How Dose A:M Import/Handle Image Sizes?

[markw]

Recently started a new Sports Day project which is using a .tga image as a decal for the pitch markings, which according to my OS, is 2,554 x 410 pixels @72dpi and a file size of 95kb.

If I look at the information for the same image as it appears in the Images folder in A:M it agrees on the dimensions but says it is 3.99MB!?

That's but a big leap from 95kb!

And it also seems to be enough to keep making A:M freeze and have to be forced quit if I try and pan over it with the camera. Turning OFF Show Decals and the camera moves freely and no freeze.

On the plus side this decal, so far & touch wood, has always displayed correctly and not fallen foul of the usual mess up I get with images in A:M

[Rodney]

A very wild guess here...

 

Is it possible that your decal image is one of a sequence of images?

That might explain the larger file size. (If A:M is displaying the size of the entire sequence)

 

 

Added: Another thought would be that A:M is somehow uncompressing a compressed image thereby reporting it's 'real' size?

 

More info needed.

Perhaps you can share the image file?

[Rodney]

I did a quick test of a single image from a sequence versus the entire sequence and it appears that A:M is reporting the size of the entire sequence even when only one image from the sequence is imported into A:M.

This is obviously not correct but the more important question would be whether A:M is using that file size in any way (i.e. reserving memory space based on that variable)

[robcat2075]

I'm not sure about the sequence vs. single question but...

 

2554pixels x 410 pixels x 24bits per pixel / 8bits per byte = 3.1 MB

 

if you have an alpha channel in the TGA it's 32 bits per pixel and makes for 4.1 MB

 

I believe the size that A:M reports once an image is imported into the Images folder is the full uncompressed size of the image.

[Fuchur]

I'm not sure about the sequence vs. single question but...

 

2554pixels x 410 pixels x 24bits per pixel / 8bits per byte = 3.1 MB

 

if you have an alpha channel in the TGA it's 32 bits per pixel and makes for 4.1 MB

 

I believe the size that A:M reports once an image is imported into the Images folder is the full uncompressed size of the image.

 

Correct. You may want to try to save your TGA-file without RTE-compression and see if the sizes match (so I am not sure if they necessarily need to match exactly...)

A:M shows the size of the uncompressed data simple because it is using it in that fashion in the cache. To work with, this is faster than using a compressed image, decompress it, get the pixel-matrix and work with that.

It just holdes the pixel-matrix in the cache and can work from there.

 

This is true for most image manipulation software too... in Photoshop you can see the compressed filesize and the uncompressed one as it is in the RAM at the bottom of the image / window of photoshop.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[markw]

Thank you all, I see what you are saying, I think

So this is normal then and at times we need to pay attention to the size of large images, in terms of dimensions and whether it really need an alpha channel or not and compression, before importing them.

They may look small outside of A:M but A:M will show them for what they really are.

Some more experimenting is in order then I think...

 

On a side note;

I'm always amazed at how small a part of the whole actual animating can be when making an animation!