ww12345 said:

Thanks for the input. ... because I'm learning as I go.

Glad to help. I'm learning, too (my "practical research"). :)

Macro-blocks are these artifacts (error-generated square boundaries within a picture):

Once you know what to look for, they practically jump out at you. They are generated when a video is rendered at too high compression (or if areas of the picture are excessively smooth). The render software works on squares of areas and flattens those of too-similar pixels (usually from noise reduction) into uniform-color blocks and/or edges.

One way to prevent this is to reduce the compression of the rendered video, which unfortunately increases it's file size. Another way is to trick the render software, to not flattening smooth areas, by adding mild pixel noise back into the video (!). This is interpreted as detail and is not inadvertently flattened. Clever, eh?

In the case of SOTS, use lower compression settings in your renders until macro-blocking no longer appears (also, look for sub-settings specifically for this issue that might be in your render software).

As for the sequence of fixes, I try to arrange them so that a first fix won't hinder or complicate the second fix. You must learn what the fixes do and how they do it to suspect if the order might be improved. If not sure, experiment -- rearrange the sequence and see if the result is better.

For example, frame-movement stabilization uses tracking to see how "stationary" target pixels move around. Frame luminance fluctuations might mis-lead that tracking and cause positioning errors. On the other hand, luminance smoothing works on the full frame regardless of the internal picture position. Therefore, I would stabilize the frames luminance, first, to allow the best stabilization of their movement.