#Animator Player for VB?
3 messages in this thread
Hi There,
I am working on developing a Visual Basic Application which will include
playing animations created using 3D Studio. I have purchased the animation
player for VB from Autodesk but have been told by another developer that
there are various problems with it, including limitations (such as having no
z-order property) and bugs (problems with colour palette realisation being
apparently liable to cause sleepless nights).
Can anyone please let me know if I am going to have a hard time getting an
application to work, and most importantly let me know the exact nature of
the bugs in the VB player product and whether fixes are available or
imminent? It was suggested that using AVI might be better – can anyone
point me in the right direction as to what tools can be used to get flics
into this format and what should be used then as a player that can be
integrated seamlessly into a VB app without losing any control or speed?
If I am not posting this message in the forum / section most likely to
produce assistance please can some kindly soul point me to where I should be
posting it?
Thank you!
Dermot Williams.
Dermont,
Bugs and limitations are two seperate issues. Many of the bugs that have been
identified have been fixed in the file VBFIX.ZIP available on this forum. As
for what limitations the VB player will have, in ither words what calls it
supports, your best bet is to review the documentation you already have. The
Visual Basic progammers reference manual, park of the kit you purchased, will
tell you exaclty what features are supported.
-Brian
P.S. Section 1 (IPAS/POCO/AAWIN) is the best place to ask these developer type
questions.
Dermot,
I have been experimenting with the Autodesk VB controls for a few weeks now.
It seems to work well, except it has some constraints.
1. I am still unable to get full screen to work on all machines in all video
modes.
2. The animation is always played on top. (IE Nothing can be placed on top of
it.)
3. I haven't been able to control pallet shift in 8 bit mode
(IE When the animation starts, the whole screen flashes as the pallet
shifts)
I think with the right pallet combo this can be eliminated but I haven't
found
the right combo yet.
AVI works quite well but the quality is not a good. With the right compression
scheme we were able to compress the animations a lot with little quality
degradation compared to the compression. (About 25% of .fli file size) AVI
also allows you to
sync your sound. The .fli player just plays as fast as the machine can
process, AVI
will drop frames on slower machines to match the audio.
Let me know what you find out in your experiments!
Andrew McClary
Graphic Alchemy