Amiga Computing 68/ac068a.adf/take2.lzh/t2_readme

Text File | 1993-06-20 | 33KB | 703 lines

    ************************** TAKE-2 READ_ME ***************************


    This document discribes some alterations on the Take-2 package that
    were made since the manual was printed. It also contains some general
    information to clarify certain functions and explains some new ones
    that were added, mainly on suggestions and remarks from users.
    This does not mean the manual is wrong or useless, it only shows that
    Take-2 is developed and improved every day. This file contains the
    vital information you need to take full use of the latest developments
    and should be printed out and be kept with the manual.


    --------------------------- NEW FEATURES ----------------------------

    The vidi library
    ----------------

    The hassle with the old and new vidi.librarys and if it is in the
    LIBS:-directory or not is a thing of the past, since it has been
    incorporated in the program itself.
    For this reason it is no longer necessary to use any install utility.
    You will still need some workbench files, however, but a requester
    will inform you if they are not found.


    New vidi hardware
    -----------------
    The new VidiAmiga-12 hardware, manufactured by Rombo, has no controls
    on the device itself as did the earlier versions. For this reason
    contrast and saturation sliders have been added next to the existing
    hardware control sliders on the digitizer controlpanel.
    These 4 controls are identified by a single character on the knob,
    which are, respectively, (B)righness, (C)ontrast, (S)aturation and
    (O)ffset. The new sliders have no effect when used with old hardware.

    You can alter these gadgets via the keyboard by using the up and down
    arrows on the keypad in combination with a qualifier key:
    Brightness: Up/Down Arrow + Left-Shift
    Contrast:   Up/Down Arrow + Left-Alt
    Saturation: Up/Down Arrow + Right-Alt
    Offset:     Up/Down Arrow + Right-Shift


    Using an NTSC Amiga
    -------------------

    The program recognizes on which machine it is running and switches to
    NTSC mode if required.The Digitizer/Display option is set accordingly,
    thus the default vertical resolution is switched to 200 lines.
    Only 18 cells/sounds are displayed in NTSC mode and the "25"-gadget
    on the flipper controlpanel is replaced by a "30"-gadget to account
    for the different videospeed on NTSC video equipment.
    All Requesters and panels are still centered on the screen.

    Setting the Digitizer/Display menu-option to PAL will only work while
    using PAL Vidi-Amiga hardware. The NTSC version of the digitizer has a
    smaller internal buffer. Trying to read a PAL sized image from it will
    probably crash your machine or give some strange effects, at least.
    If you are using a PAL digitizer and grab a PAL picture, the bottom
    56/128 lines will not be displayed on an NTSC machine, although the
    FrameBoard will display a scaleddown version of the complete picture.


    The audiofilter
    ---------------

    The General menu on the xsheet contains a new item for switching the
    hardware audiofilter of the Amiga on or off.
    This filter prevents aliasing distortion but cuts all frequencies
    above 7000 Hz. By disabling it the higher tones will come trough,
    giving a clearer sound. Distortions will be more apparent, however.
    The powerled of the Amiga is switched off or dimmed when the audio-
    filter is disabled.


    The Flipper/startFrame option
    -----------------------------

    A new option, called "StartFrame" has been added to the Flipper menu.
    This was done on a request from users. Some want to start the Flipper
    on the first frame every time, others want the flipper to start from
    the frame it was on when they returned to the main screen.

    Choosing the StartFrame/First option will restart from frame 1 every
    time the flipper is invoked. The StartFrame/Current option will start
    the flipper with the current frame, which is set to the frame the
    flipper was on when you returned to the main screen. The current frame
    can be set manually by clicking on the framenumber, in which case this
    frame will be the first frame when the Flipper is invoked.


    Show a specified  frame
    -----------------------

    You can now go to whichever frame you like in the flipper, either
    from the exposure sheet or from within the flipper itself.
    Doubleclicking on a framenumber on the exposure sheet invokes the
    flipper and brings it to the specified frame. It stops immediately at
    that position. You can then use the flipper controlpanel as usual.
    If you click on the framenumber indication on this controlpanel, a
    cursor will appear in it, allowing to enter a new framenumber.
    Hitting return (CR) while the cursor is active brings you to the
    specified frame, anything else restores the original framenumber.


