Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Hi dcahall—
I think one other member had a problem running the Displacement Live Effect. No, there's no obvious reason why it would "blow up" on you.
Suggestion? It might be your video driver version and/or Open GL.
Do other Live Effects cause the same problem?
+++++++++++++++
Your second question is a good one. No, I'd say the displacement effect cannot be used to make a flag waving, only because to animate something, you need to create change across a timeline. Xara offers GIF, AVI, and SWF export for video, and the animation itself would need to be a change in vector path colors, position, rotation, scale or something similar for specific durations of time.
I'd find this unacceptable as a real animation, but what you could do is create two different displaced flags as bitmaps, and then fade one out and the other in along, say 5 seconds. You could also change a Mould surrounding a flag group of objects, but Xara will not keyframe this sort of change, so the resulting animation will look uneven and choppy.
Xara is limited to very specific, basic types of animation.
At present!
My Best,
Gary
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
As I said, everything worked fine until I got to page 5. I have not used any other effects. It was just wehn I tried the Ctrl-Shift-C with the new bitmap that it fails. I have tried several times and it always fails at the same point.
I did create a waving flag with some other Xara techniques but it is on another computer. I will post it when I am on the other computer.
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Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
I finally got it to work. I did 2 things differently. When I placed the original wavy map over the image, I did not set the fill to repeat. Secondly (and this may be the real difference) I deleted he original images on the page 5 instructions. I have attached my final product and the animated flag I mentione previously
Attachment 91761
Here is my animated flag as well :-)
Attachment 91762
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Can you share how you animated the flag?
BTW, folks, if you click on the thumbnail, it'll preview full-screen and animate, at least it does in FF.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
I made the animated flag by using the techniques you outlined in the "An Experiment in Photographic Special Effects" article. First I created the flag object and gave it a name (which you must do to animate something in Xara) and then I used the Mold tool as you outlined in your article to change the shape of the flag in a series of frames. I am sure that if I played around with it a little more, I could get it to go a little smoother but I was trying to learn how to do something like this and thought it came out as "acceptable". I also got some ideas on the subject from another tutorial I had watched (can not remember who wrote it) about a bouncing ball. This was my first real attempt at animation using the PGD tool. I am attachig the .xar file if anyone wants to see how it works.
BTW: I think the subject of animation would be a good thread. I would like to see some type of enhancements in the Xara products for animation and even some combination of the PGD and Xara 3D to strengthen what could be done.
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Thanks!
Now that's participating! I like it when a post shares techniques and extends what the original tutorial was all about.
I don't know of a lot of people who have created a bouncing ball tutorial, but there's one right here on the Xone:
Having a Ball with Xara
As far as enhancements, the Request Department is >>>right here<<<
As far as animation goes, Xara is capable of keyframing shapes (and groups of shapes) as long as you've named the shape with the Name Gallery, and that the transition you want to create is a "legal" one in Shockwave (swf) file format. It's not really a constraint, because as you've shown with the flag animation, sometimes you can get away without keyframing. Other times, no keyframes produces an animation that's too choppy.
Perhaps if the demand is great enough, we could host a special tutorial, or a main one, in the months to come on animation.
My Best,
Gary
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Yes, that was the bouncing ball tutorial that gave me the idea (of course combined with your techniques).
Off topic: Have you ever looked at a program called ArtRage (not really a competitor for Xara - ArtRage is more of an "art" tool)? Your tutorials are much better than the tutorials for that product. I would love to see you do some for that product as well.
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Thank you, dcahall (you got a first name, sport?)—
I use ArtRage a lot, yes. Bought the Studio 3 version in the Spring, and it's a toss-up when I need some textured paintings whether to use ArtRage of Corel Painter.
These products compete with Xara Designer not at all.
You figure out a way to clone me, and I'd be happy to produce some tutorials for ArtRage. :)
-g
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
First name is Dave.........
