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  1. #11
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    Default Re: Creating a flickering light in Xara

    Forgot to attach the xar file
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    Egg

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  2. #12
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    Default Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Thanks, Egg! It's a clean, exceptionally self-explanatory example you've gifted the community with.

    Hi csehz —

    There is some confusion in the content creator’s community over what a Shockwave file is, and whether is it the same as a Flash file. Technically, a SWF is, or should be, a vector-based animation, although you can certainly put a JPEG or other image file in a SWF file using XWD and XDP. A Flash file, the type that Apple decided not to support a few years ago, is commonly used as a “container”, a wrapper for highly-compressed video. But if you have the patience, you could put a video into a SWF file using Xara products, you’d have to have a way to turn the video into individual frames and the resulting file size would make the effort not only masochistic, but ridiculous in saved file size.

    Because support for SWF and FLV file formats—specifically for mobile devices—has been on and off for the past few years and MPEG-4 has grown in popularity on the Web, I cannot recommend sticking to only SWF as animation output, even though a vector shape-only animation is fantastically small as you see here (if you’re viewing on a desktop computer!).

    I think GIF will be around in the foreseeable future, although it’s large in comparison to SWF file sizes. You just have to know who your audience is, and know what animation file formats their browsers support. Even on the desktop, sometimes “Flash” is not visible on pages because the user’s browser is blocking it, sometimes this is by accident, as a security risk, which has been Apple, Inc.’s reason for not supporting it for as far back as Steve Jobs was aware of the risks with the file format.

    By the way, does everyone realize that you can export an animation you create in XWD and XDP to AVI file format with alpha channel transparency? Here’s how you could create an animated title for a video (let’s make it HD here), that you can super over footage with transparency. Now, you need a video editor that “sees” the AVI file as containing transparency; I’ve not seen any entry level programs, but if you or someone you know uses Adobe After Effects or Premiere, these two editors will import AVI footage that has an alpha channel, and interpret this channel as transparency information:

    1. Set up your animation from the beginning to 1280 x 720 pixels. This is called 720p high definition, and there are higher resolutions but I want to keep this simple here.

    2. Set your frames on the Animation Frame Gallery to a duration of 0.03 seconds, which is equal to 30 frames per second, a common US fps rate for digital video.

    3. Create your animation; move text around, for example, “XARA Films Presents…”, for example.

    4. Choose File>Export Animation, probably after you previewed your video.

    5. In the Export Animation dialog, choose AVI from the Save as Type drop-down list and then click Options.

    6. In the Options box, choose Uncompressed from the drop-down list at top, because any compression (“codec”) scheme we have in 2013 for AVI files disallows the saving of an alpha channel, and certainly not the MS Video 1 or Intel compressors offered when the transparency box is unchecked in this dialog.

    7. Type 30 in the Frames per second box so the animation frame duration agrees with your exported video. This is called the resolution of the video, and doesn’t do anything to speed up or slow down your video. Generally, it just makes your video choppy or smooth.

    8. Check the make background transparent checkbox, the Area to save doesn’t make a difference if you’re going to work with this video in an editor, click Apply and then click Close to get back to the Export dialog box, click Export and then get to editing with your new video clip in an editor that recognizes alpha channels in AVI type video.

    Xara 3D will export to AVI also, but the background transparency issue becomes academic: there is no AVI with alpha option in Xara 3D Maker v7, but you could in practice define a solid green background for your animation and then use a video editor’s green screen chromakey feature (if supported) to trim out the background. Alternatively, if you export as a SWF, you’ll have the transparency if you specify it, but then you have to find a utility that can convert the SWF to something easier to work with, such as an AVI or QuickTime video with alpha. After Effects can import a SWF from Xara 3D with transparency, and it’s also $1,000 retail or $50/month to rent.

    My Best,

    Gary

  3. #13
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Gary thanks very much the explanation.

    Basically in Xara Designer Pro X my issue is with .avi that can not see a real preview of it. In my old example which is just a button reproduction basically, containing mixed transparency and feather:
    - checking it in Flash animation preview of course comes the message that mixed transparency and feather are not supported, so the button appears without those
    - checking it in GIF animation preview it is limited because of the colors
    - the only real preview is in Web page preview, but that just shows one frame of course

    So how someone can preview the whole .avi in Xara?

    Animation_1280x720.xar

    I was not sure where to set that 0,03 duration which you mentioned, I think in this particular example that has different meaning as the layers are coming and the objects are not moving. Probably you meant that if the objects are named and so moved. Here setting 0,03 that is just a very short changing of frames.

    Anyway just tried the .avi export and upload to link http://youtu.be/pcSCoeq0dUY, well I waited slightly sharper quality, but maybe just I did something wrong. However tried the dimensions as you proposed so 1280x720 and the .avi type is uncompressed.

