Quote Originally Posted by Big Frank View Post
My preferred media of choice for this subject is GIF, Gary's is clearly more SWF / 3D.
Please let me clarify your statement, Big Frank. The "media" is only the "container" for the frames itself.

Most of the time when it's a paying job, I'm asked to create full animation, 30fps, usually HD 720p or higher. My edited output is AVI uncompressed and I usually go to MPEG-4 for presentation on YouTube or an authored DVD.

It doesn't make a whole lot of difference what the file format is. What's relevant is the software one uses, understanding the path of least resistance when picking out software to help you visualize what you have in your head...and a good program that can transcode a piece of animation from one "container" to another.

Working with an animation idea in 3D space on a personal computer yields different results than 2D, because the two are different by nature, motif, whatever one would call it. But I can write an animation I created using Cinema 4D to swf, GIF, AVI...the file format is only for playback and has very few limitations.

The file format isn't really the bottleneck in David's animation endeavor here: he's gaining experience (that he didn't have yesterday!) with Xara...which wouldn't be my first choice of software if I was asked to animate a flag that looks dimensional and shaded. Frank, you and David have demonstrated here that it's do-able using Xara; I submit to you that it's less of an uphill battle if you have the experience with 3D animation software (and the bucks to buy it), but it's clearly do-able.

Experience is key, absolutely. Experience to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.

My Best,

Gary