I am not (and do not pretend to be) an artist. I have retired and am tyrin to learn to draw. I have posted on the TalkGraphics forum a couple of times. A couple of times I go not responses at all (or the latest one just a couple) so that probably tells you how bad I am :-)
I am now doing this stuff just for fun but sometimes get a little discouraged by the reslts. I do enjoy playing with this stuff though. I would like to find a tool that would allow me to do some animations in a format that could then be converted for use in a dvd movie/slide show. I did one last year for my wife's high school renuion that turned out pretty good but also left me wanting some more features/capabilitles that I could not accomplish the way I wanted to.
Perhaps we should take this discussion some place else because this is not the right place for it :-)
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Dave—
This might the wrong thread, but it's decidedly not the wrong forum, friend!
In fact, there's a different thread on the main video tutorial this month where I asked for suggestions and so far, at least one member has agreed that I "dial it back" a little next month and do some stuff for the beginner, and not intermediate or advanced.
I promise you this: you come to the Xara Xone area of TalkGraphics with a legit question, you'll get an answer. Our Moderators are exceptional with their help. Last time you posted must have been a national holiday or something :).
We're all here to learn.
There's a lot you can do with animation; I wrote a good part of a chapter on it in the Xtreme Official Guide and no, I'm not begging you to buy a copy because it's out of print and I don't make a penny off it! :(
Animating in a 2D workspace can be a little harder than working in a 3D modeling program, but there are a lot of possibilities if you first conceive of the animation with the right mindset and understanding what can and what cannot be done in Xara vis a vis animation.
@Handrawn, you have experience with 2D animation? Care to jump in here?
My Best,
Gary
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Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dcahall
First I created the flag object and gave it a name (which you must do to animate something in Xara)
actually there's no need to give objects a name if you're creating frame by frame animation exporting to gif
i've been using xara for years to create simple animations, it's great fun but you're limited to what you can do
combined with x3d you can do even more, but it would be nice to be able to achieve even more with greater animation tools
flash is fast going out of fashion so export to avi is a formats i would like to see developed
here's a couple i did a looong time ago (at least as far back as 2006) using much earlier versions of xara
Attachment 91767 Attachment 91768
(you need to click on them to see them full size and animated)
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Gare: my comment about no response was in relation to some posts on the ArtRage Community forum. Not Talk Graphics which is great.
Big Frank: I thought you had to name an object to animate. I will have to try again and see what happens :) While I love the x3d program, I find it kind of limited. I would like to see its capabilities combined with PGD to give me more of the capabilities of something like Flash. Think of how powerful that could be :-O
BTW: Can .avi files be used when you are creating DVDs?
Both: I only have PGD. Should I look at upgrading? I really am not interested in the web development features and wish Xara would put them in a separate product and not mix the two. IMHO they are totally separated environments and should not be mixed (again IMHO - and I used to design web applications before I retired). IMHO combining them weakens/strains both products by trying to do too much in a single product.
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Hi Dave—
If animation is your primary or sole concern, I have to be honest and say:
1. There are new drawing tools, but no new animation features I know of in the current version of Designer Pro.
2. The Xara Group would really appreciate it if you upgraded, at least once in a while, because they'll go broke if you don't and there goes this forum.
The re-thinking of future versions of Xara to keep the web features discrete from The World's Fastest Drawing Programme™ is a pipe dream, Mr. Holmes. We, the end users, don't get to influence the future versions significantly more than writing into the "Dear Xara" thread and griping out loud, which soothes the soul but hasn't affected change as far as I can recall.
TIP: Yes, you can use Xara animations on authored DVDs. I have for years. It depends on your authoring software for DVDs, and the file format that you export to. Hint: Export to AVI with no compression and then use AnyVideo Convertor to transcode your animation to the file format your authoring software can accept. I'm guessing, but MPEG-4 using the h264 codec, or windows WMV might work for you, but again, I can't tell without knowing your gear.
My Best,
Gary
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Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Gif animations are similar to the old fliping page animations some of the kids I went to first and second grade with would make. Each frame of the animation is like a different page in a note pad, draw what object or objects you want on a page. Use your thumb to flip between the pages of the note pad and the new page replaces the previous image.
Naming objects is required if you are using flash animation in a Xara product. The software uses the name for an object to create steps between the objects previous location within a frame and the new location with a new frame.
