Just been reading the post about rendering in a separate process. I've been rendering out Maya & Poser animations to images then compiling them to video using a program I found years ago called jpg2avi. This got me thinking, what programs do you use to do this? What about how you add a soundtrack? I'm lucky enough to have access to Adobe CC so I use that but what else is there?

I still use ye olde GIF Animator 5 for GIF and soundless ShockWaveFlash.

Flash can put together soundtracked FLV/MP4/AVI. I've found most video editors to be cumbersome for what I do.

Now there's a format which loops like GIF but has soundtrack capacity called .coub but I don't know what programs would composite those.

I always render my animations as image sequences and put them together in video editor. I've been using HitFilm for editing and compositing for the last 3 years, currently on HitFilm Pro 2017, lots of effects including particle simulation, lighting, atmospherics and colour correction tools plus Moccha motion tracking built in. It can handle 3D models too. Works great as still image editor too (https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/deploy-under-fire/2740473/?p) There's a fully functional free version too, HitFilm Express 4, though it lacks some of the features but offers them as add on packs

If you have Photoshop 5, it does animations too. I'm sure the newer versions have it as well. If I want to adjust hue or saturation or levels, I use photoshop. Then I use Premiere Elements, I'm on 13 but there are newer versions. Makes it really easy because Elements works with photoshop, so a change in PS updates the video in elements. Pretty neat. Has a track in elements actually called Sound Track, but you can add as many or few audio and video tracks that you like. There are so many programs out there, you might even be able to find an open source (free) program to use. Good luck!

If you just want to encode a image sequence to video, you can use virtualdub, avidemux... they are free tools.

In this site, you can find many video applications help you, many of them free to download : www.videohelp.com

I use VirtualDub and I used Audacity to convert mp3 files to wav files for VirtualDub to use to add audio. Both are free.