Copyright: 1998 Cosmigo, Germany


Contents
Pro Motion Online Help

What is "Pro Motion"?

Getting started

The workspace

The Menuline

   File

   Brush

   Mode

   Frame

   Animation

   Colors

   Stencil

   Clipboard

   Plugins

   Options

   Help

Samples step by step...

A jumping ball

A flying text in 3d

How to ...

Create animated GIF files

Do animated Cursors for Windows

Work with Icons for Windows

Informations

Plugins

Technical informations

Shortcuts


Menu File

The menu file is used to load or save images and animations. Also the preferences are a very important subject.

New

This menu entry allows you to create a new image or animation and opens a requester to setup sizes and the number of frames to be created.

Load Image

Opens the common dialog for loading files under Windows and enables you to select an image that is to be loaded.

If the import option is set in the preferences section "miscellaneous” (see descriptions below) then the image can be imported to the current one. That means the size of the current image/animation remains.

Normally only 256 color images are supported for reading. True color images are only supported for files of type BMP and JPG. If such an image is loaded then a requester appears for automatic color reduction.

Save Image

Allows you to save the current image under the name you have saved it before without asking you for a filename -> fast save.

Save Image as

Opens the common dialog for saving files under Windows and enables you to enter a new filename for the current image and saves it with one of the supported file types.

Load Animation

Opens the common dialog for loading files under Windows and enables you to select an animation that is to be loaded. If a Windows AVI file is loaded the requester for color quantization appears as described for Load Image.

Save Image

Allows you to save the current animation under the name you have saved it before without asking you for a filename -> fast save.

Save Animation as

Opens the common dialog for saving files under Windows and enables you to enter a new filename for the current animation and to save it with one of the supported file types.

Page Setup

Shows the standard Windows dialog box for the printer page setup.

This is used together with the print function (below).

Print

Shows the standard Windows dialog box for printing a range of images.

Preferences

This function is very important. Here you can customize a lot of tools and functions of Pro Motion.

The preferences are divided into sections.


Menu Brush

This menu includes several brush functions such as manipulation tools or load/save for normal and animated brushes.

rush manipulation functions can be made undone with the Restore command

Restore

This restores the last created custom brush

Resize

Sets you into the resize mode where you can stretch the current brush:

• click on the canvas to start stretching

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to resize the brush

• release the mouse button

Use the ALT key to switch between normal and proportional stretching, where the brush keeps its aspect ratio.

Grip

Is the brush grip, which can have the following positions relative to the brush:

•Top Left, is the top left corner of the brush

•Center

•Lower Right

•Custom Position is a free defined position

With Set Custom Position allows you can set your own brush grip position:

• click on the canvas to start

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to the position, where you want to have the brush grip

• release the mouse button

Rotate

Rotates the current brush:

•90° CCW rotates 90° counter clockwise

•90° CW rotates 90° clockwise

•180° rotates 180°

With Free you can rotate the brush at any angle interactively:

• click on the canvas to start

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse. You can see a bounding rectangle that shows the rotation that will be applied

• release the mouse button

Bend

Allows you to bend the current brush.

•Horizontal bends in left or right direction

•Vertical bends up or down

How to use:

• select either Horizontal or Vertical

• click on the canvas to start

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse. You can see a bounding shape that shows how the brush will be bent

• release the mouse button

Shear

Allows you to shear the current brush.

•Horizontal shears in left or right direction

•Vertical shears up or down

How to use:

See Bend

Mirror

Allows you to mirror the current brush.

•Horizontal mirrors from left to right

•Vertical mirrors from top to bottom

Halve, Double

Halves or doubles the current brush size

•X halves or doubles the width

•Y halves or doubles the height

•XY modifies both width and height

Outline

Surrounds the brush with the current foreground color. The brush will now be a custom brush if it was a round, rectangular or text brush!

You can use this function together with color cycling (menu Mode) to outline brush step by step with the current gradient.

Outline Invert

Surrounds the brush with the current foreground color. The brush will now be a custom brush if it was a round, rectangular or text brush!. The brush "content" will be erased.

