at which any information is being compressed.
The overwhelming advantage of using “one file per frame” is that if Blender cra :eek:
… 
you can start over again, starting with that frame, and no work has actually been lost.