Animation in Xara Revisited

[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

[csehz]

Gary thanks the answers just again,

Egg I am amazed how smoothly your planes are going, the green one exactly that path which I also tried, the white with that whole circle path. As I understand sometimes you put very small frame times, even there is a 0, those are for smoothing the turnings?

[Egg Bramhill]

Yes chehz, yes that's correct. In my animation there are two states for each graphic, a start and and an end position. The start position time determines how long the tween should exist between to two frames (0.7secs in the first frame for example). The second frame I set the timing to 0.001 which displays as zero on the timeline but it works. This way avoids a staggered wait between frames.

[csehz]

That logic is extremelly smart, I am analyzing like in Terminator 2 was that super intelligent robot arm

As I can see you also doing a name change during the fly, so the green airplane is 'plane1' in the first two frames, after a copy exactly to the same place but already as 'plane2'.
Moreover, removing for example the the 'Many' fills from 'plane2', anyway also for 'plane1' the same, it turns out that it is a group which is a circle. So I assume you use the rotate feature to follow the smooth fly.


Could you advise how you create this circle + airplane, I would think that the circle is transparent but seems no, having some fill. Briefly, I was not able to reproduce it

[Gare]

@ csehz—

This fact might not be of help immediately, but in the future:

Xara prefers that when you want to go from transparent to opaque in a Flash animation you use 1% for transparent, and not 0% because zero suggests that something doesn't exist on the page. And when you want top go from transparent to opaque, you begin at 1% and end up at 99% and not 100, because Xara sees 100% as having no transparency properties.

My Best,

Gary