Explorations

[H2Bond]

Greetings All! I want to explore the capabilities of Xara tools. I want to create animations that represent technical systems and processes to support marketing a new technology. For example, I want to illustrate a chemical product "sylized, but realistic", magnify to show the molecular structure (a polymer shaped like a coiled spring - "stylized"), add an electromagnetic field and show the radiance patterns, display a water molecule "stylized", add its emf pattern, then demonstrate how the H2O moves to the polymer which "captures" the H2O along the axis of its spiral and "unwinds" or expands to accept more H2O; then repeat, etc. This basic process is applicable to various systems and interrelated processes each of which I want to represent with stylized animations (within PowerPoint ?) and stand-alone - perhaps an image of the macro system with "hot spots" to click and zoom in to the subsystem(s). Can I do this all with Xara tools? Thanks!

[parahandy]

How have I survived the last 85 years without being able to understand what your post is trying to tell me. Sorry an egg-head will be along soon we hope.

[Soquili]

Hello H2Bond,

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

All of the 'animations' you describe are possible using Xara Tools or using pencil and paper if you have the skills. Xara Xtreme and Xtreme Pro are very easy to learn. The XaraXone has over 10 years of free tutorials and workbooks that explain how to use the Tools and how to create images. You can always ask specific questions on how to create something here in the Xara Xtreme forum.

Several members use their Xara creations within Power Point and can answer any specific questions you may have related to integrating your drawings into the program.

[DGehman]

Short answer: you can easily make nearly any shape and visual effect in Xara Xtreme (excepting perhaps a helix), but the kind of animation you want may be better done in an animation authoring application.

Xara uses key frames and tweening for Flash output. If you can identify key frames in your concepts and allow the program to generation intermediate frames, you will be happy.

However, full interactivity, complete control over what happens when and such like will be yours only with a timeline-based program. I suggest Swish, unless you have a lot of money and a lot of time to learn Flash in Adobe Flash.

You can see a movie on Flash in Xara Xtreme at http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/demos/

There are plenty of tutorials at XaraXone http://www.xaraxone.com/html/tutorials.html -- July 2007 one has a Flash tutorial.

[Soquili]

Gary has created several tutorials that feature coils (helix) shapes.

A coiled glass tube in
http://www.xaraxone.com/tutorials/may05/index.html

A coiled antenna in
http://www.xaraxone.com/tutorials/oct05/

A DNA double helix in
http://www.xaraxone.com/tutorials/feb04/index.html

[DGehman]

Gary has created several tutorials that feature coils (helix) shapes.

Thanks for digging these out. The operant word is "easily make." But in the long run, I doubt there's anything that is outside the ability of Xara and its users to come up with, and it's always fun to marvel over Gary's command of Xara.

[jclements]

The operative word maybe EASILY; however, that's in COMPARISON TO WHAT?

As far as speed and nuances of color and depth, Xara's Transparency and Fill Tools are extremely flexible and are nearly instanteously displayed on screen (even while modifying their settings; instaneous feedback). This, for me, makes the creation process "easier" than say CorelDRAW or Illustrator.

Now some of the more sophisticated Xara illustrations may require the use of layers and following certain organizational and naming conventions to facilitate editing your files at a later date.

The many more "photorealistic" drawings you see in the XaraXone and here in the forum are a product of overlaying many, nearly invisible transparent objects and, thus, maybe a bit tricky and may take a while to get used to and in order to recognize how the illustration was composed (composited).

Generally speaking, Xara implementation of Color Naming and the derivation of Shaded and Tinted variations of named colors is far faster/easier and effective than CorelDRAWs. Not too sure how it compares to Illustrator.

As far shape editing, Xara node editing functions are very basic and not as sophisticated as CorelDRAW's so somethings may take more effort.

Other special tools such as the Bevel tool far exceed CorelDRAW's in speed and ease of use.

Xara's arrowheads and line-dashing, in my opinion, rate the worst in comparison to other 2D illustration applications.

Regards,
John

[DGehman]

Excellent quick view.

The operative word maybe EASILY; however, that's in COMPARISON TO WHAT?

To be fair, the only 'easy' helix is in 3D, where you can specify angle, pitch, number of turns, etc, and let the program crunch away.

[raynerj1]

I don't have it installed here at work at the present time but wouldn't Dmitry's SpryX produce a helix, or provide the fomula and let it create it?

Once you have the line.. the rest is all fills..

[gwpriester]

Yes, that would be nice. But Xara is a drawing program. And so to create a coiled shape, you kind of have to... draw it. And it is not always easy. But if something is too easy, there wound not be any sense of personal accomplishment, would there?

Gary