[Sticks]

Actually, that was kinda a joke. AFAIK, DivX decoding is fairly computationally expensive. However, for message and briefing anims, I think this would actually work out ok.

[IceFire]

One thing about the ANI format....there are just PCX files...the overhead on those guys has to be really small.  Conversly, MPEG has to be much much more...

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Sticks
Actually, that was kinda a joke. AFAIK, DivX decoding is fairly computationally expensive. However, for message and briefing anims, I think this would actually work out ok.

Whoops. Well, I've never pretended to be knowledgable on this. But I agreed because AVI's are extremely easy to create with all of the softwares floating about here and there. And the DiVx codecs supposedly make them better, so I put one and one together...

Oh well, my opinion doesn't matter anyway.

[ChronoReverse]

DivX makes it smaller.  But at the cost of CPU time.

[Kamikaze]

I think an mpeg4 format would be nice. Preferably not DivX or a Microsoft format.

[CP5670]

Doesn't PCX support colors higher than 8-bit? I have several pcx's that are listed as 24-bit images. Or does the compression decrease the quality?

[Sesquipedalian]

File size may be an issue for downloading on 56kbps, but reducing the frame rates will have everyone screaming bloody murder.  Go with what runs the fastest.

[CP5670]

yeah, especially since there are already some problems on that front with the latest build.

[ChronoReverse]

I think an mpeg4 format would be nice. Preferably not DivX or a Microsoft format.

And that leaves us with... xvid or quicktime 6.  O_0

XviD support wouldn't be a bad idea, but make sure to restrict it to only the Simple Profile.  As long as none of the Simple Advanced features are used, playback should be reasonable (of course, hi-res videos won't be a good idea, the current size of the anis should be fine).

[Kamikaze]

you're forgetting...
3ivx
nAVI
OpenDivx
(ther're probably more)

[Flaser]

XVID + OGG support.

...or OGM as a whole.

Why not plain DivX?

XVid is opensource freeware IIRC.
So is OGG - an alternative for mp3.

Beside OGM is just as good as MPEG-4 (actually it is quite the same IMHO in several aspects).

[Flipside]

Well, the more compressed the file is, the more CPU time it takes to uncompress when the game is running, it might even be advisable to have a kind of PCX system running, but with the 256 colour pallette running for each frame?

Flipside

[Nico]

Originally posted by ChronoReverse
DivX makes it smaller.  But at the cost of CPU time.

(quote taken coz it's the latest one I've seen, it's not against you, CR, it's a general remark )

Come on, what PC can run FS2 and would have problems with a 320*200 divx file? what the hell is that CPU time cost? If that pauses any resource problem, the whole game deserves to be burnt down and stamped.

[Bobboau]

it would be decompressed udring load into the internal format that FS uses, CPU time is vurtualy irrelevent

[ChronoReverse]

And I also mentioned how such small videos wouldn't use much cpu in the very next paragraph =)

3vix is pretty much a non-illegal version of divx3.11;-) in terms of the output file.  It doesn't actually follow the mpeg4 spec.

Opendivx has died ages ago.

Never heard of nAVI =\

Technically it's possible to use ogg vorbis and xvid in an avi container but generally it didn't work well and it was an ugly hack (hence the need for the ogm container).

Ogg audio, wouldn't be a bad idea I suppose.  But what do the coders say (I bet this isn't easy or else someone would've done it ages ago)?

Since DivX cutscenes are in FSO now I suppose that the mpeg4 licensing issue isn't anymore?  Or is it just using directshow?

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by ChronoReverse
Ogg audio, wouldn't be a bad idea I suppose.  But what do the coders say (I bet this isn't easy or else someone would've done it ages ago)?

Since DivX cutscenes are in FSO now I suppose that the mpeg4 licensing issue isn't anymore?  Or is it just using directshow?

No, no, no.  FSO does not include DivX.  It opens a Windows Media Player window, which means that it can run anything that WMP can run.  Hence, it can only run DivX if WMP has the codec installed.

[ChronoReverse]

So it uses directshow... in a manner of speaking (at least for divx video).  Although bobbeau seems to have hinted that it could be possible for the avi's to be decompressed to a FS2 format before playing in the window.


[edit]  What I mean is that if it opens up a WMP window and since WMP uses the DivX dshow filter to playback divx, FSO is kinda using dshow XD [/edit]

[Bobboau]

I was of course talking out of my ass there, no idea on how to do that, just thinking of posabilities

[ChronoReverse]

Be careful, we take your words like that of the Immortals

[KARMA]

mmm I absolutely don't know about the quality of the format, the compression, or the license, but....
what about quicktime movies?
I'm naming them just because in photoshop with the same tool you use for animated gifs you can create .mov or .qt files.
And if it wasn't for the license, I'd go for gifs too, althought the colour limit, mainly because you can have a transparent background and they are very easy to do.
I always thought the licensing problems were only with the compression algorithms, and that there were alternative algorithms, and therefore only the programs to create gifs could have problems, but I may be wrong...I'll read phreak's link.

->well it seem that for all the programs using LZW compression method (it means not only GIFs) must be payed a license, both for compression and decompression, no matter if you are making a non commercial product; I suppose you will have to use this LZW to add gif support wich could lead to some patent violations