Animations

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greenmorpher
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Animations

Beitrag von greenmorpher »

Hello Gerhard

I've just been experimenting with animation using the tutorial. This is cool and easy to use ... except for some oddities:

1) DYANMIC ANIMATION.

I just tried making a "Dynamic Animation", a rotating image, following the tutorial 2.6.2.

-- When I set "5" for the duration I got "2" on the scale above the time line. I dragged that out and got "5". Okay, I tried it and then I went back later and set "2" -- it retained the same length but stretched the scale. When I tried it and then changed to 10, the scale stayed in the same Dstretched state, making an unmanageably long time ruler there.

-- Is there any way to set it up to rotate, say, three times -- or is it one or endless repeitition only?

-- When I double clicked on that duration ruler, I got a dialog box in German. Sorry, couldn't understand it! "Stopen animation" is obvious, but without the other two, there was no context so I couldn't guess what it actually meant.

-- I couldn't see how to save it in an animation format. My image started off as a TIFF. When I went to "save as" I didn’t get the SWF or GIF format as options in the main formats menu. So I went to "Options" in the save dialog. I selected SWF in that, but that gave me no apparent change when I went to the next step. I went back to "i" and saw there were some SWF settings. I simply do not know what they mean. I was expecting to just save a file which I could place in a web document. I need to have this explained.

-- The demo of the animation in the Dynamic Animation does not show everything that has been set. It does not "Pause" or rotate only once, if you have those set. I thought these controlsx were not working, then I happened to click on the SWF in the dialog box, which launched the web browser and tyhe animation worked properly there. If the demo in the Dynamic Animation window is not going to show the thing working properly, then better to dump it and rely on clicking on SWF in the DA tool bar to get the full effect. Whatever -- the fact that clicking on SWF bringsx up the browser and demonstrates the animation fully MUST be mentioned in the tutorial.

-- Also very worth mentioning is the effect on the rotation of fiddling with the curves under "Progress" in the sequence dialog. This is VERY cool.

2) MORPHING ANIMATION

Very good stuff. A question however -- is there a way to set up a morphing sequence manually? For example, I have as series of a 10 steps using different levels of the Menu bar | Effects | Special Tools | Perturbation which I produced in PL32. Can I combine them into an Ani8mated GIF or a SWF document in PL32? I can open them in Canvas and simply save a multipage document there as an Animated GIF. That doesn't appear to be an option in PL32. But am I missing something? Can it be done?

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com
Martin Huber
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Re: Animations

Beitrag von Martin Huber »

greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- When I set "5" for the duration I got "2" on the scale above the time line. I dragged that out and got "5". Okay, I tried it and then I went back later and set "2" -- it retained the same length but stretched the scale. When I tried it and then changed to 10, the scale stayed in the same Dstretched state, making an unmanageably long time ruler there.
But you can always use the magnifier-tools to zoom in or out, can't you?
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- Is there any way to set it up to rotate, say, three times -- or is it one or endless repeitition only?
You just have to enter an angle larger than 360 degrees (you can enter "360 * 3", too).
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- When I double clicked on that duration ruler, I got a dialog box in German. Sorry, couldn't understand it! "Stopen animation" is obvious, but without the other two, there was no context so I couldn't guess what it actually meant.
Well, you have found a "hidden" feature. Because the feedback to the dynamic animation wasn't that large, we didn't bother to document this, though we should have translated the dialog.
By double-clicking on the ruler, you can
- set a mark
- jump to a previously defined mark
- stop the animation at the given time
Especially the stop-command is only useful in combination with the image-map-feature, which you can use to define a button to jump to a mark, too. The image-map-feature allows to define the following SWF-commands using the URL-field:
- command(stop): stops the animations
- command(goto marker): jumps to the marker "marker"
- command(play): a stopped animation is continued
- command(geturl url): load url. The syntax for the URL is the same as in the dialog "Animation Info".
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- I couldn't see how to save it in an animation format. My image started off as a TIFF. When I went to "save as" I didn’t get the SWF or GIF format as options in the main formats menu. So I went to "Options" in the save dialog. I selected SWF in that, but that gave me no apparent change when I went to the next step. I went back to "i" and saw there were some SWF settings. I simply do not know what they mean. I was expecting to just save a file which I could place in a web document. I need to have this explained.
This is for security reasons. You should always save your animations using the PLD-Format, because PhotoLine can not read SWF files. Therefore you can write SWF-files only by using the Export submenu. This ensures, that you can't forget to save as PLD, too.
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- The demo of the animation in the Dynamic Animation does not show everything that has been set. It does not "Pause" or rotate only once, if you have those set. I thought these controlsx were not working, then I happened to click on the SWF in the dialog box, which launched the web browser and tyhe animation worked properly there. If the demo in the Dynamic Animation window is not going to show the thing working properly, then better to dump it and rely on clicking on SWF in the DA tool bar to get the full effect.
I understand your point, but personally I like the embedded preview better. As you said, it doesn't execute the embedded commands, but it allows to inspect an animation frame by frame. Just click on the small time slider under the preview and you can switch between the frames by using the cursor keys.
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:Whatever -- the fact that clicking on SWF bringsx up the browser and demonstrates the animation fully MUST be mentioned in the tutorial.
But it is at least documented in the online-help (I know, nobody reads the online helps).
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- Also very worth mentioning is the effect on the rotation of fiddling with the curves under "Progress" in the sequence dialog. This is VERY cool.
It's also in the online-help.