    Dragging items on the exposuresheet
    -----------------------------------

    Some operations involving cells and sounds can't be achieved using the
    existing tools in an easy and intuitive way. A new concept of altering
    the exposuresheet has been added to make editing even more flexible.

    Each element on the xsheet can now be dragged over the screen, thus
    accomplishing a certain editing operation.This is in fact an extension
    of the select function for each of these elements. Clicking once over
    a cell or sound and releasing the mousebutton will still (de)select
    that item. If the left mousebutton is held down, however, moving the
    mouse will deselect the item and perform the new dragging function.

        How does it work in practice ?

    When used on a cell, dragging the mouse will alter the timing of this
    cell. This means you can stretch or shrink the repetition of each cell
    without using any CellPanel tool or change the multiply number.
    This is especially useful if you want to tailor the timing of a cell
    to a certain framenumber or when you only want to alter one cell.

    When used on a sound, dragging the mouse will change the startposition
    of the sound to a new frame,if possible. Although you can drag a sound
    beyond another one, it can't replace an existing sound.
    This replaces the need to remove a sound and insert it again at a new
    position, simply to move the sound to another frame.

    It is also possible to drag the current (white) frame, but this is
    only useful in combination with the FrameBoard at the moment. Thus
    you can search more rapidly through the images to see a certain image,
    without the need to see all frames or to switch between back and
    forward scroll.

                Merging levels
                **************


    A new option has been added to the XSheet-menu which allows to
    merge multiple levels into 1 new level, retaining the overall
    resolution of the original pictures, merging them as opaque colors
    on transparent celluloid sheets.


    About the Merge Levels method.
    ------------------------------

    It was opted to have immediate results while linetesting with
    multiple levels, even on entry level Amigas (A500/600). This
    imposed some restrictions to the resolution while flipping, as
    it isn't possible to merge 4 multicolored pictures in 1/25th of
    a second. The presented solution, as described in the readme-file
    for version 1.5, proved satisfactory for linetesting purposes.

    Some users, however, want to use the program to present early
    results to their clients. As the number of colors per level is
    restricted to only 2 for each picture on the same frame, this
    resolution was not satisfactory for presentation purposes.

    It is now possible to merge all levels into 1 new level, which
    can thus be played at its full resolution. The normal procedure
    would be to edit the animation until you are satisfied with it,
    using the normal "restricted" method for speed, and then use the
    Merge option to create a presentation animation.
    Look at the working method as the wireframe mode in 3D software
    and the Merge option as the rendering. Thus you will have speed
    and efficiency while creating as well as good image quality on
    the end result.


    Some notes about the merging process.
    -------------------------------------

    The levels are merged right to left for each frame. Thus level 1
    contains the bottom picture (background) and level 4 contains the
    top picture. The transparent pixels in first picture (right level)
    are replaced by corresponding pixels of the picture on the left of
    it. The transparent color of the leftmost level will be displayed
    unchanged.

    When a new frame is merged into a new picture, the earlier composed
    pictures are searched for corresponding picture data. If a match is
    found this picture will be used instead, avoiding duplicate data in
    memory. It is therefore possible that the merging slows down to the
    end of a lengthy x-sheet, especially with many similar pictures.

    At the moment, the palette of the leftmost picture is used for the
    new picture. You should take care that all pictures on a frame use
    the same palette, otherwise you'll get some strange looking results.

    You can use BLANKS to pad levels. They will be rendered as completely
    white pictures on that level. If you want another color instead, a
    monochrome picture should be loaded or digitized and inserted at the
    appropriate positions. For normal merging of linetests, the standard
    BLANKS will work fine. If all levels on a frame contain a BLANK, a
    normal BLANK will appear in the merged scene at that frame.

