Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
This ZIP file includes a few other animation projects and the
completed Flash animations; after you contemplate for a few
moments what can be done with Xara's animation engine, you'll
find yourself as hooked on it as on that fresh-baked bread they
serve at restaurants so you can't finish your meal.
This completed animation was built by hand-animating the
first four frames, as shown in Figure 10-3. The little cartoon
girl's head and body were moved and scaled just a little between
Frames 1 and 4. Each frame is a copy of the previous one, and
the only things stopping Xara from tweening this animation are
the legs and the rope; their paths change and path alterations
cannot be tweened. Because auto-tweening was out of the
question, this made using Pressure Profile outlines for most of
the body possible; they were converted to shapes (
CTRL
-
SHIFT
-
S
or Arrange | Convert to Editable Shapes) and thus made legit to
use in a Flash animation.
Frame 3 was copied by using the Copy button on the
Animation Frame Gallery, and finally Frame 2 was copied to
the last position in the collection of frames. It would be a good
practice exercise on your own to delete all but the first frame in
this file and then hand-key it to create the animation.
F
IGURE
10-3
An example of
how 6 drawings—two of them
duplicates—can make up an
animation cycle.
When you work on an animation document, the Infobar provides you with context-sensitive
options. However, most of these options are also available on the Animation Frame Gallery.
Except for export options and the capability to review frames sequentially, you have everything
you need on the Animation Frame Gallery for editing between frames. A good idea is to have the Animation
Frame and Name Galleries open onscreen at all times while you animate.
Delete
Frame
Frame
Properties
Animation
Properties
Copy Frame
New Frame
Select Previous/
Next Frame
Preview
Frame
Preview
All Frames