Shrink

The opposite function of "Outline". It reduces the brush by its outer pixel row.

Make single Color

Makes the brush using the current foreground color only.

AnimBrush (submenu)

This submenu contains functions for animated brushes

Settings

Allows you to change the settings for animated brushes such as playback speed and direction or the number of frames to be taken into an animated brush.

Next Frame

switches to the next frame of the animated brush

Previous Frame

switches to the previous frame of the animated brush

First Frame

jumps to the first frame of the animated brush

Last Frame

jumps to the last frame of the animated brush

Load AnimBrush

Opens the common dialog for loading files under Windows and enables you to select an animation that is to be loaded as animated brush.

Save AnimBrush

Opens the common dialog for saving files under Windows and enables you to enter a new filename for the current animated brush and to save it using one of the supported file types.

Change transparent Color

Lets you define a new transparent color for the current brush.

Load Brush/Save Brush

Load or save a brush as a common image file.


Menu Mode

This menu is a list of the different drawing modes.

Commonly whenever you draw with the foreground color (drawing with left mouse button) the mode you have chosen here will be used.

This mode also affects drawing primitives like lines, rectangles, circles...

Some paint modes do color calculations. Because there are only 256 colors that can be used the quality of the result may be poor. The more colors of different kind your color table contains the better the results will be.

Paint

Paints with current brush as it is. That means the brush is simply stamped down.

Brighten

Brightens image colors. You can set the strength of brightening in the Settings (see below)

Darken

Darkens image colors. You can set the strength of this mode in the Settings (see below)

Tint

Tints image colors with brush colors. That means the brightness of each image pixel is taken and the color from the corresponding brush pixel. Both are mixed together and the result is a pixel with the brush pixel color and the image pixel brightness.

Shift Hue

Takes the Hue (color model HSV) of the image pixels and rotates it (0..360°). You can set the strength of this mode in the Settings (see below)

Inc/Dec Saturation

Increments/decrements the Saturation(color model HSV) of the image pixel colors. You can set the strength and type of this mode in the Settings (see below)

Invert

Simply inverts the image colors using the RGB-color model. A Red value of f.e. 40 will then be 215 (=255-40).

Difference

Uses difference values between image and brush colors for painting (RGB color model).

Translucent

Mixes image and brush colors. You can define a proportional weighting for this mode. That means the result color is calculated by x% of the image color and y% of the brush color and x+y=100%. See the paint mode Settings below.

Dither

Paints using a dither pattern. The ordered dither pattern is calculated upon a value between 0 and 255. This value can be set in the paint mode Settings below.

Colorcycle

Uses the colors of the current gradient one after another. If the last gradient color is passed the first one is used again...

Gray

Reduces the image colors to gray levels.

Rub Through

When drawing with this mode the image that resides in the "Spare Frame" (see descriptions for menu Frame) becomes visible. You "rub through" to the spare frame.

Shade

Shifts the image colors which are part of the current gradient. So for each color the next color within the gradient will be used.

Paint single Color

Draws using current foreground color regardless if the brush has more than one color.

Replace

Draws with the current brush but without transparency.

Smear

Smears the colors in the drawing direction. Only use with continuous painting or continuous line modes.

Blend

Smears the colors in the drawing direction and applies smoothing. Only use with continuous painting or continuous line modes.

Filter (submenu)

HIGHPASS

Increases brightness contrasts.

Soften

Softens color contrasts and makes the image unsharp.

Soften more

Stronger soften mode.

Light Edges SE

Emphasizes edges that are nearly parallel to south, east or south east direction.

Light Edges NW

Emphasizes edges that are nearly parallel to west, north or north west direction

Emboss I

Puts dark colored areas into the "background". So the objects look embossed.

Emboss II

Puts light colored areas into the "background".

Settings

Here you can change values for certain paint modes.


Menu Frame

This menu contains functions that refer to a single image or an animation frame.

