GLOSSARY

AVI Files

AVI stands for Audio-Video Interleaved format. This format is the Windows standard for movie files. The .avi filename extension indicates a Windows AVI movie file.

3DS MAX creates an AVI file when you make a preview animation. You can also render your final output to an AVI file. Although 3DS MAX is designed to produce the highest quality output by rendering single frame TGA files or rendering directly to a digital disk recorder, you can still get good results rendering AVI files.

AVI files are used as input to 3DS MAX in several ways, for example:

• As animated materials in the Material Editor
• As viewport backgrounds for rotoscoping
• As input images for compositing in Video Post

When you render to an AVI file from within 3DS MAX, you have the following file Setup options:

Compressor: Select the codec (compressor/decompressor) you want to use to compress the file. 3DS MAX supports Cinepak, Intel Indeo 3.2, Microsoft Video 1, and Autodesk RLE codecs from within the program. You can also render uncompressed frames (and then use an external application to compress the file). Video-file compression is an art in itself, with many aspects to consider. For more information, refer to a recent book on the subject or to one of the many articles in the PC magazines.

Compression Quality: Use the slider to select the quality you want. The higher the quality, the larger the file size.

Keyframe Every n Frames: Select the interval between the Delta keyframes used to compare one frame with another and generate in-between frames. Too large an interval will create loss of quality in the AVI file as a whole.

Configure: Click this button to see any additional options specific to the codec.