I''ve been doing some animation tests for my current game project and the game is going to use a fair amount of pre-rendered cut-scenes. My question is what file format should I use to save them in?

Since your program is going to be the only one using them, I''d say it''s all up to you. Since you''re going to have a lot of them, try a more compact format, like mpeg.

E:cb woof!

Try using "Bink" format - you can get the tools at

http://www.radgametools.com/

This format is better than MPEG, it''s used by Diablo2 recently - this intro is 93MB - but 7mins long!!!

And of course, the quality of footage is absolutely brilliant.

have a look on the animations on my site...

the candle is a bigger resolution than my old avi version, and yet 30kb SMALLER!! (It''s much better quality too)

Well, there you go
The tools by the way - allow you to make the movie an .exe format, so others don''t have to download/have the bink tools to run you stuff!

All you do is output from MAX (or whereever) in VERY HIGH QUALITY (or, if you have enough diskspace - UNCOMPRESSED) and then "Bink it" using Radtools - the UNCOMPRESSED footage will probably be unwatchable, but it''ll be fine once you compress it (remember, if you compress your source it will show on your final)



www.stephen-hawes.co.uk