Clear

Clears current image, a range of frames or the whole animation by filling it with the current background color.

To define what is to be erased see the Clear Tool in the description of the Toolbox.

Next

Switches to the next frame of the animation.

Previous

Switches to the previous image of the animation

First Frame

Jumps to the first image of the animation.

Last Frame

Jumps to the last image of the animation

Resize

Enables you to resize an image.

Copy

You can copy single frames or ranges with this command.

Insert

Inserts an image to the current position. The previous image is automatically copied into the new image.

Delete

Removes the current image from the animation.

Spare Frame (submenu)

The spare frame is a separate image that can be used for different purposes. For example you can do little test drawings, use it as a little container, take it as a background image for your animation together with the light table. It is also used by the paint mode Rub Through (see descriptions for menu Mode).

Also a mask shape can be defined in this spare frame. See the Painting Tutorial Masks.

Frame -> Spare Frame

Copies the current image to the spare frame

Frame <- Spare Frame

Copies spare frame to the current image

Frame <-> Spare Frame

Swaps spare frame with current image

Scroll (submenu)

Here you can scroll the entire image pixelwise to the directions:

Left, Right, Up, Down

Scrolls to the corresponding direction

Scroll all Frames

When selected, all frames of an animation will be scrolled

Background fixed

This function simply takes the current image and uses it as background. If you now draw something on this image with the foreground color it can be removed again by using the background color. Instead of drawing with the background color the image is restored.

This tool can not be used together with the light table.

See also the description of the Toolbox

LOAD/SAVE

Loads/Saves an image from/to disk.


Menu Animation

This menu contains functions that refer to a sequence of images. This sequence can be set up in the control panel. For more information please have a look at chapter Getting started section Workspace.

Play forward

Plays the selected image sequence forward one time.

Play backward

Plays the selected image sequence backward one time.

Ping Pong

Plays the selected image sequence endless forward and backward.

Loop Forward

Plays the chosen image sequence forward as an endless loop.

Loop Backward

Plays the chosen image sequence backward as an endless loop.

Stop

Stops playing the animation.

Number of Frames

Here you can change the number of frames the animation contains.

Insert Frames

Lets you insert a number of frames to the current position.

Delete Frames

Lets you delete a range of frames from the animation.

Revert Frames

Select a range of frames which have to be set to reverse order.

Flip Frames (submenu)

Enables you to flip a range of Frames either

Horizontal

or

Vertical

Create Animation

Lets you create animation sequences in 3d.

Create from Undo Buffer

Creates an animation from your drawing steps. A new project will be used to place the animation to.

Effects

shows a dialog box, that lets you apply several transition effects to your animation

Light Table (submenu)

Adjust Light Table

Shows a dialog box, where you can set up adjustments for the light table.

Light Table On

Switches the light table on or off.

For a more detailed description on how to use the light table please have a look at the Painting Tutorial "Animation” in the digital handbook.

Melt Frames

Opens a dialog box where you create an animation of the images shown by the light table.

Load Animation

Load an animation from disk

Load Animation to Position

Shows a dialog box, which lets you load an animation to a special position (x, y coordinate and frame number) within the current animation.

Load as single Images

Lets you define a range of single images to create an animation from.

Append Animation

loads an animation from disk and appends it to the last image of current animation if the frame size of the new animation is smaller or equal to the current frame size.

Save clipped Animation

Lets you define a rectangular clipping region to save as animation.

Save Animation as single Images

Shows a dialog box, where you can save an animation to single images.

Save Animation

Saves the whole animation to disk.


Menu Colors

This menu contains functions for work with color tables and gradients.

Edit Palette

Opens the palette editor. For a detailed description please see the description for the Tool Box.

Edit Gradient

Opens the gradient editor. For a detailed description please see the description for the Tool Box.

Reset to Default

Resets the color palette to the selected standard palette. The standard palette can be chosen in the Preferences section Directories. Please see the description for the menu File.

Sort Palette (submenu)

Color

Sorts the colors in the palette starting with white.

