Animation, Video Conversion, and Screensavers Ques

[Rodak]

I don't know if this belongs in the Long Hair Games forum or not.

I chose to put it here.

Suffer.

I'm on to something...


s16.photobucket.com/albums/b41/Rodak/?action=view¤t=le-meaux.flv

I want to make that in to a screensaver!!

Now...

I have a crystal clear, full screen, uncompressed avi file.

But it's 4 Gigabytes.

I can convert it to High Quality wmv, but it goes a bit blurry.

When converted to flash, ALL the edges go fuzzy and the color bleeds!

It seems all screensaver programs I can find use flv video (flash).

Does anyone know a way to make a reasonable file size - and STILL CLEAR - flash animation out of 1,500 0r 2,000 Bitmaps?

Would re-rendering in a different format help? I can do tga, tff, and some other formats I've never seen any advantage to. png is great, but for animation, nothing beats the good old bitmap.

In my experience.

Up until now!

So...

Can anyone help?

Is this a hardware limitation? I have a crappy graphics card that came stock with my 5 year old 'puter - and a Celery Processor to work with as well, not even pentium!

Any help would be Greatly Appreciated!

I'll post the screensaver if I can get it working CLEARLY!!

[Maindric Games ©]

Have you tried Mpeg-2 for the movie?

[realitybites]

darkend102 said:

Have you tried Mpeg-2 for the movie?

Mpeg-2 is a horrible format T_T

[Maindric Games ©]

Avi format is the highest quality that I know of, and WMA quality is good enough for me seeing as youtube lowers the quality anyways, and when I want to get a higher quality when I make one, I use Mpeg-1 (my movie editing program will not let me use mpeg-2 becouse I do not have the full version, I have what my digital camara gave me..) and I would think that Mpeg-2 had better quality... But AVI is the best quality that I know of.

[Rodak]

The mpg format (1 through 4) is an anomaly!

mp4 is popular, but lousy for full screen.

mpg (1) is Fantastic for cross platform and multiple operating system compatibility, but the file size gets big.

2 & 3 fall right in line in between!

But I'm worried that I may be maxing out a buffer somewhere or something.

My beautiful avi file just wont convert to a screensaver clearly!!

I have seen clear and highly detailed screensavers!!

And videos!

But 4 GB for 1 minute is outrageous!!!!

What can I do to get this into flv format at as close to "lossless" image quality as possible??

[Dungeon Warden]

Sorenson Squeeze is the best program for squeezing Flv files down to useful size while still maintaining the quality. It can compress a 4 GB file down to about 700-500 mb without much loss in quality.

The newest version may not work on you computer as it requires:

* Pentium III-based PC or greater
* Windows 2000 or XP (with latest patches and updates)
* 128 MB of RAM
* 40 MB available hard disk space
* QuickTime 7 or later
* DirectX 9.0b or later
* Microsoft Windows Media Format Runtime

DivX is good at compressing avi movies to about 1/5 (~800 mb) of the original size with very little loss of quality (depends on the content). However, the requirements are similar to those above.

There may be other programs, but these are the two I've used.

Note, most compression programs work by removing redundant data. For example, if there is a blue sky in the background, it will only save one instance of the sky and use it throughout the movie (it actually saves pieces of the sky, but you get the idea). Therefore, the more similar the background you have in the movie the smaller the file will be. On the other hand, if the scene is constantly changing, very little compression can occur.

[Rodak]

POOPY!!!

That's a $250 Program!!!

And it does not include the most important codec!! That has to be bought separately. Then there's something about limits on use I didn't even bother reading because at that point my wallet was getting angry and it was in a position to do some serious damage being in the pocket it was... so I just closed the page.

I am Out of money for about 2 years unless I can sell more crappe.

What happens when using a Celery processor if the software wants Peppermint? (Translation: celeron / pentium)

I do that all the time with no noticeable effects.

Until now??

And WHEN will technology catch up to my Visions??

Affordably!!!

I need to make a short gif out of the clear images. This is a Fluffing Moosterpiece and I wanted a screensaver...

Woof.

[Dungeon Warden]

Sorry you can't afford it. I guess that's why it was only on one computer at school. It I was still at school, I could compress it for you. Unfortunately, I graduated and have to work for a living like everyone else.

DivX is free for a 15 day trial. Can't you make a screen saver using .avi files compressed with DivX? It might be worth a try.

[Deleted]

That's awesome-looking Rodak.

[Rodak]

Thanks, Poopiness!

DW - I think it is literally just too complex an image.

I converted the cow with the exploding head to flv - and it is still clear at full screen!

All those sharp edges and subtle color hues just worn convert (at least not without better hardware!).

I've got a gif uploading. I think I may keep trying, but am uncertain it is even possible at this point. I think I finally made something SO Complex that it simply can't be worked with. Given what you said about compression... unless it has a sense of "Z-Order" there is no overlap to compress!

If it did, this was rendered from 2 very tiny images as seeds, and 3 light sources, and a short iterative formula.

The xml file is TINY!!

The video is HUGE!!

Ug.


EDIT:

Let this load - It's a HUGE gif file!!







I depricated the first 750 frames down to 250, then resized it smaller, and it is still 6 MB!!

But it shows clearly the effect I was making.

The video goes on for 2,000 frames - but I can alter that to any desired length (The Beauty of Iterative Math!).

[Dungeon Warden]

Rodak, I tried compressing the file and got it to under a MB (936 KB to be exact). It's not as crisp as the gif file but it still looks pretty good. If you can send me the original FLV, I might be able to squeeze it into a better looking version. I had to process the GIF a few times to get the final FLV and it lost quality at every stage.

You can see the compressed version here.

[Rodak]

I could have sworn I responded to this!!!

Oops.

Sorry.

Anyway - I'm trying to find ways to host this so you can download it.

I may need to upload "packs" of image frames in compressed folders.

I may have found a tool that will get this presentable. I'll keep you updated.

I NEED this to be FLAWLESS, and Professional Quality.

I have a scheme wherein I sell these.

I can use custom images in there for the cows AND the bars.

Any color scheme.

BUT - if it is not Professional Quality, nobody will pay me for it!

I'm sick of not being able to afford crappe!!

It makes my head explode!!

[Dungeon Warden]

I did a search and found this site, Send This File , that will allow you to send any sized file to another person. Basically, you send the file to be temporarily stored on their site (you can pay for permanent storage if you want but it isn't necessary), then I download it from the site to my computer. In e-mail is send to me at the same time to let me know the file is available. They also say the paid version has faster service, but I don't know if that's a big deal.

I'm not sure what your set up is, but I have a fast computer and a high speed connection, so the file size will not be a problem from my end.

My e-mail address is dungeonwarden{at}msn.com (replace {at} with @)

[Rodak]

That sounds like the old YouSendIt before they went "Members Only" for big files.

I'll upload something this weekend.

Thanks for the effort!