True... Xara/Flash Fantastic Combo!

[RAMWolff44]

Answered almost all my questions and I am probably going to go ahead and buy a copy.

Traceyp, thanks for the advice and yes, it would be nice if Gary stuch his head into this post and gave us some tips in the HTML dept concerning compatiblitly and corruption issues.

Dan: What then did you use to publish that adorable site up onto the web?? You designed it soley in XaraX?? Can you tell us how you did it?? It might give a tip or two towards creating "RAMWolff's Den".

DAn C. That would be RAMWolff (2 f's) [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
Anyway, WOW, what a plethoria of info you provided. Thanks for the links and advice, mucho apprecitated!

RAMWOlff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[Dan]

Wamwolff, mostly directed at you... (You were the one who asked the question... And not forgetting the other helpful members of Xara Talkgraphics.com Forum who have contributed to this poll...)

Umm... Here was your question, that i'll attempt to answer...

"Dan: What then did you use to publish that adorable site up onto the web?? You designed it soley in XaraX?? Can you tell us how you did it?? It might give a tip or two towards creating "RAMWolff's Den".

My site, the template, colour scheme, logo, thumbnails and menu images were all created in the definitive...

Xara X... "Sent from the heavens!"

Then...Exported to *.GIF and only gif... Nothing vector, because once exported to *.SWF and opened into flash, The bevels contribute to Being a bitmap, aka Part-Bitmaps in disguise once exported in *.SWF and secondly, but still primarially important. The overall file size was too large for the web...

The Artwork, some tutorials from the talented Gary Priester, and some of my own creation...

Made in either Xara X (the tutorials) and/or Photoshop... Then *.Gif'f'ed and put on to Xara for thumbnails and as separate *.SWF in the end.

The artwork is all called up and is a separate movie (separate *.swf)

And that's about it... I hope i've helped you out and Ramwolff, i'll be keen into helping you program Actionscript and/or just in general Flash.

I just need the experience, so i'd be eager to help out...

Drop us a line, Dan

[RAMWolff44]

Much appreciated, simple and thorough explaination. I am thankful, as I'm sure others will be too.

Ran into some problems building the "Den" the way I would want it built, I think I may have to go into PhotoPaint and build part of it, export it as a GIF, import it into Xara X, add in my nifty new textures here and there and lighting effects and those wonderful "lines" combined with the brush that looks like colored leaves, pretty nifty.

I really have a vistion now and I will go out and hunt for "fantasy caves" and "stalagtites" and see what I get, I need a visual better than my imagination. It's good, but not that good. Or it doesn't transfer into ideas that I can execute in XaraX. Too bad, but I wouldn't want Xara Ltd. to add in a bunch of stuff to bloat it out too much. So PhotoPaint it is. I've created some kool stuff in there.

Thanks again Dan.

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[Dan]

Thanks for the reply...

I hear you use Photopaint a lot and i was wondering what it is... I'm not really one for weithching programs but if this is a sure thing for desinging graphics... i'll seriously consider the investment...

Is it vector? or bitmap? of a combo...?

Feed my your knowledge on it?

Heaps of thanks... - Dan

[gwpriester]

Photo-Paint is made by Corel and is a bitmap editing application like Photoshop.

It is a Paint program and as such works very different from it's stable mate CorelDRAW.

Many feel that Photo-Paint is better than Photoshop, however, Photoshop is the industry standard when it comes to bitmap editing/paint applications.

I prefer working in Xara. But then you might have suspected that, eh? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Many people do things in Paint applications that they could do in Xara, but because they know how to do something in a Paint application they prefer to use that product.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<A HREF="http://www.gwpriester.com" TARGET=_blank>
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[RAMWolff44]

There simply isn't a way to achieve some of the effects that you can achieve in PhotoPaint in XaraX. It's not a "paint" program. While you can achive wonderful works of art and what not in XaraX, PhotoPaint has a wonderful, resizable crop tool that I love, it has a smudge tool and smear tool that I can't live with out and some other effects that can't be produced in XaraX. I wouldn't want XaraX to bloat itself out for the sake of compitition in this area.

But then I have to agree with Gary on a couple of points as follows: I found that PhotoPaint exports GIF's in a way that I don't like. I export a GIF from PhotoPaint and it INSISTS on merging the background with the object and so I end up having to cut away the background if I import an object into XaraX. That sucks, big time and is a waste of time. So what I like doing now bringing in a BMP or JPEG into XaraX that I need to cut out an area. Zoom the area to where you have it as large as you can, but within range of being able to complete the trace without the intended area going off the work area. I then select the Freehand Tool. I trace around the area, then when I get to the start point, the little ' + ' pops up and I have a filled area, then I hit it with flat transparency to make sure it's close to what I want. If I'm satisfied, I do a "select all" Arrange/Combine Shapes/Cut (Slice) Shapes and there you have it. Not any faster than PhotoPaints freehand mask tool. AND then I save it as a GIF and it exports with a totally transparent background, if I so choose.

Mind you, if I import it into Photopaint same thing happens, I export it and all of a sudden it has, what seems to be a merged background that show up in XaraX but if I put it on a web page preview, it's transparent. So I don't know what the deal is but I don't like it, and haven't had the time to figure it out.

So, I love both apps, but I am finding that I can get better results in some areas, as I learn more and more about what XaraX is capable of. While PhotoPaint delivers in other areas and I think it's far better and more intuitive than Photoshop and a heck of a lot more affordable as well.

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[This message was edited by RAMWolff on January 22, 2002 at 15:14.]

[gwpriester]

RW

Why not post a Paint image and see if we can recreate it in Xara. With the exception of individual pixel selection, I think we can do most of what you can in Paint.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


XaraXone

[RAMWolff44]

To be honest I have used the program on nudes and have corrected allot flaws and what not.

I have done a couple of other things, but they were achieved with a mixture of "effects" AND PhotoPainting. Frankly, I couldn't re-create the art if I wanted too, it was experimental.

I don't think that you or anyone in here would be interested in my taste in nudes............Not kinky or strange stuff, hate that kind of stuff, but, I think you would agree that a post like THAT is just not appropriate for this forum.

Maybe someone else can post something he or she has done in PhotoPaint or Photoshop that you can disect and "show us the way", I would love to learn more, ANY TIME!!!

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]