Hue

Sorts the colors in the palette according to their Hue in the HSV color space.

Saturation

Sorts the colors in the palette according to their Saturation in the HSV color space.

Brightness

Sorts the colors in the palette according to their Brightness in the HSV color space.

After using one of these functions you should use the "Remap" function from the Color  menu to fit the image or animation to the new color table.

Count Colors used

Gives you the number of palette entries that are actually used by the image.

Get Palette from Brush

Copies the brush color table to the current frame palette.

Use the Remap function from the Color  menu to fit the image to the new color table.

Import Colors from Brush

Copies as much as possible colors from the current brush to the current image"s color table. If not all brush colors can be imported the most important brush colors are used.

Remap Colors (submenu)

If you change the color table but you don"t want these changes to take affect to the image. This function adapts all colors of an image to their current color table according to the colors the image had before the change.

You can remap the colors of

Frame

Animation

Brush

Resample Colors (submenu)

This function does the same as Remap Colors but the image will be dithered to increase quality.

You can resample the colors of

Frame

Animation

Swap FG<>BG Color (submenu)

Swaps the current selected foreground color index with the background color index in either

Picture/Animation

or

Brush

Reduce Colors

Opens a dialog box that allows you to reduce the number of colors used by an image or a range of frames.

Single Palette

Opens a dialog box that allows you to make a range of images using the same color table

Copy Palette

Shows a dialog box, where you can copy a range of the current palette colors to other frame"s color tables.

Remove Colors (submenu)

You can remove certain colors from the current frame:

Remove unused Colors

Removes all colors from the color table which don"t appear in the image. This is done by setting these colors to black.

Remove duplicate Colors

Removes all colors from the color table which are duplicated.

Load Palette

Loads a color palette from either a palette file or from an image file.

Save Palette

Saves a color palette file.


Menu Stencil

This menu contains functions for painting with a stencil (color mask).

Stencil On

Switches the stencil on/off

Make Stencil

Shows a dialog box, where you can specify the stencil.

For a detailed description please have a look at the description for the Tool Box.

Load Stencil

Loads a stencil file from disk.

Save Stencil

Saves a stencil file to disk.


Menu Clipboard

With these functions you can transfer single images from and to other applications using the Windows Clipboard.

Copy Frame to Clipboard

Copies current image to the Windows Clipboard.

Cut Frame to Clipboard

Copies current image to the Windows Clipboard and removes it from the animation.

Copy Frame from Clipboard

Reads an image from the Windows Clipboard.

Paste Frame from Clipboard

Reads an image from the Windows Clipboard and inserts it into the animation.

Put Brush to Clipboard

Copies current brush to Windows Clipboard.

Get Brush from Clipboard

Reads an image from the Windows Clipboard and uses this as brush.

(this function is only available if the clipboard contains a 256 color image!) Use Remap Colors or Get Palette from Brush from the Colors menu if the color tables of brush and current image are different.

Color "0" is assumed as transparent.


Menu Plugins

This menu shows installed plugins. You can start them by clicking on the plugin menu entry.

Import

contains plugins that import graphics of other file formats than supported directly by Pro Motion.

Export

Contains plugins, that can save graphics to other file formats than supported directly by Pro Motion.

Manipulation

Contains plugins that can modify animations or images.


Menu Options

With this menu you can select different options like visible windows...

Zoom Grid

Adjust Zoom Grid

Shows a dialog box , where you can change visibility, color and  of the zoom grid.

Show Zoom Grid

Switches zoom grid on/off

Windows

Arrange Windows

Fits all visible but requester windows into the workspace.

There are two different methods of arranging window depending on where the toolbox is placed. If it"s on the right halve of the main window it will be placed at the right border and the magnify window to its left side...

If it"s on the left halve of the main window it will be placed at the left border and the magnify window to its right side...

Save Positions/Size

Saves current window positions and sizes of the workspace.

This can be used to make the current window arrangement to the default arrangement after startup. See also function Restore Positions/Sizes.

