Animation in Xara Revisited

[Gare]

You cannot use Bleach or Stained Glass transparency in an animation, csehz. Xara uses all the Shockwave rules and limitations for animation as I listed on Xara Xone. So regardless of whether your output is to SWF or AVI, you still need to be careful when using transparency. ONLY "Mix", regular transparency mode is allowed in animation, and that's why you got the messed-up bitmap.

Your animation looks TERRIFIC, by the way! Great stuff!

-g

[csehz]

Gary thanks for the infos, I learnt really a lot in this thread. Inspite of the limitations itself in flash, and that it seems becoming less used on web pages, sure are great possibilites in animations.
For example that inspires me in Xara way that on the first frame all the objects can be collected on the pasteboard, which will appear in the whole animation. After simply copying that start frame, the elements are always immediately there for the next frame and any of them can be pulled in and thats all. By this really fast can produce something.

[Gare]

If you click a frame on the Animation Frame Gallery, and then click the Copy button, you create a new frame with all the shapes in frame 1 (or whichever).

Your way is good, keeping shapes on the pasteboard, though. A named shape, or group of shapes, can always be put "off stage" and then brought back on stage in a different frame.

I don't know about SWF animation being less used on the Web, but in any event, when you own Xara, you own an animation product, too, and despite some limitations, you consider the price—in a way, it's free, inside Xara.

Let's see some more of your work, okay, csehz?

My Best,

Gary

[csehz]

Gary yes with pleasure, and actually would have question with certain scenarios These are not works anyway just plays

For example I would be interested whether there is some trick how an object could follow a "curve" in Xara animation. In the attached one would be nice to simulate a paper plane flying, imagined as the black curved line shows. Coming in fast and slowing down (has name >lane), after should slowly faster and fly away

Animation_on_curve.swf



Animation_on_curve.xar

But two open issues are, how the slowing down pattern should be combined with following the black curve. With more frames sure could be improved, but neither by that never had too good results in following a curved path for an object

[Gare]

Okay, you have just hit another limitation in Shockwave specifications: the arc you want the airplane to follow? Arcs (curves) are parabolic equations and SWF file rules and regulations have no capability built-in to calculate what you need here.

The only solution I can think of is to do a LOT of keyframes, each with a very short duration such as 0.03 seconds onscreen. Then follow your curve very precisely, then sit back and play it over and over and decide when you want it to slow down. You then pick that frame and give it a longer duration such as 0.06 seconds, twice as long.

We are really getting into Advanced animation topics, and I am afraid we will hit a limitation here using Xara, I am sad to say.It doesn't offer Hollywood-style animation features, but within the Shockwave limitations/file format, if you are inventive, you can think of a lot of things you can animate in a linear style, not curve.

That and other things such as fading in and out.

You can also animate text on a curve, did you know?

Here's a try at "smooth, curving" animation. It is not great art, but perhaps there's something someone can learn from the file and the timings.




My Best,

Gary

[csehz]

Gary thanks that is great, moreover only in 14 frames. Before the opening I thought that it needed more. Probably that requires some experience where is the balance between in following the route and in the number of the frames.

I also tried in the attached example those you mentioned LOT of keyframes :-), changing the line dashed and stepping by that. Relatively now it follows the route, but still I do not like too much. As I remember a paper airplane sometimes sure does similiar stop in the air, collecting the power for the next cure, but still somehow differently This has a kind of Monthy Python jumping yet in the middle point sure

Animation_on_curve5.swf



Animation_on_curve5.xar

Well following the dashed line steps two questions minimum came up :-)
- is there maybe keyboard shortcut for copy frame?
- how to do that after a copy the frame get right after, not to the end of the frame list?

[csehz]

The interesting is that between simply two frames, applying resize + rotate + deformation, the result is much more fluid and giving the impression that it follows arc and not a straight line

Paper_airplane2.swf



Paper_airplane2.xar

[Gare]

Your should be very pleased with this latest paper airplane animation, csehz.

As far as your questions go:

• Is there a keyboard shortcut for Copy (frame) on the Animation Frame Gallery?

A: No. If you have the Pro version, under Utilities there is a Customize Key Shortcuts, and although there's a lot of good commands you can find here, I do not see anything for the Animation Frame Gallery. So I've suggested it to the programmers for a future version. Write in the "Dear Xara" thread when you want something in the future! I asked for something like the ShapeBuilder tool and eventually they added it!

• How do I get the frame I copy to go directly beneath the original?
A: When you Copy a frame, it always goes to the end of the list. And this can be confusing if you are editing in the middle of the list, but

1. You can rename a frame by double-clicking on the name and then a dialog box appears.
2. You can drag a frame name up or down the list to re-order the sequence.

My Best. It's Sunday and I'm going to go out in back gardening with Barbara!

Gary

[Egg Bramhill]

If you use Flash to create animations like this it is very much easier as you can create a graphic and make it follow a path and it's very simple. However in Xara you need to do a lot more thinking to get smooth paths. Here's one I created in Xara, pull it apart to see how it works. If you select the Background layer and go to wire-frame you can see the paths that the darts follow.

I like your latest swf chesz.

[Gare]

For only 15 frames, this is excellent, egg.

Yeah, you can make actors (objects, shapes) follow a path in Adobe Flash, and do similar advanced things in SwishMax (about $100(US), but with patience obvious you can get a complex animation accomplished in Xara, as you've demonstrated.

Overall, though, I need to mention that some "shortcomings" are due to the SWF standard and not Xara itself, such as flat transparency and no more than 8 stops (pins, changes) in a gradient. SWF also doesn't support elliptical gradients so get out the Blend tool.

My Best,

Gary