Animation Made with Xara Designer Pro for Pianoteq Contest

Hi to everybody.

This is my first post here and hope to have them more in near future.

This is the video I am participating with in the Pianoteq contest. The animation was made with Xara Designer Pro 9. The images for the animation were made with Gimp. I hope you will enjoy it.

https://youtu.be/p7_MdSBQyEo

If you want to vote for me, or for any other contestant you like better, you can simply register to the forum and do it between November 1st and 8th.
Link for the forum:
http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/register.php

Thanks

Excellent video pedroke I am impressed. Considering the number of Gimp images you had to make, how long did it take to assemble the animation? To say nothing of importing them into XDP9 in the first place. So how did you go about making that video in XDP9?

Bloody Hell Pedroke! Congratulations. I have just finished watching it as the sun comes up on a sunny Australian morning. That is a beautiful piece of work. Extraordinarly evocative of a subject that many of us know. The older guys anyway :-).

Where to start? I loved the drawings, I loved the subtlety of the transitions and the way the artwork and music are blended. And the minimal but effective use of colour. Blown away by the red poppy near the end. I could go on but rather urge people to watch it. Others will ask for details but the whole thing is so far above my capabilities that I don't even want to know the details.

And it was done with Xara???????????????? I think I'll go back into my caves and hibernate! Who knows what you might come up with next?

Thanks again.

Erik

Hello Pedroke, that is a very very nice animation. Can you tell us a bit about how you used Xara products in your work flow? We are all about learning and sharing here and if this was completely done in Xara products we would love to learn more about how you created it.

Hello everybody:),

Thanks for watching my video, for comments and appreciation.

I am a graphic designer and a professional freelancer, and make music in my free time. Xara Designer is my vector software of choice for years. I use sometimes Illustrator when I have to incorporate bitmaps in a vector design (Xara Designer exports excellent ai files, but bitmap resolution is 72ppi) and for some transparencies. And, of course, when designs are very huge because Xara Designer crashes occasionally with huge files. But Illustrator is very annoying with its snail speed. I also use Inkscape, which integrates very well with Designer, but only for bitmap tracing as it does it better even than Illustrator.

I started to do animations with Xara Designer when I had to do some animated panoramas and there was no way to do it with other software. After that I used it for all the animation I do except a bit complicated flash animations that I have to do with Adobe Flash. Here you have a link for some of my old animations:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing

I frequently do different assets for TestingMom and in the following TestingMom product all the assets and animations were done with Xara Designer Pro 9:
https://www.testingmom.com/store/iqfunpack/

Now, to tell you something about the Pianoteq animation. It was easier than it appears in the final video;), but took a lot of time. Xara Designer exports excellent video and gif files. You can import gif files to almost any video editor.
In the beginning it was difficult to work without a time line, but now I am accustomed and I work better with Xara Designer frame system and it allows me to jump quickly from frame to frame without losing the orientation. Also, you can ajust perfectly the time for any frame, and you can use as many layers as you need for each frame. I am perhaps still missing the onionskin.

For this animation, I did all the drawings with Gimp. Gimp exports perfect psd files with frames in different layers. I import them in Designer and switch between layers in order to animate the design. It takes a lot of time as there are so many frames and so many layers. For example, for a movement that consists of 10 frames, I will have 10 frames with 10 layers each in Xara Designer. If you loop them well, you can repeat the frames and have the movement reapeted in time. If you want the movement smoother, you will need between 16 and 24 to 25 frames per second, but you can obtain a smoother movement by using transparencies between layers. So I can cover 1 second of relatively smooth movement with 5 to 10 frames, but with transparencies between them. That increases the number of frames and layers, so it does the same with your working time. Also, if you export the animation directly as a video file and not as gif file, you will obtain some extra smoothing by video conversion:confused:.

I will try to make some samples and post them here.

Now I would like to ask a favour from all the participants of this forum:o. My video is participating in a contest and the voting is based on social groups. If you consider that my video is OK and that I deserve your vote regarding the quality of my work and as a Xara Designer user, you can vote for me, or for any other contestant you like better, between November 1st and 8th in the following forum (you will have to register first):
http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/register.php

Thanks:D

Here is a sample of how I did the animation: It is an 8 frames animation of the old clock that I obtained with three images and two transparencies between them. You can check the frames and layers and try to export it as gif or as avi file. I hope this will explain you the system I used, but for all other movements, it needs a lot of time but the principle is the same.Attachment 110820

Thanks Erik,

Yes, after watching it again I have to recognize that it has somewhat Aussie feeling. Perhaps because I have a lot of customers from Australia and there is a kind of reciprocity in feelings.

Cheers,

Pedro

Hi,
I am again with my contest:-O. They simplified the voting system so now you don't need to register, but only enter the following page and vote for 3 entries (one of them mine, I suppose):
https://www.pianoteq.com/contest
Cheers

I'm a television commercial producer and I liked your animation. As an animator myself, I really enjoyed what you've done with it... AND I did vote for your video in the contest.

Great job.

Thanks Pixelpusher and thanks to all of you that are voting for my video.

Perhaps we could collaborate in the future. I have a couple of projects in mind but you probably know that freelancing doesn't leave a lot of free time:(, so those will have to go for the next year. I have a very nice Christmas story and would like to make an animation video for the next year.

Cheers,

Pedro

Hi,

These are other things that I also do with Xara Designer:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing
And some monsters for you:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing
And some music that wasn't made with Xara:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bym...ew?usp=sharing

My video is in Youtube:
https://youtu.be/p7_MdSBQyEo

You can still vote for me today at:
https://www.pianoteq.com/contest
You will have to vote for 3 entries (I am pedroke).

Thanks to all

Hi pedroke and welcome to TalkGraphics.

Your animations are wonderful, and you've certainly provided the community here with ample instructions on how to vote for you in this contest.

May I ask you to become more active within TalkGraphics as all these links to YouTube can distract from the community activities here.

Her is an example: my husband posted an animation on YouTube, and all I have to do here is type:

Attachment 110933
You just use open and close brackets for youtube, and the text above in red is the code YouTube gives you when you choose the Share button beneath your video. Only the characters and numbers at the end of youtu.be in the Share box is the code you need to copy.



See that it's easy and convenient to refer a member to your work, without leaving TalkGraphics.

I encourage you to try this! Thanks!

Ay, ay, sir. I will do so. Thanks.