Part-finished animation ......

[gray]

That just looks wonderful, Egg. I think I'm with handrawn on this one.

[xtom]

I like the shadow but if you feather the shadow edges more in particular at the start/end of the train and make it even more subtle I think it will look good, think of it as just shadowing out some of the ambient light under the train rather than directional sun light. Looks good either way though.

[handrawn]

the start and the end of the train will be an issue

I think it would have to be taken right back under the cable/hosing almost to the bogies to stand a chance of looking acceptable

[wizard509]

Thanks again everybody, good to see so much interest.

Yes, I'm not using Xara for these creation but SVGator which has numerous Easing types. I always disliked gif animations as there's no tweening. You could create it in Xara as Simon states but this was only of use if you were to export as a Flash .swf file which is now long dead.

The train is not only crap but I believe it's too small. I'll try it with a better, larger train.

I wouldn't want to let Acorn down so here's a hand-driven trolley he requested. Can't add it to my level-crossing animation it would require far too much work:

For Acorn

n should too.

[Egg Bramhill]

OK, I've reduced the transparency and featering (blurring) until it's almost unnoticible. Other than this I can't follow HD's points.

... a real shadow would track with the light source and POV

There is only a single POV and as it's only a 25 second animation so what's to track other than below the train. I realise the other items in the animation have no shadowing but for this purpose it suffices. If you wanted to go into HD's accuracy you'd need to use a 3D program like Cinema3D or Blender.

LINK

[ss-kalm]

Since the light source is the sun, and it's a long way away, I wouldn't think that the shadow would move any appreciable distance in that animation anyway.

Shadows don't move depending on your point of view.

[wizard509]

I really like the trolley Egg Acorn should too.

[Egg Bramhill]

I really like the trolley Egg Acorn should too.

Oh he did Larry, he just loves 'egging' me on!

[handrawn]

pov in the sense that the train moves, and therefore the shadows should be seen to move if your eye follows the train movement; of course the viewer's eye may not follow, but I would think in 99% of the time it would

yes I realise that to do it accurately is a bucket full of work - I made that point

[Egg Bramhill]

pov in the sense that the train moves, and therefore the shadows should be seen to move if your eye follows the train movement

If your eyes followed the train the crossing & lights would move to the right not remain stationary as in my animation, thus my point there is only one POV looking straight at the crossing