CompuServe Messages

Margaret – As I recall, rendering was HAM overscan at 352 X 440 using Imagine. The problem is simply that when looking at rippling water, particularly if the lighting and reflections are significant (full ray trace), then the odds are that a very high percentage of pixels is going to change from frame to frame. Presto, delta compression is highly ineffective (and can even result in delta files LARGER than the IFF frame files themselves) and the anim becomes huge. I should point out that in the stuff I rendered, the rippling water was framed so as to completely fill the screen (looking sorta down into it). If, on the other hand, your scene had water in only a portion of it, and something else like sky in the rest, then the size of the anim will be reduced accordingly. Still, in general I would say it's a rather expensive effect in terms of RAM consumption, but it's really a nice one, too. – Joe