A very nice aside, Handrawn; this is great stuff for anyone who wants to get beyond the act of animating and immerse themselves in the art of animation.

And I think there's a certain point (of ambition) where Xara's native animation tools cannot carry you to, for example, a 10 minute animation. It's not the right tool, however, Xara can make quick work of animated titles. Boris wants $$$ for an After Effects plug-in that essentially does what you can do by hand with titling in Xara and export with an alpha.

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Ease in and Ease out are natural phenomena, they exist both in the cartoon realm and in the real world. The beginning of an action has built-in acceleration, while when a body loses energy or transfers it, there is a natural ease out of the motion, a de-acceleration. The best example I can think of is a baseball player as they swing the bat and connect with the ball. Of interest in this analogy is that the baseball bat will slow for two reasons: the transfer of energy to the ball, and the baseball player's inclination to slow down after a sufficient amount of swing has been completed.

In traditional animation, and digital when the folks know what they're doing, this Ease In and Ease out motion non-linear phenomenon is exaggerated, and that's perhaps what makes Porkie Pig, and Buzz Lightyear, et al, seem fantastic and real at the same time. The way in which they move is hyper-real, natural physics are bent, and occasionally broken, but respect is always paid to what goes on in the Real World.

-g-