    Note that after the merging has finished, only 1 level is occupied,
    leaving 3 empty levels for some more merging.


    The Merge Levels requester.
    ---------------------------

    When you choose Merge from the XSheet menu on the main screen,
    you will be presented with the Merge Level requester. Of course,
    you must at least have 2 levels in use, for this option to work.


        Enter merged name:

    Since new pictures will be created, they must have a proper name,
    so that they can be identified and stored to disk. You should type
    in an initial name for these new pictures in the stringgadget
    before the merging process is started. If you don't, the default
    name "mergepic-001" will be be used. Since this doesn't say much
    about the animation it should be avoided.
    Only use a unique name, which isn't used for any pictures in the
    PicturePanel. The MERGE will fail if a duplicate name is used, but
    it will skip found name-numbers while merging and use the next free
    number, instead.


        Transparent color:

    When preparing your animation in another package, care should be
    taken that either the first or the last color are used wherever you
    want the picture to be transparent. Normally this would be color 0
    (first) because it is used for genlocking and is best to be left
    black to keep the gadgets and requesters of the software clear.
    When digitizing drawings on white paper, you will probably want the
    paper to be transparent, which is the last color since the palette
    is sorted dark to bright.
    Use the PREVIEW function (explained later) to make sure that the
    correct color is used for the merging process. Take care that the
    overlaying  picture is to the right of the underlaying picture on
    the exposure sheet.

    FIRST:    The first color in the palette (usually the darkest) will
    be replaced with the underlaying picture.

    LAST:    The last color in the palette (usually the brightest) will
    be replaced with the underlaying picture.


        Original pictures:

    If you no longer need the original pictures after the operation,
    they can be removed while merging, thus freeing valuable memory.
    In many cases, when memory is low, this will be the only way to
    successfully merge the levels, as the new pictures need the memory.
    Naturally, you can save the originals to disk before merging.

    KEEP:    All pictures stay in memory.
    Use the PicturePanel "Find Unused" menuoption and the "Delete pics"
    function if you should wish to remove the obsolete pictures after
    the merge has been completed.

    REMOVE:    Obsolete pictures are removed while merging.
    A warning requester will appear before the merging starts, allowing
    to cancel the destructive operation.


        Main merge gadgets

    MERGE:    Starts the actual merging operation.
    The Merge Levels requester disappears and the current frame indicator
    advances from the first to the last frame, showing which frame is
    being processed. If the REMOVE original pictures option is chosen,
    the merged frames no longer show the original cells, as the corres-
    pending pictures are removed from memory.

    PREVIEW: Merges the current frame and displays it without altering
    the pictures or the exposure sheet. No new picture is created, either.
    This allows you to check if the correct pictures are in the correct
    levels and test which of the transparent options works best.
    The preview screen is displayed until the leftmouse button is clicked.

    CANCEL: Removes the Merge Levels requester without altering or crea-
    ting any pictures or cells. The current settings are preserved.


    An example.
    -----------

    After all this information you may think it's quite a complex matter,
    but in practice it is a very simple operation (on the part of the
    user, that is. Its a complex matter to program, though.)

    I will presume you are familiar with the basic Take-2 functions, such
    as loading scenes and using the flipper.

    On the distribution disk you will find a directory called "arrowhit"
    Load it as a Scene and flip the animation. The 2 levels are displayed
    in multilevel mode, so only 2 greys per level are used.

    Now return to the main screen and choose "Merge" from X-Sheet menu.
    Click on PREVIEW when the Merge Levels requester appears. The preview
    screen will show the current frame as a merged picture. It seems only
    the arrow on level 2 is shown, but you can see a small part of the
    tree through the arrowhead, which is in fact black on the original.
    Obviously the transparent color is set wrongly. Click the left mouse-
    button to remove the previewscreen, set the transparent color to
    LAST and click on PREVIEW again. Now the frame is merge correctly.

