FLI/FLC movies

A flic is basically a movie, a series of images but without (its own) sound.

.FLI supports only one resolution: 320x200 with 256 colors

.FLC supports any resolution up to 1024x768 with 256 colors.

You can use the RAD Video Tools to convert a series of pictures into a flic ("List files...", save list, select .lst file, "Convert a file", "Output type...", ...).

Whether you want to use Flics or AVIs depends on one's need. Unfortunately, it's quite normal that a flic would be large, especially for more "complicated" stuffs like photorealistic movies and having dynamic changes, as it used only RLE compression for it's frames. If you lower the frame rate (ie use less frames) I think the file size can be decreased. The quality will be related to the converter you use, I think some of them might do a good job in colour reduction (using dithering, etc.) so the movie can have better quality, some may not.

On the other hand FLC is good because it's internally supported by AGS, so it:

1. Works for all ports, including the DOS port.
2. Doesn't need to call external system components (M$ Direct show Angry ), which can have different problems on different computers (due to different system setups and codecs/drivers/etc. installed).

If you're concerned much about the size and quality of movies you can use AVIs or MPEG instead (Look for PlayVideo(), etc. from the manual), the bad thing about AVIs was that you must ensure the players had installed the appropiate codecs, I think MPEG1 is a safe format for compatibility, size and quality. Unfortunately if your game use PlayVideo(), it only works on the windows engine.

Programs that can output Flics

• Jasc Animation Shop
• RAD Video Tools