File Size Compression

[Blazanax]

So, the maximum file has to be no more than 50 MB. Well, let's just say our animation is pushing the limits a little bit right now. By about five times.

How should we go about slimming down the file size? Even if the animation is only 30 seconds, 50 MB for an HD video is a pretty tight restriction, so I'm sure other animation teams must have a few tricks up their sleeves. If you would, please, care to spare a newbie animator a tip or two?

[Duke461]

Originally Posted by Blazanax

So, the maximum file has to be no more than 50 MB. Well, let's just say our animation is pushing the limits a little bit right now. By about five times.

How should we go about slimming down the file size? Even if the animation is only 30 seconds, 50 MB for an HD video is a pretty tight restriction, so I'm sure other animation teams must have a few tricks up their sleeves. If you would, please, care to spare a newbie animator a tip or two?

I'm not on the animation team, however the animator on my team said his .avi file was 5 GB's, then after compressing it it became 50 MB or so. Try compressing it.
-Duke

[tim-tim]

Likewise, I have not done any animation, but have spent time with videos.

The software you are using is probably outputting/exporting to a high definition lossless format. You may want to see if you can reconfigure the settings to a lower quality and try again. there are also a lot of video converters on th internet that will compress or lower the resolution for you. Just note that as you decrease the file size you will lose some crispness and clarity. However, I have found that most people can't tell (other than the creator(s)).

[rastermon]

Just to remind you, the files must be Quicktime .mov with either H.264 codec or MPEG-4 - not .avi. We reduced ours down to 47MB by choosing H.264 and limit the kbytes/sec. It is a tight squeeze.