  4. #14
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Hi csehz—

    I’m sorry to say that there are a few things about animation in Xara that you do not understand. Most importantly, you need to begin with all your shapes in frame 1 and name the ones you want to animate; you right-click over a shape and choose Names.

    The other thing is that you say you realize you cannot do feathering. Okay, there are several things not allowed in Xara animation; go to this tutorial page, read the list of things permitted and download the PDF transcript because you can take your time following along, unlike my video that plays in real time.

    Now, I’m attaching an edited version of your XAR file, csehz and it will work now. What I did to make the effects not permitted work is to make bitmap copies of them, name them, and animate them. Although this makes a SWF that is too large for the web (see below), it will make a fine AVI file. I didn't know what you wanted to animate, so I just followed an instinct, sorry!




    How do you preview your animation as an AVI? You don’t—you just preview it by clicking the SWF (Flash preview animation in browser)button on the Animation Gallery of buttons.

    My Best,

    Gary
    Attached Files Attached Files

  5. #15
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    The file size can be reduced fairly drastically by not using such big bitmap copies Gary.






    Don't know why the swf isn't animating here.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by Gare; 26 April 2013 at 06:23 PM.
    Egg

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  6. #16
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Thanks the examples,

    Gary yes I am aware that the objects should be named to make possibly the tweening, but in my example just wanted to register on the frames how to do a button. For example tutorials could be done similiarly, attaching beside in text maybe that which layer why came above. Sorry if it was confusing, it is really not a traditional animation. Rather just frames after each other and putting an additional layer in each.

    Briefly so your technique to improve the .avi quality is making a bitmap copy for those elements, which are anyway not supported in flash. And seeing Egg's example considering the size optimizing too, however in .avi that is not a big factor, but definitely if someone would like to use it as .swf on web pages.

    Thanks just again your efforts to explain

  7. #17
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Hi csehz—

    Briefly so your technique to improve the .avi quality is making a bitmap copy for those elements, which are anyway not supported in flash.

    No. I had to make bitmap copies of the elements in your animation file because Flash supports bitmaps but it does not support linear transparency or feathering. To improve the quality of an AVI video, your elements can be the same size as you have them, but they should probably be 96 pixels/inch in image resolution. A higher resolution for these bitmaps copies will not improve the final AVI video, and if you want to convert the AVI to MPEG-4 for display on YouTube (YouTube converts AVIs for you, but does a sucky job), you would still be at a frame resolution of 96 pixels/inch.

    And seeing Egg's example considering the size optimizing too, however in .avi that is not a big factor

    Absolutely correct. AVI and other video file formats can go as large as 2 to 4K (2 to 4 thousand pixels measured across one axis) for digital theatrical display. So trying to conserve file size is not a consideration with video (AVI MPEG-4 and so on) whose destination is a theater, but when you want to create an animation to embed on a web page, well, then you want to consider your audience and the fact that no everyone has a fast internet connection. Eric reduced my file size a LOT, and this is good for the forum and web pages, with no loss in bitmap quality because the SWF in this example is being played at 1:1 viewing resolution. His file dimensions are about 200 by 200 p[ixels, and not intended to take up your whole screen, so we can save file size here.

    @Egg—your BB code was bad. sledger outlined how to post a swf correctly a long time ago on tg, and to paraphrase his instructions:

    1. You click Go Advanced, and then click Manage Attachments.

    2. Go get your swf, and choose to embed it, then come back to the editing window.

    3. Use this BB snippet, and insert the attachment number in the appropriate place within the snippet, along with the display size. Now to stop this snippet from doing anything in this post, I've put a curly bracket at the beginning and one at the end, but YOU want to use straight brackets, okay? Bolded stuff below gets changed.

    {flash=http://www.talkgraphics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=91966] width=xxx height=yyy[/flash}

    4. Delete the attachment, end attachment code you inserted into the body of the message, preview, then post.



    Only 10K with bitmaps. Good going, Sir Egg! I knew I was generating a large file, I plead guilty to being in a rush this morning to get the post up and was a slob with maintaining a small file size for TalkGraphics.

    My Best,

    Gary
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by Gare; 26 April 2013 at 08:09 PM. Reason: more rationalizing and excuses.

  8. #18
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Cheers for that Gary.
    Egg

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  9. #19
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Gary thanks the .swf attaching advice too, hopefully that is playing now



    Animation_384x216.swf
    Last edited by csehz; 27 April 2013 at 06:55 AM.

  10. #20
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    Default Re: Once you've animated, you have export options in Xara

    Anyway I am not sure why probably doing something wrong, but at trying the bitmap version, so creating bitmap from the feathered layers in the button, got such message

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	bmm.jpg 
Views:	652 
Size:	42.2 KB 
ID:	95835

    And after the created bitmap a white shape

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	bmp_export.jpg 
Views:	539 
Size:	9.5 KB 
ID:	95836

 

 

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