import image sequence

First I would like express my gratitude for the peerless Xara Designer and community.

Second, is there an option to import an image sequence into Xara so that each image is in it's own frame in an animation? I need to composite two image sequences -- there are 70 images in each of 11 different variations and I'd rather not import them one at a time, that would be 770 file imports!

As you can see I am a newbie to animation, thanks for any suggestions. :)

Welcome to TalkGraphics

I have no idea but one of our members who knows more about animation will be able to help. Check back.

I would say no, but egg should know for sure, or acorn maybe

the only way I know to get images into the frames, other than individually, is to import an existing animation, no use to you unfortunately

mind you, I have not done animation in xara for a long time...

Place each set of 70 images into a separate folder.
In Xara go to the Fills gallery > Disc fills > Image Folder and accept the index question (this creates a sub-folder of Thumbnails).
All the images are now in your Fills gallery for adding to your animation.

This at least saves you importing them one as a time.
If they are all the right size for the frame then a simple drag & drop & snap and you step to the next frame.
Right-click the Fills gallery > Image Folder name to remove it.

Acorn

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This at least saves you importing them one as a time

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you can 'import' them all [by selecting all in file explorer and draging onto program layer] in one go directly to a layer without using the fill gallery, although to do it the way you suggest is rather tidy... and saves having to have a seperate document open with the files in, to drag from bitmap gallery to frames

Thank you Acorn and handrawn! Acorn's suggestion worked. Now my only issue seems to be that I need to export an image sequence with transparency. Is there a way to export the animation as a sequence of pngs? I see only gif, avi and swf.

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Originally Posted by Aeron

Thank you Acorn and handrawn! Acorn's suggestion worked. Now my only issue seems to be that I need to export an image sequence with transparency. Is there a way to export the animation as a sequence of pngs? I see only gif, avi and swf.

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Aeron, PNG cannot hold a sequence of images, the others do.

Can you explain the end purpose as there are other approaches that may be possible.

There is an PNG extension, animated PNG, image/apng MIME type, that is gaining browser support: https://caniuse.com/?search=apng.
You could try loading your PNGs into https://ezgif.com/apng-maker and checking if that works for you.
Others here: http://littlesvr.ca/apng/.

Acorn

I think having made the animation aeron wants to export each frame in a numbered sequence, each frame as a seperate alpha PNG, quite normal in animation but xara is not really that kind of animation program

so again, you can't do that directly from the frames - but presumably you have the edited images you placed in each frame so you could export these in one go from a non-animation document by publishing [I think - acorn will know] - but you'd have to name each one :(

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Originally Posted by handrawn

I think having made the animation aeron wants to export each frame in a numbered sequence, each frame as a seperate alpha PNG, quite normal in animation but xara is not really that kind of animation program

so again, you can't do that directly from the frames - but presumably you have the edited images you placed in each frame so you could export these in one go from a non-animation document by publishing [I think - acorn will know] - but you'd have to name each one :(

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handrawn is right, the desired output is a sequence of separate png images with transparency which will be used to create an animation in some software which is being coded.

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Originally Posted by Aeron

handrawn is right, the desired output is a sequence of separate png images with transparency which will be used to create an animation in some software which is being coded.

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For this to work, you need a fairly recent version.

• Drop all images onto a web page.
• Check the order is right in the Page and Layer gallery.
• Select all:
  
  • Web Properties > Image > Web image type: set to PNG.
  • Web Properties > Image > Image Filename: set to image.
  • Apply.
  
  
• Export Website to a local folder - lets call it Animation on drive G:\.
• Open G:\Animation\index_htm_files\ folder.
• Copy out all PNG images with filenames image.png, image-1.png, image-2.png, ...
  
  • If you ticked Retina, use image@2x.png, image-1@2x.png, image-2@2x.png, ...
  • If you need all to be numbered from one, add in a dummy image as the first one and discard it (image.png / image@2x.png).

This won't be possible if you are still on version 7 (your TG Profile).

Acorn

I knew you would know how to do it from a page ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Acorn

For this to work, you need a fairly recent version.

• Drop all images onto a web page.
• Check the order is right in the Page and Layer gallery.
• Select all:
  
  • Web Properties > Image > Web image type: set to PNG.
  • Web Properties > Image > Image Filename: set to image.
  • Apply.
  
  
• Export Website to a local folder - lets call it Animation on drive G:\.
• Open G:\Animation\index_htm_files\ folder.
• Copy out all PNG images with filenames image.png, image-1.png, image-2.png, ...
  
  • If you ticked Retina, use image@2x.png, image-1@2x.png, image-2@2x.png, ...
  • If you need all to be numbered from one, add in a dummy image as the first one and discard it (image.png / image@2x.png).

This won't be possible if you are still on version 7 (your TG Profile).

Acorn

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It sounds like I need to upgrade. Will using this method require to save the output files individually or will the sequence be saved all at once?