Rendering high resolution animations

[Agendum]

Hi,

I would like to display an animated icon on my web site (it is a
"busy" icon which appears when asynchronous script is working). The
animation is built in .ANI file format, and looks very nice. It has a
32-bit palette. However browsers can't seem to render .ANI files when
referenced from an IMG tag. So I converted it to an animated .GIF but
it looks horrible due to .GIFs 8-bit palette limitation.

So my question is -- what are my options to render this .ANI on a web
page without having to use 3rd party tools and plugins? I /
think/ .MPG and .AVI files can be rendered from an IMG tag but I have
found no way to convert .ANI files to these video-based formats. Is
there a better option here?

Thanks!

 

[dorayme]

<[email protected]
m>,

Hi,

I would like to display an animated icon on my web site (it is a
"busy" icon which appears when asynchronous script is working). The
animation is built in .ANI file format, and looks very nice. It has a
32-bit palette. However browsers can't seem to render .ANI files when
referenced from an IMG tag. So I converted it to an animated .GIF but
it looks horrible due to .GIFs 8-bit palette limitation.

So my question is -- what are my options to render this .ANI on a web
page without having to use 3rd party tools and plugins? I /
think/ .MPG and .AVI files can be rendered from an IMG tag but I have
found no way to convert .ANI files to these video-based formats. Is
there a better option here?

Better talk to Travis. Surely there would be a Flash option here.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

The pukka way to do it is SVG, although last time I checked only Opera
supported SVG's SMIL-based animation.

Chrome also supports it, and they look much better than in Opera

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Better in what way? Opera has pretty good anti-aliasing.

See for yourself and compare

<http://www.zvon.org/xxl/svgReference/Standard1.1/images/animate/anim01.svg>

 

[Neredbojias]

See for yourself and compare

<http://www.zvon.org/xxl/svgReference/Standard1.1/images/animate/anim0
1.svg>

Opera has that same problem with all their rendering-stuff, even simple
page readjustment. I think it's in the way it's coded, perhaps not the
most efficient uses/methods of C++. That's been my complaint for
years; otherwise it's a pretty good browser.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

See for yourself and compare

<http://www.zvon.org/xxl/svgReference/Standard1.1/images/animate/anim0...>

Safari for Windows 4.0.5 [531.22.7] also supports the SVG example you
give. I don't know when this support started, since I have not checked
before. I think there was a Safari update not long ago, so support
could be fairly recent. I assume the most recent Safari for Mac also
supports SVG now, but I have no way to check this.

 

[dorayme]

<[email protected]
m>,

See for yourself and compare

<http://www.zvon.org/xxl/svgReference/Standard1.1/images/animate/anim0...>

Safari for Windows 4.0.5 [531.22.7] also supports the SVG example you
give. I don't know when this support started, since I have not checked
before. I think there was a Safari update not long ago, so support
could be fairly recent. I assume the most recent Safari for Mac also
supports SVG now, but I have no way to check this.

On my work Macs, still on Tiger and Safari 3... only Opera seems
to have this work. I will fire up a modern Macbook soon, I am
sure it will play the SVG. What an interesting thing this SVG
is...

 

[Neredbojias]

So what is the problem yawl are seeing with Opera? Is it with the
animation as opposed to the actual graphical quality-- jerky or
something?

Yes, at least what I'm getting. The actual at-rest quality seems about
the same but getting there is much smoother in Chrome.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

So what is the problem yawl are seeing with Opera? Is it with the
animation as opposed to the actual graphical quality-- jerky or
something?

Yes all of it. But what is most telling is to focus on the animated
text. Watch as it morphs and twitches from normal to bold in Opera...
It is like comparing a flash animation with a reduced frame animated gif
or JavaScript animation.