The FLIC

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s most known in the extension .FLI and .FLC, used to store animation files. It is similar to animated GIF. The FLIC animation format was originally developed by

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

for use with

Autodesk Animator Autodesk Animator is a 2D computer animation and painting program published in 1989 for MS-DOS. It was considered groundbreaking when initially released.

(FLI) and Autodesk Animator Pro (FLC). In 1993

Jim Kent William James Kent (born February 10, 1960) is an American research scientist and computer programmer. He has been a contributor to genome database projects and the 2003 winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award. Early life Kent was born in Ha ...

had a

Dr. Dobbs ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'' (''DDJ'') was a monthly magazine published in the United States by UBM Technology Group, part of UBM. It covered topics aimed at computer programmers. When launched in 1976, DDJ was the first regular periodical focused on ...

article with a

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

listing, introducing the FLIC format to the public. The format uses pixel-wise differential encoding between frames (like GIF) to reduce file size. In the 1990s

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a larg ...

s used the format for intros and other animated sequences in their games, for instance UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994) by MicroProse. Autodesk released a

Freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

software called ''AAPlay'' to play FLI/FLC files on the PC. After the end of development and support by Autodesk, the community wrote substitutes themselves, for instance free and open source libraries for writing and reading FLI/FLC.

References

Graphics file formats {{Multimedia-software-stub