CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netanimation
Sean Vaughn
Sean Vaughn

Reputation: 3932

Animation using List<Image>

I'm skeptical if I'm doing this the right way.

I have to play an animation at about 60fps. I'm using a List<Image> to load all the frames at the time of initialization. And then using a System.Timers.Timer to call an event at every 10ms which will change the image in the pictureBox.

List<Image> imageList = new List<Image>();

private static Timer_Event(o, e)
{
    pictureBox.Image = imageList[i++];
}

So, am I doing this right? Is there a better approach?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2523

Answers (4)

Ted Spence
Ted Spence

Reputation: 2678

What you're describing seems unlikely to work in a robust fashion. Here's a brief summary:

  • In my experience, timers aren't generally accurate. Since timer messages go through the Windows Message pump, they can only move as fast as your Windows UI processes messages. Any application that interferes with messages will cause your timers to stutter, although careful work can prevent most of this. Some classic discussion of timers here: Winforms Timer for Dummies

  • In general, List is a very inefficient way to store images. For a one-second animation at 60 frames per second, you will have to hold 60 images in memory and decompress each one individually.

Here are some possible solutions, and the tradeoffs they entail:

Full Motion Video

If you are looking to present a full motion video on your form, you should really consider using a MediaElement (for WPF applications: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/dpatra/media-element-in-wpf/ ) or a MediaPlayer object (for WinForms applications: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb383953(v=vs.90).aspx ).

This will allow you to play a lengthy video that contains extremely high quality images, varied compression, and start or stop the playback arbitrarily. However, the startup and memory usage requirements of a full video player are greater than just displaying a single image on screen. You will find that your application takes a moment to initialize the video subsystem, which may be annoying.

Animated Images

It's possible to show an animated image in a picturebox in Windows Forms or WPF. You would simply generate the animated image - generally using a GIF animation file. This will work smoothly for a majority of simple animations, and it's possible to get free-to-use animated GIFs from websites like this one: http://www.chimply.com/Generator

Here's a walkthrough of how to place an animated GIF on your form: http://trompelecode.com/2010/12/animated-progress-indicator-in-csharp-windows-forms/

Sprite Animation

Let's say you need to accurately represent each image exactly (which isn't necessary if you're simply trying to look appealing), and that you don't want the overhead of a video system (which is okay if you're only playing a second or two worth of animations). What you want to do then is create a single composite "sprite" image. This reduces the memory overhead requirements of your application and reduces the amount of time decompressing files.

For example, here's a website that generates PNG sprites for you: http://wearekiss.com/spritepad

Once you generate an image with sprites, you can place it within a picturebox and animate the image by changing the relative position of the image within the picturebox. Here's a walkthrough of how to accomplish this: C# picturebox load image with an offset

Summary

Any way you choose to display an animated image, you will have some tradeoffs. I like to pick the simplest possible solution for myself - and in my case I like to use an animated GIF image. Good luck animating!

Upvotes: 2

David
David

Reputation: 2272

You may also be able to put your animation together using WPF or Silverlight ... if you need the animation to be interactive or programmatically controllable that would probably be the way to go.

If on the other hand the animated content is static then AVI (or MPEG etc.) is probably your best bet.

You don't say exactly what you're trying to accomplish so I can't be sure.

Upvotes: 0

BlueM
BlueM

Reputation: 6888

The easiest way would be to use an animated gif in that pictureBox and don't mess with timers.

Upvotes: 0

Adil
Adil

Reputation: 3268

The .avi is alternative otherwise, however, if you have bunch of images than probably utilizing threads/timers apparently seems to be the way forward.

Upvotes: 0

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