CompuServe Messages

Good questions – I would like some feedback from others on the answers. "1. What is contained in the animation support libarary?" Some manuals, header files, etc., which help you understand the structure of the FLC and FLI files. Also, there is info for Visual Basic and C programmers for creating Windows players for Flic files. "2. Have you found the .FLC format to be compatable with the vast majority of MPC II systems?" Yes "3. I have seen mention here of the .FLC format having a palette that is not compatable with Windows." Of the 256 colors, you need to use a palette of 236. The first 10 and last 10 permit Windows to have palettes of its own without flashing. There may be some exceptions, but this is supposed to work. Also, will the palette issue be resolved with your upcoming Windows product?" The issue is bypassed; the Animator Studio products works in truecolor. You can save out to 256 or 236, etc. colors if you like. "4. Can you recommend software packages that I can use to sync. .FLC animations with sound?" Not really. Our player works if you keep the FLC files small enough so you don't lose synchronization. Check out MOVIE.ZIP (mentioned below) which assigns sounds to individual frames. You might find that AVI or Quicktime are good in this regard because the sound and image are linked. "5. Does the .FLC format lend itself to being stepped through backward and forward so, given the proper controls, one can manipulate the animation in a similar way to Quicktime?" Don't know about Quicktime. When I step backwards while playing a FLC file there is a moment's hesitation before it turns around. Perhaps saving a Flic backwards, then playing it forwards might avoid problems. "6. Not asking for any guarantees, but would you expect me to have a problem displaying .FLCs at 480*360 with concurrent sound on a low end MPC II?" Yes. No. Well, it depends on what the subject matter of the flic is! If you have a flic like an architectural walkthrough, every pixel on the screen is getting changed and the animation could be very sluggish. If you need to get around that, you might design your images to have a static background and as much as possible confine the animated portion to a small part, like a campfire, or a bird flying across the screen. Hope this helps. File Info for MOVIE.ZIP Section: Utilities Contributor: 76427,1717 Size: 404510 Submitted: 2/15/95 Type: Binary Accesses: 751 Title: The Movie Machine v1.5 Keys: MULTIMEDIA WINDOWS ANIMATOR 3DSTUDIO SOUND MUSIC COOL Latest version of the popular Movie Machine creates multi-media movies and presentations from sound effects, music, and animations. It supports both FLI and FLC file formats. Features include assigning WAV files to individual animation frames, background music (MIDI files), and scripting. It requires Windows 3.1 and a Windows compatible sound card with drivers installed. [dl time at 9600 baud: 7 min]