greenmorpher hat geschrieben:2) MORPHING ANIMATION

Very good stuff. A question however -- is there a way to set up a morphing sequence manually? For example, I have as series of a 10 steps using different levels of the Menu bar | Effects | Special Tools | Perturbation which I produced in PL32. Can I combine them into an Ani8mated GIF or a SWF document in PL32? I can open them in Canvas and simply save a multipage document there as an Animated GIF. That doesn't appear to be an option in PL32. But am I missing something? Can it be done?
Saving them as GIF should be simple: Just use "Web/Create Animation", set the right values and leave the dialog with OK. Now you can save your document as GIF and you will get an animated GIF (if you have set "Options/File/GIF/Save Layer Images" to "Animated GIF" or to "Ask", which is default).
If you want to export it as SWF, you can either "abuse" the Slideshow-function or you have to build the animation manually using Dynamic Animation.

Martin
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greenmorpher
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Re: Animations

Beitrag von greenmorpher »

Martin Huber hat geschrieben:
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- When I set "5" for the duration I got "2" on the scale above the time line. I dragged that out and got "5". Okay, I tried it and then I went back later and set "2" -- it retained the same length but stretched the scale. When I tried it and then changed to 10, the scale stayed in the same Dstretched state, making an unmanageably long time ruler there.
But you can always use the magnifier-tools to zoom in or out, can't you?
That's not the problem, Martin. In fact, there is a bug here. The ruler will stretch but it will not contract. If I zoom out, it all gets too small. It is small enough as it is.
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- Is there any way to set it up to rotate, say, three times -- or is it one or endless repeitition only?
You just have to enter an angle larger than 360 degrees (you can enter "360 * 3", too).[/quote]

Fine. How about putting that in the dialog?
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- When I double clicked on that duration ruler, I got a dialog box in German. Sorry, couldn't understand it! "Stopen animation" is obvious, but without the other two, there was no context so I couldn't guess what it actually meant.
Well, you have found a "hidden" feature. Because the feedback to the dynamic animation wasn't that large, we didn't bother to document this, though we should have translated the dialog.[/quote]

Not much feedback? Martin, I have very limited experience of animations -- only the very simple animated GIF feature in Canvas -- and to me this part of PL32 looks BRILLIANT! I bet you didn’t get much feedback because you didn’t promote it much.

You and Gerhard must know -- what program does animations better?
By double-clicking on the ruler, you can
- set a mark
- jump to a previously defined mark
- stop the animation at the given time
Especially the stop-command is only useful in combination with the image-map-feature, which you can use to define a button to jump to a mark, too. The image-map-feature allows to define the following SWF-commands using the URL-field:
- command(stop): stops the animations
- command(goto marker): jumps to the marker "marker"
- command(play): a stopped animation is continued
- command(geturl url): load url. The syntax for the URL is the same as in the dialog "Animation Info".
I'm really in trouble now. When it was in German I had a reason for not understanding. Now I just don't understand! I will decide to not understand this for a while -- but I warn you, you had better document this stuff clearly and do a tutorial on it for the next version because I will be harassing you on it! ':D'
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- The demo of the animation in the Dynamic Animation does not show everything that has been set. It does not "Pause" or rotate only once, if you have those set.
I understand your point, but personally I like the embedded preview better. As you said, it doesn't execute the embedded commands, but it allows to inspect an animation frame by frame. Just click on the small time slider under the preview and you can switch between the frames by using the cursor keys.[/quote]

That's fine, but you need to either make sure that the embedded preview executes the embedded commands OR tell the user that they need to look at it in the browser.
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:Whatever -- the fact that clicking on SWF bringsx up the browser and demonstrates the animation fully MUST be mentioned in the tutorial.
But it is at least documented in the online-help (I know, nobody reads the online helps).[/quote]

I read the Help all the time. But why would I go to the Help to look for something when I think the program is broken because the alleged play back does NOT play back? Users need to be offered this alternative in the dialog.
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:-- Also very worth mentioning is the effect on the rotation of fiddling with the curves under "Progress" in the sequence dialog. This is VERY cool.
It's also in the online-help.[/quote]

In a tutorial, EVERYTHING needs to be mentioned. Someone doing a tutorial knows NOTHING.
greenmorpher hat geschrieben:2) MORPHING ANIMATION

Very good stuff. A question however -- is there a way to set up a morphing sequence manually? For example, I have as series of a 10 steps using different levels...
Saving them as GIF should be simple: Just use "Web/Create Animation", set the right values and leave the dialog with OK. Now you can save your document as GIF and you will get an animated GIF (if you have set "Options/File/GIF/Save Layer Images" to "Animated GIF" or to "Ask", which is default).[/quote]

Right, worked through that and it works fine except that I can't see where I can stop it. I don't get the option to select whether it will run through once, several times or continuously. Can this be set in this case?

Martin & Gerhard -- I love this stuff -- I have just posted to the Wizaerd's Canvas forum telling them they need to look at this -- but I am having real difficulty in working out some details, hence my questions.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com
Michael Roek-Ramirez
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Tutorial

Beitrag von Michael Roek-Ramirez »

Hello greenmorpher,


I guess, a tutorial would be fine for this issue......

I am just rewriting my tutorials, as well in English. I think animation should get an own new one.


Regards

Michael
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greenmorpher
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Beitrag von greenmorpher »

That's great, Michael, I will look forward to those. Since I assume English is not your first language, I would be happy to edit them for you.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- Revealed! The secrets of how you can use type and layout to turbocharge your messages in print. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com