Save Positions/Sizes (Zoom)

Saves current window positions and sizes of the workspace. This window arrangement is restored if you

use the zoom tool (magnify glass on the toolbar). This allows you to have different window positions

when working in zoom or normal mode. This function must be activated in the preferences.

Restore Positions and Sizes

Restores the window positions saved with "Save Position Sizes"

Restore Positions and Sizes (Zoom)

Restores the window positions saved with "Save Position Sizes"

Show Toolbox

Switches the tool panel on/off

Show Animation Window

Switches window on/off where the animation is replayed.

Show Info Panel

Switches information panel (colors/sizes/positions) on/off

Show Control Panel

Switches the animation control panel on/off

Show Palette

Switches the resizeable palette window on/off.

Show Brush Container

Switches the brush container on/off

Screen Synchronization

If this option is activated each animation frame is synchronized to the display.

This is important is program is run under a desktop color depth of 8bits and frames have different palettes to prevent color flickering. Does not work under Windows NT.

Animate Magnify Window

If this option is activated, the animation will be played only in the Magnify Window (with current zoom mode).

Equal Palettes

If the palette of the current frame is changed manually (gradient calculation or changing the color value of an palette index), the changes will be set to all frames within the selected range.

Use Spare Frame as Mask

If this option is activated, the image in the "Spare Frame" (see Menu "Frame") is used as drawing mask.

Anti Alias

If this option is activated, an Anti Alias Filter is calculated over a drawn object. This function reduces aliasing effects like "stairs" caused by pixel lines.

It can also be used when calculating an animation with the 3d-keyframer.


Menu Help

This menu contains the usual "Help"-functions for the Online-Help.

Contents

Shows the contents of the help file

Search

Jumps to the help-search engine

About

Shows informations concerning the application


Tool Box

By default the toolbox is displayed vertically on the right hand side of the workspace. You may place it at any other position.

To flip between vertical and horizontal orientation use [ALT+T]

Remarks

Each icon symbolizes a special tool. A tool is activated by leftclicking on its icon or by using the shortcut [...].

Symbols that have a little triangle on their top left corner can be customized. That means if you rightclick on them, a dialog box is displayed where settings for this tool can be changed.

If an icon has a plus on its lower right corner then this button represents a group of tools. To select another tool from such a group just double-click on this icon and a little tool palette opens. Then choose a different tool from this palette.

All paint tools like line, circle, fill, spray... work the same way. If you use the left mouse button the current foreground color and/or the currently selected paint mode is used (see descriptions for menu "Mode"). If you use the right mouse button then you draw with the background color.

Also, when using paint tools you can lock the mouse movement to either horizontal or vertical direction. This can be done by holding the SHIFT-key. Then the first movement defines the movement that is not to be locked.

For tools which create objects like line, rectangle, circle etc. the object sizes are displayed in the information panel see descriptions for the Workspace at chapter Getting started.

Predefined Brushes

There are six predefined brushes that can be chosen by leftclicking on one of these brush shapes.

The first row contains three rectangular brushes of different size and the second row contains three circular brushes. If you rightclick on a brush you will be set to the resize mode. The cursor changes and you can resize the brush by moving your mouse and keeping the left button down. In this resize mode you can use the ALT key to switch between normal and proportional resizing.

Use [+] / [-] to increase or decrease the size of the current brush while drawing.

Paint dotted

Shortcut: S

This tool stamps the current brush on the canvas. That means it creates a row of single brush dots without connecting them to a line. The faster you move you mouse while drawing the more space will be between these dots.

If you hold the ALT key while drawing with this tool the AnimPainting is started. That means that you automatically advance through the frames. Hold the ALT+CTRL keys to stamp an AnimBrush down over multiple frames.

Rightclick on this icon to set up the single dot spacing.

Paint continuous

Shortcut: D

This tool works the same way as paint dotted  but the brush dots are connected by lines.

Line

Draws a straight line using current brush:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point for the line

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create a straight line

• release the mouse button

Rightclick on the line icon to enter the dot spacing requester for lines. These settings apply to all paint tools using lines such as circle, rectangle, line, polyline and spline!

