CompuServe Messages

Dan: >> …why, when joining two flics, the rendering starts out very fast, just a few seconds per frame, and then gradually slows more and more. It seems as if the renderer can't simply point directly to any frame in an animation, but must identify the frame by going back to frame 1 and counting up to the frame it needs. << You are absolutely right! <bg> Flics use a delta compression formula, which means that the first frame is stored in its entirety, and all subsequent frames just store the differences between that frame and the one previous. This allows quick playback and minimal pixel-pushing. The disadvantage, though, as you have observed, is that to get to any particular frame, you need to look at every frame previous to it. Greg Pyros