Animation in Xara

[dcahall]

I must been doing something wrong. When I get to step 6 on page 5 the program "blows up". I just updated to version 8.1.2 today but I had the same problem yesterday before I undated. I have removed all previous versions of PGD so there would be no conflict with anything old.

Hope someone can give me so idea of what I am doing wrong. Is there any reason I could not just stop at the end of page 4 (looks pretty good to me at that point).

I also have another question. Could this technique be used to create an animation that made the flag look like it is waving?

[Gare]

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?

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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

[Gare]

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

[Soquili]

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.

[Gare]

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

[dcahall]

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.

[Gare]

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

[Big Frank]

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.

nice one

[dcahall]

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.

[Gare]

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.

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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