Another Animation Poser

[Grunt]

Sorry to be such a pain. I now need to animate on a photographic background. I can find no way of opening a background image and a foreground image in the animation window, neither can I animate layers. Is there any way to do this in Xara Xtreme, or do I need a separate program? If so, any suggestions?

Thanks
Art.

[jamesmc]

Not sure what your final goal would be. But you can use the File>Import with a GIF animation open.

Just go to the frame where you want the photograph to be and then use the File>import and adjust it as need be.

If you need to do a series of photographs (like a movie.) First, you have to convert the photographs to a compatible format like jpeg. Then you will have to import one at a time on each frame of the GIF animation.

I made a fly-in using a toy aircraft and some captures from Google Earth to show the toy plane flying over and landing on a street.

The toy aircraft (GIF Frame) was adjusted on each frame of the photographic background so it would look more realistic.

So yes, you can import individual files. It takes a bit of work depending on what you do. This is how old style movies were made.

[Grunt]

Thanks James,

I'm showing geometric diagrams being built up on a background of an old painting. It wasn't all that uncommon for artists to encode messages in their paintings during the Renaissance period... Holbien, Van Dyke, Poussin and Teniers did it amongst others. It's for a DVD I'm making.

I'll say it again... this forum is a fabulous resource. The people are great.

Thanks again
Art.

[gwpriester]

If you plan to add to a photograph and you are going to use the same photograph throughout your animation, create your first frame with the photograph and specify it as Background in the Animation Properties dialog. Set the Delay to 0 (for this frame only.

This will make the image appear on each frame.

Gary