Algodoo

s_noonan -- Thanks for your "re-engineered" response scene. Although the overall resolution is better than the images in my scene, I still don't like the fact that the animation is choppy. So, rather than using an animated gif for the background animation, I am looking at doing it differently.

Thanks, MyNameIsThis.

Xray,
I should have checked here first (or subscribed to the scene). Regarding making animations by cycling thru images: I think that image resolution, image frame rate, and animation time are limited by available RAM and max file size. It's hard to optimize one of those aspects without the the other two suffering. My understanding is jpg has better image quality per kB than gif. The image choppiness is probably due to me using every fifth image from the video. I could have used successive images but the animation might appear too slow and show only 20% of the present content. Maybe one big picture would work with automatically zooming in and out for effect. All you need to do is stitch all the images together to one big image.

Yes, those are the issues I always run into when considering an animated gif in my scenes. It's also very computer-dependent. What may look great on my computer, may be very laggy or have poor image quality on someone else's computer. I found a few seamless "panorama" type image files which would make a high-res and smooth animation by simply adding or subtracting a number to the textureMatrix Y-offest, but no one flies over plain desert sand, grass, or a bunch of pebbles with no other visible structures. I think my best choice would be to find a "bird's eye" panorama scene that was photographed in the forward moving direction. It's almost impossible to find one like that which is seamless, but that's Okay. I think most people playing my scene would understand that.

Thanks again for your help. It was most appreciated.