My first post to the forums about 12 years ago was an animated gif. Click the attached thumbnail to see the animation.
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
On the other hand, when you do use SWF as the export, and you've named shapes before animating them, you can produce something like this. I deliberately didn't use colors.
Now, this isn't important if you're authoring a DVD , but this guy can be scaled to any size without coming out of focus (because SWFs are vectors), but this file is only 39K!
-g
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Wow Gare, that is pretty neat but again, it is SWF........
As for the others, yes you can create some animation without naming object but if you want the object to change (in particular change color) you must name them.
I have started a new thread under the Dear Xara thread entitled: "Separate Web functions from graphic functions into different products" to explore some enahncements like separating the web and photo/graphic functions and beefing up the animation tools (maybe even combining x3d with PGD).
I for one really appreciate the conversation that has gone on here today. I have never been this envolved in any discussion here but you guys have inspired me to participate. :D
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Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Well, stay inspired, Dave—
Attached is the source file for a simple animation of a fish swimming in a fishbowl. No keyframes. I was very successful at porting it to video
go to about :40
Any Video Convertor is your key, and I do believe that Xara's capability to animate stuff merits a better place than in "Dear Xara", so if you'd like to continue to solicite advice and share here, Dave, you just keep on keepin' on. The Bouncing Ball thread might be the best place to discuss animation more.
I personally find animation totally captivating to watch and a marvelous process as a content creator.
I'm strecthed pretty thin these days, which is odd because only this morning I got on the scales and they said, "Ouch!".
Ba dah-bum. Seriously, I'll try to help Moderate if anyone who is interested in this public dialog wants to help take it farther.
My Best,
Gary
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Quote:
Originally Posted by
dcahall
I for one really appreciate the conversation that has gone on here today. I have never been this envolved in any discussion here but you guys have inspired me to participate. :D
nice one :)
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Gare, I do have the XaraXtreme 5 Official Guide.
I looked at Chapter 10 (animation) and I see the term keyframe but I do not see how/why you designate anything as a keyframe in Xara. I have used other tools in the past to create SWF files (Kool Moves in particuar) and have used keyframes when using scripts to naviagate from one play to another in the movie.
I would like a better explination of keyframe and how you use/designate them in Xara. I also tried to create an animation where I set the first frame as a background that does not show but when the animation loops it still displays the background frame (at least in the preview). I also have tried playing with the overlay setting and am not sure I fully appreciate the setting and how to use it.
Is there a good comprehensive tut somewhere on how keyframes, backgrounds and overlays are/should be used in Xara?
BTW: You said you also use ArtRage Studio 3 but I do not see any posts from you on their Community.
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
I do not think to date there is a comprehensive tutorial on keyframes and other stuff, Dave, but I'll get to writing one, how about that?
You set a keyframe for a named shape (or group of shapes) by doing the following steps. And please do work through them at home, okay? You'll like what you've learned and the result.
1. Choose File>New>Animation. In version 8, that's Ctrl+Shift+N.
2. Create a red circle on the page, no outline. This is the actor for this uncomprehensive, but comprehendable tutorial. With the Selector tool, put it in the middle of the page.
3. With the Selector tool selecting the red circle, right-click and choose Names from the context menu.
4. Name the circle "Larry", because we all like Larry around here. What you've just done in addition to pleasing Larry is you've tagged the circle so the animation engine in Xara can key this "actor" for Flash output. Even if you don't care about swf export, it's still a necessary step to allow the program to 'tween between keyframes. Click Close in the Names box.
5. In theory, the Animation Gallery is out and perhaps docked to the right edge of the interface. If it's not, go to Utilities>Galleries>Frame Gallery. Notice that by default you already have a current frame and its duration by default is .5 seconds, which to use Film People means 15 frames in a digital 30fps animation. Be cool with this amount and I'll shgow you how to change it later.
6. Now, you want the same actor in frame 2 as frame 1, you just want to move Larry to the left or right, for example. With Frame 1 highlighted on the Frame Gallery, click the Copy button on the Frame Gallery.
7. Move the circle. You animation tally so far is: you got a circle in the center of the fram for .5 seconds, and it'll move to where you moved it within .5 seconds.
