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EASY ANIMATOR: RELEASE 1 ------------------------ CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 2. GETTING STARTED 3. MANIPULATING FRAMES 4. EDITING A FRAME 5. DISPLAYING AN ANIMATION 6. ANIMATION OPTIONS 7. LOADING AND SAVING ANIMATIONS 8. IMPORTING DRAWFILES 9. TUTORIAL - A SIMPLE ANIMATION 10. THE SUPPORT APPLICATIONS 11. COPYRIGHT AND DISTRIBUTION CONDITIONS 12. BUGS AND OTHER PROBLEMS SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION ----------------------- Easy Animator (hereafter referred to as EasyAnim) is an animation program originally designed for use by primary school children but now also suitable for almost any age from primary school to adult. An animation is split into up to 768 frames which are displayed at a user specified rate, these frames can be edited using built-in editing tools. These tools are suitable for simple artwork but not for complex pieces. If you wish to get started quickly, I suggest you read sections 1 and 2 then skip straight to Section 9, which takes you through the creation of a small animation. RISC OS 3.1 at least is required to run the program. An ARM3 and at least 2Mb of memory are strongly recommended. A hard disc is also useful. EasyAnim has been tested successfully on a 2Mb A4000, 4Mb A5000 and briefly on a 13Mb Risc PC 600. This manual can be printed in the normal way but has not been designed specifically for printing so you may end up with paragraphs split over two pages. You can print easily from Zap or alternatively load the document into Impression, Pendown+ or suchlike and print from there. If you are using StrongEd/Edit/DeskEdit, then change to Zap immediatly! Within this manual, menu options are shown as Menu ⇨ Submenu ⇨ Option, keys are shown as Ctrl-A and the mouse buttons are just select, menu and adjust. Key shortcuts will only work when the frames window is open and has the input focus (ie the title bar is cream instead of the usual grey). It is advisable to copy the EasyAnim program and all its associated resources to your hard disc, if possible, before using it. You must copy the !EasyAnim application along with !EasyHelp, the Examples directory and this Manual file. Interactive help is supported on most windows with Acorn's !Help application. SECTION 2: GETTING STARTED -------------------------- To start, load the program by double-clicking on the !EasyAnim icon in the filer window. The EasyAnim icon should then, all being well, appear on the right-hand side of the iconbar and a window should open in approximately the centre of the screen. This is the frames window and attached to the left-hand side of it is the rather large frames toolbox. The frames window displays all the frames in order, side by side and allows you to edit, move, copy and generally manipulate them. Within the frames window you will at first see one large white rectangle with a red number below it and covered by a red grid. This is a frame, the red number and grid show that it is the current or selected frame as opposed to a non-selected frame which has a black number and no grid. To select a different frame, click below the required frame, on the number. All operations accessed from the frames toolbox work on this current frame. Clicking on the icon on the iconbar with select will open the preview window and toolbox which displays the animation running and allows you to control the way it is played and step through the frames one at a time. Clicking menu on the frames or preview window will open the EasyAnim main menu which contains many functions referred to throughout this document. The iconbar menu can also be accessed by clicking menu on the iconbar icon. SECTION 3: MANIPULATING FRAMES ------------------------------ An animation can be made up of up to 768 frames or as many as will fit in memory. This section describes how to manipulate these frames using the tools on the frames toolbox and from the main menu: • COPY This operation can be performed by choosing Frame ‘X’ ⇨ Copy from the main menu, by pressing Ctrl-C or by clicking on the Copy icon in the frames toolbox. The current frame will be copied to a temporary area in memory known as the frames clipboard. Any previous frame in the clipboard will be overwritten. A beep will be heard after a successful copy and the frame can then be pasted in again any number of times using the paste tool. • PASTE This operation can be performed by choosing Frame ‘X’ ⇨ Paste from the main menu, by pressing Ctrl-V or by clicking on the Paste icon in the frames toolbox. The frame stored in the frames clipboard will be pasted in again after the current frame. You can store a frame in the frame clipboard using the cut and copy tools. • CUT This operation can be performed by choosing Frame ‘X’ ⇨ Cut from the main menu, by pressing Ctrl-X or by clicking on the Cut icon in the frames toolbox. The current frame will be copied to the frames clipboard and then removed from the animation. To restore it again, use the paste operation. • INSERT This operation can be performed by choosing Frame ‘X’ ⇨ Insert from the main menu, by pressing Ctrl-I or by clicking on the Insert icon in the frames toolbox. A new, blank frame will be inserted straight after the current frame. This tool is similar to the paste tool except that a blank frame is inserted instead of the clipboard contents. • VERTICAL FLIP This operation can be performed by choosing Frame ‘X’ ⇨ Flip V from the main menu or by pressing Ctrl-V. The current frame will be turned upsidedown. • HORIZONTAL FLIP This operation can be performed by choosing Frame ‘X’ ⇨ Flip H from the main menu or by pressing Ctrl-H. The current frame will be flipped from left to right. • SAVE You can save the current frame by moving to the Frame ‘X’ ⇨ Save menu option on the main menu and dragging the icon in the save box to the directory viewer where you wish to save. You can also drag to another application such as Paint in the normal RISC OS manner. Note that EasyAnim cannot yet reload frames saved in this way. SECTION 4: EDITING A FRAME -------------------------- A frame can be edited using all the drawing tools in the bottom two-thirds of the frames toolbox. All these operations happen in the currently selected colour, this can be chosen using the 256-colour palette situated at the bottom of the frames toolbox. These colours are only accurately shown in 256, 32 thousand or 16 million colour modes so you should change to a mode of this type while using EasyAnim. On older machines, a mode such as mode 28 for VGA monitors or mode 15 for standard monitors is recommended, on the Risc PC and A7000, the largest 256 colour mode is best. There are twelve tools, just above these colours, that can be used to edit a frame. Simply select the tool you require then click in the place you wish to draw on the frame. If the grid is active, all drawing will be snapped approximately to grid lines. The grid state can be altered from the main menu. The tools are, from left to right, top to bottom: • FILL This will fill in an enclosed area with the current colour, starting at the mouse pointer. Do not click many times in quick succession when using this tool as this occasionally seems to cause a long wait while the computer tries to cater for all the mouse clicks. • TEXT This tool can only be used in 256, 32,000 or 16 million colour modes and produces a small window allowing you to set the font name and size. No anti-aliasing is used as it seems to be rather counter-productive at small sizes. Clicking on a frame will paint the text with the bottom right corner at the mouse pointer. • LINE To use this tool, click once in the start position for the line then move out to the end position and click again to complete the line. • BRUSH This tool is controlled by another small window which allows you to set the brush shape, circle, square, triangle or spray. You can also set the brush size by dragging out the shape in the window to the required size. The brush is painted onto the frame, centered around the mouse pointer. • COPY BLOCK Using this tool, you can copy a section of a frame to another clipboard known as the block clipboard. You must click once in the corner of the area you wish to store, then pull out the box to the required size and click again. The area can then be seen in the clipboard window and pasted with the paste block tool. • PASTE BLOCK This will paste a section of frame previously grabbed using the copy block tool onto any frame, in any position. The block will appear with its bottom right corner at the mouse pointer. • OUTLINE RECTANGLE • FILLED RECTANGLE • OUTLINE CIRCLE • FILLED CIRCLE • OUTLINE TRIANGLE • FILLED TRIANGLE These six tools allow you to draw rectangle, circle and triangle shapes onto a frame. Simply click once in one corner then move out to the required size and click in the other corners - once more for rectangles and circles and twice more for triangles. SECTION 5: DISPLAYING AN ANIMATION ---------------------------------- To see an animation in the desktop, click select on the EasyAnim iconbar icon. This will open the aforementioned preview window, which displays the animation running considerable slower than normal. Affixed to this window is the preview toolbox, which has several tools, described below: • |< MOVE TO START This will move the preview display to frame one. • << MOVE BACKWARD ONE FRAME This will move the preview display back one frame. • < PLAY BACKWARD This will play the animation backwards within the window. • > PLAY FORWARD This will play the animation forwards within the window. This can also be done by choosing Animation ⇨ Play from the main menu. • >> MOVE FORWARD ONE FRAME This will move the preview display forward one frame. • >| MOVE TO END This will move the preview display to the last frame. • || PAUSE This will pause the animation at its current position. This can also be done by choosing Animation ⇨ Pause from the main menu. Below these icons, the frame currently being shown and the total number of frames are displayed within two icons. By clicking on the Full icon in the preview window, choosing Animation ⇨ Full screen from the main menu or pressing Ctrl-F, you can see the animation running at full speed. The animation is shown in the centre on a blank screen and all other tasks are paused. Normal activity is restored when a mouse button is pressed. SECTION 6: ANIMATION OPTIONS ---------------------------- There are several options which control an animation. All of these options are saved along with the animation so they remain the same when it is reloaded. • ANIMATION TITLE This can be set from the Animation ⇨ Title window on the main menu. The title can contain any characters and can be up to 32 characters in length. This title is displayed in the title bar of the preview and frames windows. • ANIMATION SPEED This can be set by chosing one of five different speeds from the Animation ⇨ Speed submenu on the main menu. It is best to test each of these speeds then choose the one that works the best. The speeds are: Name Centiseconds between frames Very fast 0 Fast 5 Normal 10 Slow 15 Very slow 20 Each speed should be roughly the same on different machines, except the very fastest setting. However, this may not always be the case and it is really up to the user to set a speed appropiate to their machine and taste. • GRID SPACING The grid spacing can be set from the main menu to one of four sizes, None, Small, Medium and Large. The grid is one of the most problematic parts of the program at present. It functions decidedly oddly at scales other than 100% and is very inexact. However, I am working on it... don't hold your breath, though. • FRAME SCALE This can be set from the main menu and refers to the frames window only. The frames in the frames window can be displayed at any size from 20% to 500% in steps of 10%. This is useful for exact drawing work. A quick overview of the current animation status can be seen from the Animation ⇨ Info window on the main menu. This displays the number of frames, animation filename, size on disc and title. If you wish to return to a blank animation, you can choose the Fresh