Animated Gifs..adding effects

**amoore** · 30 January 2004, 07:49 AM

Egg,

Please elucidate.

"export as Flash from Xara is not worth while" -- This is re animations rather than static images?

"at least not in vector format, as too many faces are lost" -- I see only one swf export format in Xara, so I'm guessing you mean vector shapes created in Xara and exported as swf. "Faces" = angles, line segments? (Sorry, I figure out what I need as I need it, so I'm short on lingo.)

So I just exported a static swf from Xara made up of three geometric shapes. You're right. Sharp, clean lines; tiny file size. That's pretty cool! Don't think SWiSH imports swf at present, so I'll have to stick with the bitmaps for now, but I'll certainly keep an eye out for ways to use the swf export.

Just spent about 18 months creating personal screensavers for members of my family (Xmas 02 -- finally delivered Xmas 03 <oy>) What an odyssey! The flash format was ok on most of them. But then there were two that involved characters walking, jumping or flying, all 2D. The images came apart when output as flash no matter how I did it. For those, I had to use animation applications and output as QuickTime to get acceptable results.

Before I try anything like that project again, I'll have to have a much faster machine with more RAM and a lot more time. <g>

**dafipp** · 30 January 2004, 09:36 AM

FutureLEO,
As usual, there are a hundred ways to skin the cat. I'm glad to hear you are liking XaraX.

Thanks to everyone for pitching in their methods and the compliments on my puzzle.

dafipp
http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

**amoore** · 01 February 2004, 08:27 AM

Thanks, Egg, for pointing me in a new direction!
SWiSHmax does import swfs. Very efficiently. Offers a whole new world of possibilities.

Now, if I could just use swf to import vectors into other apps as nicely...<sigh>

Allison http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

**Egg Bramhill** · 01 February 2004, 02:42 PM

Sorry Allison

I'm confusing myself here now. To many Castlemaines last night!

I was talking about Xara3D's export features, which can export either Vector or Bitmap swf files. See attachment.

It's okay for simple shapes without curves: See link in post below.

But for shapes with complex curves, it drops a lot of faces. See link in third post.

Of course XaraX only has the single (vector) swf export option.

I keep intending to do a XaraX to Flash export tutorial, but it's finding the time.

Glad to hear I've pointed you in a new direction. One thing that I've found is not to export shapes with 'Lines'. Flash doesn't handle scaling line width as well as XaraX.

I always create a shape, Clone it & put to Back. Then use the Contour Tool to enlarge the shape, then hit the 'Inset Path' icon to create a slightly larger duplicate shape. Give this a Black fill. This has the same effect as a Black line, but it scales correctly within Flash, whereas line widths don't.

Egg

[This message was edited by Egg Bramhill on February 01, 2004 at 16:05.]