Animation in Xara

[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.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

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

[dcahall]

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:

1. What do the 2 columns of checkboxes for background and overlay really accomplish?
2. What does the "show frame" checkbox in the properties window really accomplish?
3. 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

[Gare]

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

[handrawn]

overlay is for gif animation; background too - though that is not to say they are not used in tweened animation

[Gare]

I'm starting this so we can discuss animation, the why and hows, without going O/T in the Monthly areas, specifically August!

-g

[Big Frank]

copied from the xara help file


The Frame tab

In the Frame tab you can set:

• Name: The name of this frame. This is just as a reminder to you, and is not exported with the animated GIF.
• Background: If this is set, the frame covers all previous frames. This is useful if you want to create a background and then build up an animation on top of this background. Often the first frame in the animation is a background frame. If the first frame is not a background frame, the animated GIF uses the page background as its background.
• Overlay: If this is set, then the frame overlays the previous frame.
• Local Delay: Set how long the frame is displayed for in the animation.
• Show Frame: When checked, the frame will be shown in the animation.

i rarely now do flash animation since it is on the way out, but gif animation is here to stay for the foreseeable future and can still provide some nice if heavy overhead effects

[dcahall]

Glad you moved this to a new thread

I went back to the original .xar file and made the flag object a keyframe. Discovered that I could go to each fram, pick the flag object and apply the name of the flag in frame 1 to the flag in each frame. Works fine....I am attaching the animated gif and swf files and you will notice how much smoother the animation is (as we would expect because we now have tweening).

In each frame I used the mold tool to modify the original flag object and it tweened the mould changes just fine

Now what I would like to do is create a highlight/shape object and use the same principal to that object on each frame. A quick little test I ran on anohter animation and I think it will work (again, not as well as using the effects tecnique). What I am struggline wih right now is making thehighligh/shape object not have a "clean" edge. I want the object to have a feathered edge. Obviously not doing something right



OK - How do I attach a swf file?

[dcahall]

Second attempt at uploading the swf file...

WavingTexasFlag2.swf

I previewed this here and it is not animating as smooth as it does on my laptop either. Am I doing something wrong?

[Big Frank]

what annoys me most about xara's animation tools is that you have this "overlay" frame which seems to be completely pointless when in fact what is needed is an overlay frame that overlays every frame just like the background frame is a background to every animation frame

to do overlays like in the above animation you have to add the overlay as a cutout to every frame - annoying but we get there in the end