Jessica Furé created this brief movie using the animation tools in Bryce 4. It suggests some of the possibilities for animation in Bryce worlds. This technique might be especially useful for projects that do not use panoramas, since you could conceivably replace a still image with a movie that begins on a shot identical to the still, then pans to a new position for an animated transition.

I'll give out instructions on animation in the next week or so. Meanwhile, ask Jessica.

Some words of caution: this movie took about four hours to render on a reasonably fast computer comparable to the machines in the Hypermedia Room. Since every frame of an animation must be rendered, animation takes huge amounts of time.

Movies also involve very large files. Jessica's original movie, which was rendered at full-screen (640x480), takes 15MB of disk space and requires about 15 seconds to download on the campus T1 network -- or the better part of an hour by slow modem. Playback time is about 2 seconds. The half-size version you see here is about 6.5 MB, still far too heavy for slower connections.

Animation is a great idea, but you'll need to use it sparingly if at all. Also look into reduced frame rates and compression. For some quick advice about these subjects, contact Sean Cohen.