+fEtchelon TRACER 3The Animation Program with Vector Graphic and Bitmap Image MorphingTracer Help covers the following-What is Etchelon TRACER? - This section.-Figure 1 Screen layout-Menus-Figure 2 Shapes and Cursors-Concepts-Figure 3 Drag and drop MorphingWhat is Etchelon TRACER?Etchelon TRACER provides a useful tool for development for animated movies using Apple's QuickTime format. It uses Vector graphic and Bitmap graphic morphing to develop animated movies quickly for multimedia applications. Special effects and animation can also be applied to existing QuickTime movies.Speed of development is Etchelon TRACER's main benefit.Clean line drawings can be traced from your existing images to allow rapid development of high quality vector graphics. Etchelon TRACER will morph from any key frame to any other key frame to provide animation, morphing or special effects.Features-Animation in-fill between key frames.-Morph animation from a frame to any other frame - both vector graphic and bitmaps-Rapid development of vector graphics from bitmap images.-Ability to experiment with outline animations.-Build up layers of animation to develop sophisticated multi-object movies.-Easy-to-use drag-and-drop features.-Morphing Text.-Anti-aliased reduced sized output.-"Morph to any frame" using the frame navigator (side bar)-Variety of defined shapes: regular polygons and stars-Ability to group shapes to form objects-"Smoothed" Shapes and dotted linesEtchelon TRACER is fully functional shareware and while not save-disabled has some output restrictions until registered.Etchelon TRACER outputs multiple files in PICT format. These files can be converted into a Quicktime Movie by the QuickTime Player. Terminology-Etchelon TRACER has 35 frames (key frames). -Double-click on the "Frame Navigator" to jump to a particular key frame.-Between each frame the program in-betweens up-to 999 frames of animation. -Each frame are made up of points drawn together to form "vectors". -A vector graphic can contain straight lines or curves of a single colour. -There is a limit of 600 points in a frame. -Each frame can have a separate "Trace image". -Vectors can be colour-filled to form a "filled shape" -Shapes and lines can be grouped to form an object.-Shapes can also inherit the underlying Trace Image bitmap to become a "bitmap" shape. -All frames use the same main window. -The main window title gives the frame number.Can I morph my own pictures?Of course! Load your own pictures as a Trace Image. Trace around part of the image that you wish to Morph. Select Colour/Fill to make the trace vectors a "bitmap shape". Go to another frame and do the same for another image. Select Morph and watch the source shape morph to the destination shape. (More complex morphs and animation requires more effort on the number of bitmap shapes etc. Experiment and see).I want to use a GIF or JPEG Trace Image.Trace Images can only be in PICT format. PICT is a "universal" format on the Macintosh and allows for easy interoperation with a variety of other programs. Other picture format types need to be converted by another (not supplied) commercial or shareware graphics program. Depending upon your system set up, you may be prompted for an automatic translation of an image when loading a file which is not a PICT. Another good reasonfor choosing and using Macintosh :-)So how do I trace an image?Open a trace image file, use the Line/Arc pen (Cmd-I) to draw around the features using straight lines and arcs. Change between straight lines and arcs using the Cmd-R command. Double-click or press SPACE to lift the pen. Return to normal cursor by Cmd-I again. You may find it useful to start from the outside and work inwards. The traced lines are known, within the program, as "vectors" forming a "shape" when its filled with colour or a bitmap image.How can I edit a vector (my traced line-drawing)? Once traced, the "vector" can be edited as follows. The whole vector or shape can be selected when the cursor is an upright cross when over the object, it can then be re-sized, repositioned or rotated. Once a shape is selected, move the cursor to a point on the vector (the cursor will change to a diagonal cross when over a point) and click to enter point edit mode - this will allow just the point (or co-located points) to be adjusted. You remain in point-edit mode until you stop clicking points.What do the symbols at the bottom of the screen mean?Move the cursor over the top of the symbol and the information display at the bottom of the main window will tell you what it is.What are Bitmap Shapes?These are similar to Filled Shapes but rather than being filled by a single colour, they are filled with the image of the underlying Trace Image. During a morph this bitmap shape will morph in shape and texture to whatever it is it is morphing to: another bitmap shape, filled shape, line or hole shape.Hole Shape? What is a Hole Shapes?This is another type of Bitmap shape. Rather than being filled with the underlying Trace Image, during a morph it displays the Bitmap of the Background image and thus forms a "hole".How do I select other colours?The colour tables can be changed: On the COLOUR/FILL window, SHIFT click a colour and another window appears allowing changes to the colours in the colour table.I want to reset the colour table to the default settingsSave the data to a TRACER file. Re-start TRACER. Re-load the TRACER file, but holding the SHIFT key down - this resets the colour table of the incoming file