Polyline

Draws a polyline that consists of straight lines:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create a straight line

• release the mouse button

• move the mouse to create a new line

• click on the mouse button you started drawing with to set the new line or use the other mouse button to finish drawing

Rightclick on the line icon to enter the settings requester for dot spacing.

Filled Polyline

Draws a filled polygon that can consist of straight lines or freehand drawn parts:

• click on the canvas to start drawing

• draw a polyline as described at the polyline tool

• while holding the mouse button down you can draw a shape freehand

• close the polygon by either setting the end of the last line to the start of the first line or by clicking on the opposite mouse button you started drawing with

• now set the orientation line for the filling mode (gradient filling) by moving your mouse and clicking the left mouse button

Rightclick on this icon to enter the fill style requester. These settings apply to the fill tool (paint bucket) tool!

Shortcut: SHIFT+F

Spline

Draws a three point spline curve:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point for the line

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create a straight line

• release the mouse button to set a straight line

• move the mouse to define a curve

• use the mouse button to draw the curve

Rightclick on the line icon to enter the settings requester for dot spacing.

Spray Can

The spray can is used to simulate an airbrush. There are two different spray types that can be used.

To select a type rightclick on this tool and a settings requester appears.

Rectangle (unfilled / filled)

Shortcut: R , SHIFT+R

To choose between the filled and unfilled double-click on the tool icon and select the corresponding tool from the palette that is displayed. Unfilled mode paints a rectangle using the current brush. The filled mode can be used to draw a solid or brush filled rectangle.

Draw a rectangle:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create a rectangle

• release the mouse button

The ALT-key can be used to switch between square and rectangle while drawing.

If you use the unfilled rectangle rightclick on this icon to change the dot spacing for lines.

The fill style requester for the filled rectangles is accessed by rightclicking on the filled rectangle icon.

This fill style is also used by the filled cycle tool.

Circle (unfilled / filled)

Shortcut: C , SHIFT+C

To choose between the filled and unfilled double-click on the tool icon and select the corresponding tool from the palette that is displayed. Unfilled mode paints a circle using the current brush. The filled mode can be used to draw a solid or brush filled circle.

A circle can be drawn in two ways. In one hand you can create a circle by defining the bounding rectangle or by setting the center and defining the radius. This option can be changed in the preferences section "miscellaneous” (see descriptions for menu "File”).

Draw a circle:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point (the center of the circle or the corner of the bounding rectangle)

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create the circle

• release the mouse button

The ALT-key can be used to switch between a true circle and an ellipse while drawing.

If you use the unfilled circle rightclick on this icon to change the dot spacing for lines. See the line tool for more information.

The fill style requester for the filled circle is accessed by rightclicking on the filled circle icon. See filled rectangle for more informations.

Brush Picker (rectangular)

Shortcut: B

Use this tool to create a custom brush:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create a rectangular selection

• release the mouse button

• Now a brush is created from the selected image part.

The current background color is automatically taken as the brush"s transparent color. If you use the right mouse button to pick up a brush it is removed from the image by filling the selection with the background color.

With this tool you can also pick up animated brushes (brushes which are animations itself).

To do this just hold the ALT key while picking up the brush.

Then a series of frames starting with the current one are picked up into the animated brush. To set up the number of frames to be picked up use the settings for animated brushes. See descriptions for menu "Brush” submenu "AnimBrush" entry "Settings".

Brush Picker (freehand/polygonal)

Shortcut: ALT+B

Use this tool to create a custom brush with a freehand or polygonal selection. A polygonal selection may contain freehand defined parts.

Freehand:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point of the selection

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create freehand area that defines the image part you want to pick up as a brush

• release the mouse button

• the selection is closed automatically

Polygonal:

• click on the canvas to set the starting point of the selection

• hold the mouse button and move the mouse to create freehand area that defines the image part you want to pick up as a brush

• release the mouse button and move the mouse to create a line to be part of the selection

• hit the mouse button and go to step two or hit the opposite mouse button you started with to finish the selection

• the selection is closed automatically

Now a brush is created from the selected image part. The current background color is automatically taken as the brush"s transparent color. If you use the right mouse button to pick up a brush it is removed from the image by filling the selection with the background color.