start option from the iconbar menu or the Animation ⇨ Fresh start option from the main menu. SECTION 7: LOADING AND SAVING ANIMATIONS ---------------------------------------- To load an animation, you must first load the EasyAnim application as described above and then simply drag the animation icon from the filer window onto the EasyAnim icon on the iconbar or alternatively double-click on an animation in a filer window. You will asked if you wish to remove the animation that is currently present and if you reply yes, the animation will be loaded and its frames displayed in the frames window ready for editing. If the animation you wish to load is larger than the memory availiable, you will be told by the program. Should this happen, you are advised to quit any unwanted applications and attempt to shrink all system memory allocations using the task manager (eg RAM disc, font cache, system sprites and module area). To save an animation, simply move to the Save window on the main menu, type a filename into the writable icon in the normal way and drag the animation icon to a directory viewer. You should not drag this icon to another application unless it is designed to take EasyAnim animations. You can also click on the OK icon to save if there is already a filename present (if you have saved before for instance). SECTION 8: IMPORTING DRAWFILES ------------------------------ EasyAnim has the capability to take a drawfile and put it into an animation as a frame. To do this, drag a drawfile icon from the directory viewer into the EasyAnim frames window. A window will open showing the drawfile name and size. Click on Import to convert the drawfile. The screen will blank for a few moments then the desktop will reappear with the drawfile inserted after the current frame. You can then import the same drawfile again in the same way, should you wish. Clicking on the Close icon will close the window and you must drag in another drawfile to reopen it. Once drawfiles have been loaded into EasyAnim, they can edited in the same way as any other frame and saved as a sprite in the normal manner but they cannot be returned to drawfile format. SECTION 9: TUTORIAL - A SIMPLE ANIMATION ---------------------------------------- This section illustrates how to create a very simple but rather boring animation. The final animation is included in the Examples directory. 1 The best method of creating an animation is to draw the background on one frame then copy and modify it for each successive frame. We are going to create an animation featuring a sun rising above the horizon. So, firstly draw a green rectangle covering the bottom half of the first frame and fill in the top half blue for sky. Remember which colours of green and blue you used for each. 2 Choose frame 1 by clicking below it on the number, then select Copy from the frames toolbox. After that, click on Paste in the frames toolbox to paste a copy of that frame. Now draw a large, filled yellow circle on the second frame in the centre horizontally and one grid square up from the bottom. This covers up half of the ground so draw it in again in the same position as before. 3 Select frame 2 and click on Paste in the frames toolbox to put in another copy of the first frame. Draw another yellow circle on this frame, one square above the position in frame 2 and fill in the ground again. 4 Paste another copy of frame 1 in after frame 3 by selected frame 3 and clicking on Paste. Again, draw a yellow circle of the same size but this time three squares up from the bottom and draw the ground in again. 5 Now click on the EasyAnim iconbar icon to see how the animation looks. You can see it at proper speed and colours by clicking on the Full icon. 6 Almost the last thing to do is to give the animation a title. Click menu over one of the large animation windows and move to Animation ⇨ Title and type in a suitable name. ‘Rubbish’ is an appropriate name but you may use another if you wish. You can also set the speed of the animation by choosing one of the speeds on the Animation ⇨ Speed submenu. 7 If you wish you can then save the animation using the save box on the main menu. Simply type a filename in the normal way and drag the icon to a filer window. SECTION 10: THE SUPPORT APPLICATIONS ------------------------------------ This rather grandiose section title is rather silly as there is only, at present, one support application. This called EasyHelp and is an on-line help program for EasyAnim. It was originally intended as a substitute for a manual but it takes up over 200K in memory and cannot be printed. It is very easy to use, simply click on the raised icons to move between pages. SECTION 11: COPYRIGHT AND DISTRIBUTION CONDITIONS ------------------------------------------------- This program and all resources associated with it are copyright © Nicholas Marriott. It may be distributed by anybody as long as no part of it is changed in any way without my permission and as long as all of the following four items are included: !EasyAnim !EasyHelp Examples Manual Also, no more than £2.50 should be charged for the program on a normal or high density disc. If you wish to include the program on a CD-ROM you may not charge more than £50 for the entire CD-ROM and please inform me so I may supply the latest version. In my opinion, any CD-ROM costing more than £50 is a complete rip-off. This program has taken, so far, over a year of work on my part so I would appreciate it if you obeyed these few conditions. This program is Shareware (I think). You do not have to register but it would be nice if you did. Registration costs £5 and I will send any major updates out to registered users. SECTION 12: BUGS AND OTHER PROBLEMS ----------------------------------- If you find a bug or any other kind of problem or if you simply want to complain, then I can be contacted at: 54 Moneymore Road Cookstown Co. Tyrone N. Ireland BT80 8EH or c/o S.Marriott@ulst.ac.uk If you e-mail me and expect a reply, you MUST include your postal address and be prepared to wait. If you write to me and REALLY want a reply, send a stamp.