    Because the originals are safely on disk, you can set the original
    pictures option to REMOVE and click on MERGE to start the process.
    After choosing PROCEED on the verify requester the actual merging
    commences and the xsheet shows the progress of the merge. When the
    process has finished (when the pointer becomes arrow-shaped again),
    you can flip the finished animation in its full glory.


    ------------------------- ALTERED FEATURES --------------------------


    Loading and saving Scenes
    -------------------------

    This is quite a dynamic area of the program. Because about 70 students
    have to share the same harddisks at my school, the saving procedure
    has to be both foolproof and automatically organizing the data.
    Eventually, the system using a namerequester and automatic extension
    naming proved satisfactory for this situation. Some users, however,
    liked the old system using the bottom filenamegadget on the filere-
    quester better. You can now use whichever of these systems you like
    most. If no name is entered in the filenamegadget on the filerequester
    when the SAVE gadget is selected, a requester will appear and query to
    enter a name, otherwise the saving will take place immediately, using
    the provided name.
    Entering a carriage return in these stringgadgets has the same effect
    as selecting the SAVE gadget (or PROCEED on the namerequester).

    When loading Scenes you must only select the directory containing the
    needed files and select LOAD on the filerequester. This enables you
    to load several Scenes at once, providing they are all in the same
    directory.

    It is now possible to load scenes with a different number of levels
    correctly. Empty levels of the first loaded scenes are padded with
    blanks when a new scene, using more levels, is appended. Also, the
    sound will now appear at the correct frame in the appended scene

    Whenever a name is defined for a scene by either loading or saving it
    to disk, this name is shown in the titlebar on the exposesheet. This
    makes it easier to identify the animation at all times, especially
    when it is part of a large production. I would still advise you to
    give each picture a logical name to avoid identical named pictures on
    disk and while appending scenes.

    You can now save a Scene with the same name as a previously saved
    Scene. If PROCEED is choosen on the "File already exists."-requester
    the directory and its contents will be deleted and the Save will
    continue as before. Also, directorys containing files can be deleted
    with the "DEL!"-function. Directorys within directorys will not be
    deleted, however, since this would provoke potential disasters,
    especially in schools and companies...


    The LowMem Alert
    ----------------

    The Lowmem Alert has been finetuned and should work alright now.
    It is invoked when the amount of memory needed for safely saving your
    work is no longer available. You should therefore try to free as much
    memory as possible before commencing the Save operation.
    Quit the FRAMEBOARD, DIGITIZER and FLIPPER screen if they are opened,
    and close all unneeded Panels on the XSheet. If you should still have
    lack of memory, then the Workbench can be closed as well via the Gene-
    ral Workbench menuoption provided the Workbench is open at the moment.
    The alert will only be displayed once and will only report again when
    a New/Scene is invoked. This is to prevent numerous alerts being dis-
    played while saving the files to disk. Normal 'Not enough memory'-
    errors will still be displayed when a function failes, naturally.


    Duplicate naming
    ----------------

    It is now no longer possible to have pictures or samples with the same
    name in memory. This caused some strange effects, especially when se-
    veral scenes where loaded using a-001 and so on. Also, it wasn't pos-
    sible to regrab a certain picture without confusion.
    Whenever a picture is being grabbed or loaded with an existing name,
    you will be asked whether to PROCEED (replace picture/sample) or to
    CANCEL the procedure (leave original picture untouched).


    The INFO panel
    --------------

    The panel, which pops up when the INFO gadget on the Filerequester is
    selected, will now display how many pictures will (at least) fit on
    the current (hard)disk in addition to percentage of free diskspace.
    This number shows how many pictures with the current resolution would
    fit on the disk with no compression. This means you can probably save
    more pictures on it, depending on the nature of the images.


    ColorMerge in the Digitizer
    ---------------------------

    The colormerging routines, which merge the red, green and blue buffers
    into a full color picture, have been revisited. They are invoked when
    you choose MIX or GRAB IT while in colormode. The conversion from the
    12 available bitplanes (R+G+B) to a number of colors less than 4096
    (HAM) are much improved and will give a more accurate picture, using
    dithering to compensate for the missing colors in the palette. It is
    now possible to obtain an acceptable result even when using as few as
    4 colors, depending on the quality and nature of the original picture.