8. To test whether Gary is lying or not, click the Preview button on the Infobar now.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ta-dah!
Because you named the circle, it animated automatically, IOW the program did the 'tweening as it's called by us Animation Biggies.
Remember to put all your characters in the Frame 1 view. You can create them in a different document and then paste 'em in, but it's a PITA—which is Trade Slang for "requires Preparation H"—if you want to add a character at frame 5 but didn't have them in the frame 1 view. Yep, you'll need to add him or it to frames 2, 3, and 4 so they don't disappear for .5 seconds.
Now, when you copy a frame, you copy all the contents of the frame, and also the duration. If you feel 15 frames is too slow or something for your sequel to Clone Wards, you double-click the frame entry on the Frames Gallery to bring up the Animation Properties palette. Local Delay? Change it.
Also, the Animation palette and the Names Gallery are "modeless" Windows windows. IOW, you don't have to close them to keep working on something else, which is neat because you can set properties for several frames and name a whole hamlet of actors without recalling the box ad infinitum.
*There is no Background frame. You can have a background to the animation, but Layers and Frames are like comparing apples to Volkswagens.
Enough of a start, Dave?
My Best,
Gary
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Gare, I did not need to do your exercise here. I thought I had named the flag and fully understand what you were trying to point out. I have been playing with it today and by going back and redoing the animation after naming the flag it makes a tremendous difference (not jerky).
When I have used some other Flash animation tools (Adobe and Kool Moves), they used the term keyframe differently (related to the entire frame not the individual objects on the frame).
I am now playing around with the fesability of adding some highlights/shadows to portions of he flag during the animation (kind of a take-off or the original subject of this thread) to make the waving look a little more realistic.
Since you are the expert, I have some additional questions though:
- What do the 2 columns of checkboxes for background and overlay really accomplish?
- What does the "show frame" checkbox in the properties window really accomplish?
- When I use the Mould tool to change the shape of the flag, I would like to add some additional control points. Is that possible?
I am playing with your Countdown animation example in chapter 10 of the "Official Guide" as an additional inspiration for the shadow/highlight portions of updating the waving flag. I realize it will not be as good as the waves on the flag in the August tutorial but playing around to see if you can combine some techniques to improve and/or simulate to achieve more realistic effects.
BTW: On the other topic, seems there is more support for the "all in one" approach to the tools rather than stronger (IMHO) specialized tools. I did not upgrade to XDP because most of the enhancements were of no interest to me. I do however, try to keep up with each new version of PGD because I want the additional graphics capabiliies. So in that way, I am helping to keep the revenue stream going for the stuff I use :D
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
Hi Dave—
"Since you are the expert" is a statement that cannot be supported, sorry to say!
I can be of a little help here, though:
First, all animation properties are based around swf output. If you can't do it in genuine Flash, you can't do it in Xara.
1. The "Background" checkbox lets you see what other frames have going on in them graphics-wise, while you're working on a different frame. What you see on other frames is locked, you can't move it, fortunately.
I don't really understand what "overlay" means, except I think it's what we traditionally call "Onion skinning", partial transparency so you can gauge movement in-between frames.
2. I think "Show Frame" is offered because the Properties box is modeless and you can view a different frame while one is chosen while still in this box. "Show Frame" shows the frame within the UI that you are editing, that is current.
3. It is not possible to have more than 4 points, the ones you're given, on a Mould shape. The documentation says so.
Now, even if you were able to add control points to a Mould on your flag, Dave, Moulds do not keyframe, so for animation, the point is moot. Xara doesn't support or show examples of animating mould for precisely this reason. Every change you make to a Mould serves as a frame, Xara will not 'tween such a frame, this srot of thing isn't supported in swfs, so essentially you're brute-forcing an animation when you make changes to a Mould shape. You have to make a unique frame for each part of the motion cycle, and this plumps up the size of a swf file, not that you yourself are concerned with final file size with the waving flags you're doing.
I'm sorry you didn't need my exercise, David!
My Best,
Gary
Re: The August Tips and Tricks discussion
overlay is for gif animation; background too - though that is not to say they are not used in tweened animation