Converting Image Sequences into Bink! Format
Bink! is written by RAD
Gametools and is in no way connected to Terragen.
Once you have created an animation in Terragen,
it isn't much good unless you can convert it into some sort of
movie file. There are already loads of tools to make AVI and MPEG
files, and perhaps a couple for making Quicktime files, but more
recently Bink!
has come onto the scene. Bink! creates high-quality animations
that are also very small in size (I've managed to get animations
of 400+ frames to around 1Mb). However, Bink! is more for the
technically minded and is quite hard to use for optimum results.
This guide is intended to cut through the jargon and help you
create animation files more easily.
Although Bink! can convert AVI and
Quicktime to BIK format, you get higher quality results from
converting a sequence of images directly. Terragen script
sequences are perfectly suited to this. To convert a sequence,
click on the first image in the sequence and then click on
"Bink It!". Bink will detect that the image is part of
a sequence.
If you want to convert an existing movie file, simply click on
the movie file and then click on "Bink It!". It is not
recommended to convert movie files that are already compressed,
as further loss of quality will occur.
Things get a little more complicated from here.
As Bink! is primarily for developers, there are a lot of options
you can use to fine-tune your animation, mix in audio, etc.
Firstly, make sure that the "Frame
Range" is set correctly, or only part of your
animation will be converted to Bink! format. Of course,
you may want this to happen. Next, set the data rate
for your animation. This allows you to set the
approximate size of the resulting animation.
You can use a Percentage of Original File Size, which
is easier but not quite so exact. When dealing with
sequences of images, "Original File Size"
refers to the total size of all images, or when dealing
with existing movie files, it refers to the original size
of the movie.
Using "Data Rate" is slightly more
complicated (because it involves some math!) but you can
fine-tune the size of your movie better, which is very
useful if you want to create a movie of a specific size.
To calculate data rate:
data_rate = (desired_movie_size /
(number_of_frames / frames_per_second))
where the desired movie size is in bytes.
For greater precision, it is better to use more
Preview Frames (I generally use 16 or 32) as this lets
Bink work out how "compressible" the frames
are.
With sequences of images, you should always
use the "Force Frame Rate" to set the frame
rate of your animation.
I never use keyframes, as they tend to make
the resulting movie larger and more jerky.
Once the settings are to your satisfaction, click on
"Bink" to start the conversion.
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After converting the animation to Bink! format, you can
convert it to .exe format for easy distribution. To do this,
click on "Advanced Play" from the main RAD Video Tools
window then click on "Make EXE". Doing this has the
disadvantages of size (the file size increases by around 100k),
and less compatibility with other systems.
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