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  1. #1
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    Default Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    I have been doing quite a lot of animation, using Xara Designer Pro for graphics and for creating short AVI sequences. You can do proper morphs between shapes when exporting in this mode.

    However, there is no way to accurately determine how the points within a morph will map (unlike the Blend tool, which at least offers 1:1 mapping as an option. Changing the starting vertex doesn't seem to effect it either.

    Any suggestions?

    Here is a video that I made for the David Bowie song "Sound and Vision":
    https://youtu.be/nL3QYxBV_g4
    "Communication is everything"

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    Wow, great animation Simon.

    However, there is no way to accurately determine how the points within a morph will map (unlike the Blend tool, which at least offers 1:1 mapping as an option. Changing the starting vertex doesn't seem to effect it either.
    Can you explain more re this issue?

    Is it within these sequences?
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Egg

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  3. #3
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    Those are less critical. The issue arises when I want to morph from (say) a trapezium to a rectangle, in a way that suggests changing perspective. Xara is almost wilfully not doing that. Same for objects in moulds, and groups.
    "Communication is everything"

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    Just for fun, here's another Xara-created animation, this time for "Birdland" by Weather Report:
    https://youtu.be/uKVuXFX93iA
    "Communication is everything"

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    if you mean give the impression of movement in the z-plane I am pretty sure xara does not do that

    afaik xara animation is x/y-plane only, and the transformations that are possible are limited
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  6. #6
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    Not at all. I would expect a trapezium to morph into a rectangle in a predictable way, with each vertex moving in a straight line to its counterpart in the target shape (top left -> top left, etc). What actually happens varies, but it seems to produce intermediate vertices, resulting in undesirable shapes! The example below was converted to a GIF from an AVI animation.
    Click image for larger version. 

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    "Communication is everything"

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    like I said, the tansformations xara is capable of are limited; as I recall it does not do true morphing of one shape to a different shape at all, so what you are seeing probably reflects that

    certainly there is no mechanism to anchor source coordinates to target coordinates [unless they have sneaked this in recently]

    the pro+ manual implies that it should work for an avi [as opposed to flash/gif], but that is based on you [using keyframes] altering your original shape to the trapezium shape in a duplicated frame - that I call tweening
    [edit -or in your example trapesium to rectangle]

    to me, morph is when the program interpolates between seperately drawn/created images
    Last edited by handrawn; 07 May 2021 at 01:28 PM.
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  8. #8
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    I agree with HD. Xara can't do morthing. At it's best you could name a shape and get it to morth from size, width, height, rotation and transparency but you couldn't change it's basic shape. This is what you're trying to do with changing a trapeze into a rectangle using Xara. Xara can only do very limited morphing within a Flash animation, gif's just loop through still images. I notice that the Flash (swf) animation has now been removed from Xara Designer Pro+ (correctly)

    In this animation the Egg morphs into a chicks body shape. You couldn't create this in Xara.

    LINK

    Last edited by Egg Bramhill; 08 May 2021 at 01:27 AM.
    Egg

    Intel i7 - 4790K Quad Core + 16 GB Ram + NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1660 Graphics Card + MSI Optix Mag321 Curv monitor
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  9. #9
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    Egg

    Intel i7 - 4790K Quad Core + 16 GB Ram + NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1660 Graphics Card + MSI Optix Mag321 Curv monitor
    + Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB SSD + 232 GB SSD + 250 GB SSD portable drive + ISP = BT + Web Hosting = TSO Host

  10. #10
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    Default Re: Controlling morphs in AVI animation

    don't know about you egg, but it's a long time since I even considered animating in xara - it's a shame that the PDF manual for pro+ still harps on about flash all the time as the only export animation options now are gif [no tweening], or avi which is stated not to have [some at least of] the flash limitations

    it needs rewiting to be specific as to what you can/cannot do in an avi export

    it appears you can morph [with a small m] objects in xara if you export as avi as opposed to flash, so our collective memory may be flash based [flash memory - geddit? ]

    take a look at this quick test:

    make a drawing on first frame, name drawing; copy first frame and change drawing; repeat; export as avi

    morph test.xar

    exported as an avi it works...

    Click image for larger version. 

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