to the default colour table.Can Etchelon TRACER automatically produce vector graphics from bit-mapped images?No. My experience of automatic conversion was one of the main reasons for developing Etchelon TRACER in the first place - the program provides a simple, manual method for Tracing line drawings from bitmap images.How do I copy a frame? The easiest method is menu View/Frame Overview CMD-F. This opens a window which allows drag and drop copying of frames: one frame is copied to another empty. This window also allows frame deletion - use with care! The cursor changes to indicate function available (eg hand or pointer) (If the cursor does not change when over different parts of the window, click on the window header bar to make the window active).There is also two other methods:1. Select all, copy, change frame, then paste. This method ADDs data to existing frame data.2. Using the Next Frame button on the palette and holding SHIFT will copy the current frame to the next (providing there is no data in the next frame).How do I morph?See the "Quick Start" file to give you a 1-2-3 step guide for doing a simple morph or the Help Menu "Morph Advice".The Morph is too quick/too slow!The speed of morph is determined by the speed of your machine, the complexity of the frame, whether the morh contains filled shapes and the number of transitions within the morph. Only the number of transitions is important as far as Quicktime playback is concerned and this too can be varied. The number of transitions is selected within the Morph Control (CMD-M) or Sequence Control window (CMD-E). The other factors affect only the playback of morph sequences (such as the "Intro" file).When I morph from one frame to another, the morph sort of goes inside-out, how can I have a smoother morph?There are various methods for controlling the morph to obtain a smooth morph or animation.-Frame to copied Frame morph-Draw a set of vectors/shapes. Copy the frame (using the Frame Control window, CMD-F). Edit the new frame (see "How can I edit a vector"). Morph from one frame to the new frame. The animation is real smooth!-Frame to Different Frame morphTo morph, say, a frog to a swan, you will have a two different traced images on two different frames. Morphing from one frame to the other may not automatically give a pleasing effect. There are several methods to improve the chances of an interesting morph. Try the following:i) inspect the structure of the frames (Menu: Frame/Structure) - try getting a similar number of contours within the frame. (vectors in the first frame without a "match" in the destination frame are shrunk to nothing)ii) try matching the order of vectors: for example head outlines matching, eye outlines matching - this can be done by moving the vector in the frame structure by bring to front (CMD-=)/Move to Back (CMD--) commands on selected vectors.iii) try inverting or mirroring one of the images. (You may end up with a morph from a frog to an upsidedown swan - so this may not be what you require).iv) try developing a method to your tracing: for example, always starting the top of an object and tracing clockwise, always start tracing with the outer-most contours and move inwards. For faces, remember to align the eyes and use the same number of vectors.-Frame to Different Frame Morph (Trick method)If the methods above do not work, there is another method. Assuming you have traced the first frame and the destination frame and the morph is not to your liking and you've tried the techniques above, then the trick method requires a third frame. Copy the first frame to the new "third frame". Obtain a Trace Image for the destination frame in thes third frame. (Are you following this: a Trace Image of the destination frame? See "onion skinning" above for a description of getting a Trace Image from a frame). Now using the point edit mode, arrange the first image so that it fits over the destination image. Match eyes, arms, wheels, mouths, whatever, to the equivilent in the destination image. This does not need to be a 100% perfect match since the third frame will form just another transition frame... Now set up a sequence to morph from the first frame to the third frame in say 25 transitions, and morph from the third frame to the destination frame in a single transition. And hey presto, a smooth morph.How do I add special effects to existing Quicktime Movies?To work upon existing Quicktime Movies, use Movie-to-PICT to generate the Quicktime Movie as a series of PICT files. Use selected images as "key frames" within Etchelon TRACER and build up animation and morph sequeunces with the number of transition steps to match the numbered files generated by Movie-to-PICT. Select as background the first file in sequence and select "Sequence" in the Backgrounder window to overlay the Tracer output onto the file sequeunce. PICTs-to-Movie will rebuild the quicktime movie with your animation superimposed. Note that any sound track is lost and would have to be re-dubbed by another software utility.Movie-to-PICT doesn't work on my new machine!You will need to switch off MacLink Plus and EasyOpen Extensions in the Extensions Control Panel. Movie-to-PICT is incompatible with these extensions. The program should then work. After performing the QT movie conversion, switch these extensions back on, ready for the next re-boot.Further FAQ information can be obtained by emailing etchelon@kagi.com with subject "FAQ". ,
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