    A new digitizer optionmenu called "MixMethod" has been added. Choosing
    "Approx" will use the closest color in the the palette for each pixel,
    choosing "Dither" will compensate for the lack of enough colors in the
    palette by placing different colored pixels together to give the illu-
    sion of more colors on screen, a technique pioneered by the French
    Pointilist Painters from the previous century.
    Which method works best depends on the kind of picture digitized. If
    it contains sharp edges around shapes, the "Approx" method will give
    the best results while graduate colorfades will be mixed best with the
    "Dither" on, thus avoiding colorbanding. Resolutions lower than 16 co-
    lors will give a more pixelized result, since the colors used are to
    far apart to give a suble dithered shade.
    When using "Dither" in with an Interlaced resolution, the image will
    appear to flicker more than with the "Approx" method,unless some kind
    of anti-flicker device is used.
    Since the "Dither"-method only gives better results in 2 of the avail-
    able mixing resolutions, the "Approx" method is used by default.

    Aborting while a colormerge is running will now give the choice to
    PROCEED or CANCEL, since it was al to easy to abort the merge acci-
    dentaly by pressing a mousebutton or key.


    Continuous digitizing (VCR)
    ---------------------------

    Choosing GRAB IT while the VCR-gadget is highlighted will bring up a
    requester showing the memory usage while grabbing. Before, this memo-
    rybar was displayed at the righthand side of the ControlPanel. Since
    this position was also employed for the selection of a DUB picture, it
    wasn't possible to use the VCR in combination with the DUB option.


    Printer check
    -------------

    Because many users will own the vidi digitizer, a sound sampler and a
    printer, all using the parallel port, a switchbox is a solution.
    It has to be said that it is not advisable to switch while your com-
    puter is on, as it can crash the system or even damage your hardware.
    To have an extra safety and avoid printing to anything else than the
    printer, a check for the availability of the printer is made before
    the actual printing starts. An error requester will inform you when
    no printer is found, allowing to correct the situation.


    KS2.0 on a standard A500/A600/A1500/A2000
    -----------------------------------------

    It seems that a few system routines have slowed down when the new
    operating system is used on a model with a M68000 CPU. One of the most
    noticeable effects being the jerky movement when a screen slides up or
    down. Because the annoying effect this has, the program will skip the
    screen scrolling when it detects a KS2.0 used with a M68000 CPU.
    Some other side effects of this combination are looked into.


    ------------------------ GENERAL INFORMATION -----------------------


    SUBJECT: About Multiple Levels
    ------------------------------
    by Geert Vergauwe


    This text contains no new information, but is more of a discussion on
    how to use the  Multiple Level functions effectively.


    To avoid having to draw the same background and immobile figures onto
    every new drawing of an animation,traditional animators use seetrough
    cellophane sheets. This allows several layers of animation to be seen
    at once, with an optional background as the bottom level. By only
    altering the layers (cellophanes) that have movement, only these dra-
    wings have to be made, thus saving a lot of redrawing work.

    As Take-2 is essentially a linetester, these separate animated levels
    must not only be tested individually, but their interactions have to
    be checked as well.
    There are two ways of accomplishing this, each with its own advantages
    and limitations, which will be described later. These Multiple Levels
    simulation methods resemble the union-skin technique, which is used
    to see the previous drawing on a lighttable to dethermen the relative
    position of the new drawing. The Multiple Levels in Take-2 are desig-
    ned to allow a flexible and quick way to simulate how the existing
    drawings will be filmed on the animation table.


        Multiple Level method 1: using the exposuresheet.

    This method simulates overlayed cellophane drawings. You can see one
    drawing trough the unused space of the one on top. As with actual
    cellophanes, you can make any combination on any frame, adding and
    removing pictures on different levels as much as you like.
    This is the most straightforward and flexible method, with only one
    mayor drawback: only 2 colors (1 white/1 grey) are shown from each
    level, even if the original pictures use more colors/greys. This is
    a limitation of the current Amiga hardware.

