24bit IFF-animations

[Mikkihii]

I was just wondering...

I use Cinema4D to create animations. So I create, for example, 200 frames of animation. All 24bit IFF-pictures. No problems this far. Then I use PerfectPaint to create animation out of those pictures. Looks great on PerfectPaint screen.

Now comes the problem:
If I save animation full 24bit, there is no program to show it. :-(
If I save animation as 256-colors or HAM8, it doesn't look so good and I have to use AGA-modes. (I have Mediator/Voodoo3)
If I save animation as AVI, I can't play even 320x240 at 25FPS. (060/60MHz)

But perfectpaint displays animation full speed, keeping whole animation in RAM. Is there any animation-player that can do this. And, unlike perfectpain, on full screen. Can't find anywhere. :-?

[JaXanim]

@Mikkihii

Take a look at MainActor or MainActorBroadcast, which I use for
LightWave animations.

These have the capability of compiling 24-bit images into anim files.
However, unless you can load the complete anim into RAM, I think
you'll get slow results no matter what hardware you've got.

MainActor v1.55 is available from Aminet I believe. This will offer
both Picasso (II) and CyberGraFX support, but I can't verify the
performance. MainActor is getting a bit long in the tooth, but I think
it's about the best the Amiga has to offer. I believe MA will suggest
you dither 24-bit images to 16-bit to get best animation results. They
are almost the same visually.

Cheers,

JaX

[Lo]

Have you tried XAnim?  I used to play them from a fast synchronus SCSI drive, but don't know if it would work with a VooDoo3.     XAnim Readme

[Mikkihii]

@JaXanim
Works, but I think ViewTek is still better&faster. Found no CGX-support Stupid me? And those shareware-messages, aaargh!

@Lo
The version I got working, didn't support Picasso'96&CGX. D'oh...


Any other suggestions?

[Jose]

Here's one thing I found through time. A lot of programs don't use HAM8 properly. I found that some correctly select the base colors (it would even be possible to try to change them on the fly! Don't know if any program does that.) of that mode. XiPaint for example is/ was a good paint fx etc. program but it's HAM8 use was VERY bad. It's available for free somewhere. On the other hand, Brilliance2.0 is of the best that I've seen. I've converted some bmp, and tiff etc. pictures to iff24 to try it out and the output is just amazing. I couldn't notice the difference with a true 24bit picture. This was with pictures of landscapes and things that are real. Don't know if it's also that good with the other computer generated sutff because in real pictures there's allways (well, in most cases) a similar range of colors for each object, wich is well suited to HAM8.


My point? Well, if you use a program that's good in HAM8 (like Brilliance2.0) to save the iff24 pictures in HAM8 first you probably won't notice much difference.

But you have to find an animation program that supports color pallete changing between different frames..(don't ask me, but I remember some supported it).
 
Lot of work but it makes possible to have a good 24bit like anim in an AGA machine! Probably with some bandwith limitations for the more demanding ones though, but I haven't tried it....
Let me know the results if you try that.

[JaXanim]

For HAM anims, it could be worth checking out PowerMovie from Power Computing. This is specifically written to convert HAM anims to another (proprietary) format which is supposed to run very fast.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work on my system, but it might be worth calling Power Computing for advice. It costs around £20 IIRC.

Cheers,

JaX

[Jose]

@Jax

I was to buy that prog once but gave up because someone told me it supported only lowres. Could you confirm this? (Check the docs maybe...)

[Cass]

Try BigAnim. Works great from the disk, I'm not sure for the 24Bit thingie...:-? (Last time that I used it, was to display a HAM anim that couldn't fit to memory -long time ago-).
________
DC MARIJUANA DISPENSARY

[Mikkihii]

@Jose
I know that HAM8-anims can have a lot better picture quality than seen on my anims. But I blame perfectpaint, good program but bad ham8-anim conversions :-)

@Cass
Tried biganim: works great on ham8-anims, on aga screens. Very fast when everything loaded in memory. But no 24bit or CGX/P96 options.

@everyone
So seems that my best choise is to use HAM8-mode. Blaah, really wanted to see fast animations on voodoo-screen. Oh well...

Is there any program that could automatically convert hundreds of IFF24-images to HAM8-images? With good quality, of course. And maybe creates anim-file out of'em too...?

[Framiga]

Hi Mikkihii

i've tryed all the possible programs/viewer/way but 24bit anim without a custom hardware!!! (at video resolution)

A friend of mine, has used DCTV with a custom 24bit player for awhile.

Ciao

PS- if you find a used VLab Motion :-)

[jd997uk]

@Mikkihii

Is there any program that could automatically convert hundreds of IFF24-images to HAM8-images? With good quality, of course. And maybe creates anim-file out of'em too...?

Brilliance will load the IFF24 and make anims out of them.

-john

[JaXanim]

@Jose

Yes, PowerMovie will only run 320x200 pixels in HAM8 or 256 colours. Any frames larger than this are reduced to that size. It's supposed to run very large anims from hd at 24 frames/sec, but I never got it to run with anything other than the 47Mb PowerAnim demo provided with the package. None of my HAM8 LightWave anims would run with it. They have to be converted into 'XFL' format first, which the software does for you.

I've just tried it out again with OS3.9 and it won't even load the PowerAnim demo. It crashes immediately I click the load button. The interface defaults to low res and looks pretty bl**dy awful. I couldn't get ModePro to work on it either.

I never saw any reports on this software other than Nick Veitch's 'glowing' review in Amiga Format when it was first released.

In brief: PowerMovie - Forget it!

Cheers,

JaX

[JaXanim]

@Mikkihii

One of the most versatile format converters is Image Studio. It will convert a whole hd full of images from 24-bit to HAM8 or other formats.

I think you need a registered copy to get the full benefit, but there's a demo on Aminet I believe.

For compiling streams of images into anims, I still say MainActor takes some beating.

Cheers,

JaX

[leirbag28]

Nope....I believe ImageStudio 2.3 is free! full version.............try Aminet or google

[The_Editor]

The Anims i created in True Brilliance I used to save as 24bit pictures and then load em into Infochannels (Scala) AnimLAB  and  compile em into either Anim16 or 32 .. Depending which looked better