#Silicon GR TGA to FLC
8 messages in this thread
We will receive an animation created on a Silicon Graphics Station, the peoples
working on S.G. doesn't know a lot about PC (and we don't know about SG)
they propose us to send a collection of TGA files. Is that the best way in
order to reuse those files to make an animation on PC (FLI / FLC) wich compiler
can we use to compile those file to make the FLI
Thank for any help or suggestion.
Olivier
If you have either Animator Pro or 3D Studio, both of those programs have
functions for turning a series of TGA files into an FLC. If you don't, then you
might want to use a program like DTA.
-b
File Info for DTA208.ZIP
Section: What's New! Contributor: 70372,263 Size: 173778
Submitted: 1/15/94 Type: Binary Accesses: 179
Title: Dave's Targa Animation Program
Keys: FLX FLI FLC AIMATION 3DS TARGA
This is a command line Animtion generator. Works from TGAs, GIFs and other
popular formats. Output is FLI, FLC and the FLX format which is HiColor. Can
be
used to create HiColor animations from 16 bit TGAs rendered with 3D Studio.
(Approximate download time at 2400 bps using CIS B: 9:40
Thank you, we plan to get both, but have nothing right now, and the target is :
PANIC
I believe that the TGA to FLI will compress a lot the original size of the full
source of TGA set. Is that right ?
Olivier
<,I believe that the TGA to FLI will compress a lot the original size of the
full source of TGA set. Is that right ?>>
Yes. FLC is a compressed format.
-Brian
Thank you again, but we now just decide that transferin the frame in GIF 256
color
will save a lot of space !
So now, wich is the best GIF > FLI compiler ? is the Animator PRO tool sama as
the 3DS ?
Is it fast ?
How long for a 600 frame animation ?
Thanks
Olivier,
PMJI, but if you are converting first into individual GIF files with 256
colors, you might run into palette problems when creating the FLI or FLC. The
flic format generally needs to have a common palette for all frames in order to
eliminate flashing when played back on a VGA board. A series of GIF files may
have a different palette for each frame. Both 3DS and AniPro have means for
dealing with this, but with a possible loss of color quality. If the final
common palette is not optimum, flics often show severe color banding.
You may get the best results if the SGI people have some way of creating all
the GIF files with a common palette. If not, then transferring the files as 24
bit TGAs, then using 3DS to convert to a flic may give better results.
JKJ
Thank you John,
I'm quite familiar with palette problem, SGI people too, and this is one of
the first thing we thought about.
The decision to export in GIF is jus to reduce time & volume transfert.
We are still looking to see if some SGI tools doesn't offer the capabilitie to
directly export to FLI.
You didn't give me an idea about the compression speed for tga or gif to fli
(on a decent machine : 486 DX2 or PENTIUM 60)
Olivier
>>compression speed…
By compression speed do you mean the time it will take to convert to a flic? I
don't think the conversion speed going from tga or gif to flic is a significant
issue, compared to the effort it will take to transfer the files. Once the
files are on the PC, the conversion time is relatively quick. For example,
AniPro will load a series of gifs or tgas very quickly (on the order of 2-5
seconds/frame on my Pentium/66). Additional time will be needed if the
palettes need to be unified (longer than the loading time but I don't know how
long.) Creating a flic is then simply a matter of writing the frames to a
file.
3DS would also be fairly quick to convert. The gif files could be loaded
either as a background or from within video post. neither of these very time
consuming.
JKJ