CompuServe Thread

#.FLC File size changes !

6 messages in this thread
#195206From: Keith JonesOct 13, 1995 3:53 AM
I have created several animations using Video Post all of which vary in size. One animation has a 200K'ish background image and an overlay animation of about 900K. The final rendering is about 2.5MB, yet I have managed to create the same animation at about 1.6MB not knowing what I did to get the size down. Can anybody shed some light on this ? Thanks for any responses Geoff Coope
#195386From: Daniel B. DouglasOct 14, 1995 3:38 PM
The only light I can offer is verification that the product of Video Post is usually greater than the sum of its parts. The other oddity of Vpost that I wonder about is 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.
#195411From: Oct 14, 1995 9:11 PM
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
#195424From: Stephen C. LevyOct 15, 1995 3:28 AM
Geoff, This doesn't have anything to do with a bungee-jumping caveman, does it? Both your flics are the same resolution and same number of frames, right? I'm asking because you started with 45 frames, but if you rendered frames 0 through 45, then you've now got 46. If you re-render your composite with Dither True-color and Dither 256 turned off, your file size should come out smaller. Also, you might try a Pixel Size of 1.0 and see if that has any effect. (I'm not sure if it would; it's just a thought.) Hope this helps, SCL
#195561From: Keith JonesOct 16, 1995 3:56 AM
Thanks, I'll try it. Geoff
#195569From: Keith JonesOct 16, 1995 6:32 AM
>>This doesn't have anything to do with a bungee-jumping caveman, does it? Both your >>flics are the same resolution and same number of frames, right? I'm asking because >>you started with 45 frames, but if you rendered frames 0 through 45, then you've now >>got 46. If you re-render your composite with Dither True-color and Dither 256 turned >>off, your file size should come out smaller. Also, you might try a Pixel Size of 1.0 and >>see if that has any effect. (I'm not sure if it would; it's just a thought.) >>Hope this helps, It did !!! I Re-rendered the animation with a custom pallette taken from 1 frame of the animation, set the pixel size to 1.0, turned all the dither options off and re-rendered. the file size went from 2.5MB to 1.3MB with no loss of detail and a rock steady background image (no pixel crawl). You have saved me hours of tinkering with 3DS. Thanks Geoff