    As you may have noticed, there are four columns on the xsheet titled
    'level 1' to 'level 4'. These are four independent levels that can
    be edited separately or simultaneously.
    When you append cells to a level from the PicturePanel, you can set
    the current level by selecting one of the four levelgadgets at the
    top of the PicturePanel. The cells will be appended to that level.

    You can select cells in any of the levels or even all levels at once
    in the usual way (clicking on the cell). You can make blocks in any
    level or more than one level by doubleclicking on a cell to assign
    the start of the block and then select a cell in another level to
    assign the end of the block. The block will contain all cells whitin
    the rectangle formed by the start and end cells of the block.
    Try it out, it is really much more straightforward than it sounds.

    All CellPanel editing functions work on all levels. If you have se-
    lected cells in level 1 and 2, for example, and use the insertcells
    function, all selected cells will be inserted at the choosen point.
    You can delete cells in more than one level at once in the same way.

    When the Flipper or FrameBoard is invoked, the program detects if
    more than one level is used and switches to Multiple Level display
    mode (two colors per level) automatically.
    Each levelheader has an ON/OFF switch. If a level is OFF, it is consi-
    dered empty and will not be displayed. If only one level containing
    cells is ON, this level will be displayed with the full color palette,
    even if the other levels contain cells as well.
    The level switch has no effect on editing functions, though.

    The most practial way to use this multilevel method is to test each
    level of animation levels separately on a different level with only
    the current level ON and have a final check by enabling all used le-
    vels to check interactions..
    If you are are using more than two colors while digitizing the origi-
    nal pictures, you should try to have a good contrast and make the most
    important lines as dark as possible. This will result in a clear com-
    posite display of the levels.

    When you are satisfied with the timing and combination of all levels,
    you can choose Merge from the X-Sheet menu to merge all levels into
    one new level and see the complete animation in all its glory !


        Multiple Level method 2: using the DUB-function.

    This method can be compared with photographic double-exposing, since
    two images are actually being merged together. The resulting picture
    can't be altered and has a unique picturename. These pictures can have
    up to 16 greylevels (DUB isn't available in colormode), allowing for
    detail, but some animations can get rather complicated to digitize in
    this way, with little space for errors. In this case you should have
    a prepared exposuresheet, made manually or using the other multilevel
    method to avoid errors while digitizing or use Method 1.

    Let's assume you have animated two walking cycles of 12 drawings on
    separate levels, which should be checked together. You should then
    digitize all drawings of one cycle with the DUB-gadget off, making
    sure you digitize the paper as white and clean as possible.
    Set the Digitizer/DubOriginal optionmenu to Overwrite and the Digi-
    tizer/DubMode optionm to AND and highlight the DUB-gadget.
    Now digitize the drawings of the second level, scrolling the name of
    the corresponding picture in the red textdisplay for each new image.
    You can either use the left and rightarrow key or click on the names
    above and below the red textdisplay to set the correct DUB picture.
    This way you will have only 12 pictures which contain both levels, as
    if you had digitized them on a lighttable under the camera.

    If you only want to superimpose a linear background or layout on every
    grabbed drawing then this method is recommended,since you can preserve
    memory and have the pictures displayed at any resolution.
    You should first digitize the background (use a dot after the autoname
    to prevent the program from appending a number). It is important to
    use a good contrast in order to have a clean mixture of pictures.
    Highlight the DUB-gadget and scroll the name of the background in the
    red textdisplay on the righthand side of the ControlPanel.
    Whenever you grab a new picture,the background will be stored as well.

    More detail of both methods can be found in the Take-2 manual.



    SUBJECT: Take-2 and Anim files
    ------------------------------
    by Geert Vergauwe


    The Anim (opt-5) format, as defined by Sparta/Aegis, has many advan-
    tages but it also has some strange peculiarities in order to optimize
    playback speed, which do not fit-in with the Take-2 concept.
    I have tried to solve all discrepancies to allow Animfiles to be fine-
    tuned using this program, though. Here are some comments I would like
    to make, so that you know how Anim files are handled by Take-2. This
    will allow you to make a better preparation when creating Anim-files
    in other programs, DPaint in particular, which will make live easier.


        timing information.

