Autodesk Codec Response!!!

[Specialagentjim]

Okay, the response is back!

Although, its a little strangly worded..at least to me... They say "The rules also allow for QuickTime..." Did I miss something..?
Then some other parts (for anyone thats been following my rendering posts...) sound a little familiar..does it not..? lol

Oh well, in any event, this is their reccomendation. Personally, Im probobly going to go with quicktime. Its a much higher quality style, and I like how it usually dosent start skipping around towards the end of a file...

Here's the official E-mail:

Subj: RE: Codec Issue
Date: 1/30/2003 4:56:34 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: first.entries@autodesk.com
To: Specialagentjim@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)




Dear Jimmy:

We prefer Cinepak, Intel Indeo, or QuickTime.

Cinepak has been a very popular choice, and has had good results in most situations. (Codecs have strengths in different situations.) This is a good recommendation.

Intel Indeo is another one supplied by Windows, but is not as popular. People can use it if they like.

The rules also allow for QuickTime. This is another widespread and popular codec, and in fact it is included on the 3ds max CD.

The main issue is if the 900 frame animation be compressed to fit on the CD and not lose quality. Without compression, the animation might need 1 and 1/2 CD's!

With the codec's compression quality slider (0 - 100%), you can squeeze it down so it's nice and small, but a rather poor image. You need to keep it high enough (say, 65%) to get it to look good and small enough to fit on the CD. (This quality slider choice displays as part of the Render options within 3ds max.)

Test! Test!

One tip:

1.Create the original animation and render it out as a series of sequentially number 640x480 Targa files (e.g. Targ0000,tga, Targ0001.tga, Targ0002.tga....Targ0899.tga).

If necessary, use the Network Rendering feature to help shorten the rendering time. This is covered in the 3ds max Reference Manual, and essentially consists of installing 3ds max on several other computers that have a network connection to the master. These other computers can be accessed by the master copy of 3ds max and harnessed to help with the rendering. Even without getting licensed!

2.Then clear the scene from 3ds max, and select the Targa file sequence as a background image environment. The steps are covered in the Ref Manual about how to choose an environment background from a bitmap. The sequence of files is something that 3ds max calls an Image File List (IFL) file, and that's pretty easy too, once you've done it. The environment Browse window has a checkmark for an option called Sequence. So you choose Targ0000.tga, check the Sequence option, and 3ds max automatically assumes you wish Targ0000.tga and all the other Targ*.tga files after that.

3. The last step is to render the Animation file. This can be a test of, say 50 - 100 frames, to see how the compression settings are going to work out. Testing this way is quicker than rendering the geometry each time for each test. This method only needs 3ds max to convert previously rendered images to an animation file since there's no geometry in this cleared-off scene.


If you have any other qustions, please visit the discussion forum on www.discreet.com.

Thank you,
The Autodesk- FIRST Robotics Team





-----Original Message-----
From: Specialagentjim@aol.com [mailto:Specialagentjim@aol.com]
Sent: January 29, 2003 6:57 AM
To: First Robotics Competition
Subject: Codec Issue


I've been speaking with the Animation community on Chiefdelphi.com and I've noticed that we're lacking an official ruling on compression/codec usage. We've all been hoping to use something a little more High-res then the previous year's cinepak encoding, but are afriad of a DQ simply based on lack of a proper codec. If you could make an offical ruling and include it with a team update, it would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Jimmy Martz, Team 108: Animation Division

So yeah.....I end this post with a poll, which codec will your team be going with?