    The timing information for each picture, which defines how long it
    should be displayed, is stored in the header of the next picture. This
    is probably to set a vertical blank delay after the picture is dis-
    played. I find this is an inaccurate method, since the delay starts
    after the picture is constructed, which takes time by itself. The
    timer should start before all data is handled. The player can then
    wait for the timer to finish.
    This also means that the last picture has no timing information.
    Because Take-2 tries to construct an exposuresheet with the timinginfo
    from each picture, the timing of the last picture can't be determined.
    When trying to store this in the first frame, a number of Anim Players
    crashed... A programmers life isn't easy, you know.
    What all this means is that you will have to create the timing for the
    last picture manually, which isn't a total disaster, after all.


        The extra pictures.

    Sometimes, when you load an Anim file created with another package,
    two extra pictures will be created, which are identical to the first
    two. These are cycle-pictures, which are added to the Anim to allow
    AnimPlayers to cycle the animation. Not all programs write these,
    however. It is therefore not possible to skip these two frames. I
    found that DeluxePaint knows the exact length of an animation it has
    saved by adding an extra DPAN (DPaint ANimation ?) chunck to the Anim
    file. When such a chunck is found by Take-2, no extra pictures will
    be created. I have taken the liberty to save such a chunck when saving
    an Anim,so that Take-2 animations are loaded correctly by DeluxePaint.


        DeluxePaint timing.

    Because of the way DeluxePaint handles animation, you can't use real
    timing (waiting), but have to repeat identical pictures over several
    frames to simulate holds. All these frames are saved in the Anim file,
    with a timing of 1. This takes up more diskspace/memory than neces-
    sary, especially for each first duplication, because it saves the
    differences with the picture two frames back. Furthermore, when loa-
    ding Anim files, DeluxePaint does not automatically duplicate each
    picture according to it's timing. All this would make it rather dif-
    ficult to interchange Anim's between DPaint and Take-2.
    To take care of this problem, Take-2 checks for duplicate frames after
    loading an Anim file, removes them and adjusts the xsheet to reflect
    the correct timing, without the overhead of holding identical pictures
    in memory. When saving an Anim file, you will be asked to select the
    ANIM savemethod. Choosing EXPANDED will create a (larger) file which
    loads into DeluxePaint with the correct timing. Choosing ECONOMICAL
    will create a (shorter) file which will be played back with the cor-
    rect timing by a Player program.


        Anim to Pictures.

    When an Anim file is loaded into Take-2,seperate pictures are created,
    to allow flexible editing. This means that you will need more memory
    than was needed to create the original Anim file. Also, the names for
    each individual picture are derived from the filename with a unique
    number added to identify each seperate picture. Anim's created with
    Take-2 contain the original name for each picture, so that a complete
    reconstruction can take place. When the Anim is resaved using another
    package, this information will probably be lost.


        Anims and sound

    You should also take note that no sounds are imbedded in an Anim file.
    If you want to save your animation with sound, you should save it as a
    Scene and use the ScenePlayer or Take-2 itself to play it back.
    I could manage to save the samples and sounds along with the pictures
    in the Anim file, but this would be useless, since no player programs
    would play them. I could write a special Anim Player, though ....


    As you can see, much effort has been made to make Take-2 the perfect
    tool to allow timing adjustments of Anim files using all the flexible
    functions of the program, while retaining optimal compatibility with
    other software. It can also be used to create an Anim from separate
    ILBM pictures,split Anims into their components to be used in software
    that doesn't handle Anim files or to merge several Anims into a single
    file. All palette information is preserved in the program and saved
    along with the ANIM or ILBM file.
    I found that no other software exists that allows this kind of manipu-
    lation with Anims, exept for some separate,rather limited PD programs.


    Have fun.