Fill Tool (Paint Bucket)

Shortcut: F

Use this tool to fill an area of a certain color with either another color, a color gradient or a pattern:

• click into the area you want to fill

• hold the mouse button and move your mouse to define the starting point or the orientation for a gradient filling method (not used for solid color or pattern filling)

• release the mouse button

To select a fill style just rightclick on the tool icon and the fill style requester appears.

If you hold the ALT-key while filling the following animation frames will be filled too!

Magnifier

Shortcut: M , < for zooming in, > for zooming out

The magnifying glass lets you zoom into the current image. There are two different zoom modes:

• a simple click on the canvas with the left mouse button increases the zoom level one step where the right mouse button decreases

• to zoom into a certain area left click on the canvas and move your mouse to define a region that is to be zoomed

Zooming is only possible within the magnify window!

As a special option you can use different window positions when using the magnifying glass. This option can be set in the preferences section "miscellaneous” (see descriptions for menu "File”).

Grid

Shortcut: G

The grid can be used to let the brush or mouse position snap to cross points of a defined grid or to create tile graphics.

Rightclick on this icon to get into the grid setup.

Light Table

Shortcut: L

The light table is a very powerful tool that enables you to display several (key)frames of an animation upon another to draw animation steps between. You may even use different projects to be used in the light table layers. This method is also known as onion skinning. Each layer of the light table may get a unique brightness value so that you can differ between the key frames.

For a more detailed description on how to use the light table please have a look at the Painting Tutorial "Animation” in the digital handbook.

Rightclick on this icon to set up the light table (shortcut: SHIFT+L):

Clear

Shortcut: K

Simply clears the current image, a sequence of frames or the whole animation by filling them with the current background color.

To set up this tool rightclick on this icon and the requester appears.

Text tool

Shortcut: T

Click on this tool to create a brush from a text using the installed Windows fonts.

Undo / Redo

Shortcut: U / I

Up to the last 64 drawing operations can be made undone. That means you can f.e. draw three lines and by pressing "U" you can remove these lines step by step and with "I" you can redraw them again.

Undo-s to palette operations are not supported!

With CTRL+U and CTRL+I you can go all steps backward and forward.

Stencil

Shortcut: SHIFT+S

The stencil is a mask that is defined through the color table. That means you can mark colors that are left untouched when drawing over them.

Rightclick on this tool to set up this mask

AntiAlias Option

Shortcut: ALT+A

Use this option to remove aliasing effects. Such effects occur, if you f.e. draw a line on the canvas

With rightclicking on this tool you can change between different antialiasing algorithms.

Pipette

Shortcut: ","

Use the pipette to get a certain color from an image as foreground (left mouse button) or background color (right mouse button).

For a temporary pipette use the CTRL key. The pipette will then appear as long as you hold this key down. This is very useful for quick color changes.

If you hold the ALT key when using the pipette tool you can replace the color under the cursor by the current foreground/background color throughout the entire image by left/rightclicking on a pixel.

Zoom Level

Shortcut: "<"  ">"

Use it to change the zoom level to a special value or "<" and ">" to decrease and increase it.

Only the magnify window is used for zooming.

Palette Editor

Shortcut: P

This will bring you to the common palette editor, where the palette of the current image can be changed.

Gradient Editor

Shortcut: Q

With this editor you can define and change color ranges within the palette.


New Requester

This Requester is displayed when creatin a new animation or image.

•define the Width and Height for the new image or animation and set the Number of Frames you need

•Get Dimensions from Brush uses the currents brush with/height and if it"s an animated brush the number of frames it contains

•Memory Usage shows you the amount of memory the project will need

•Memory available shows the free memory that can be used

•With Load Image / Load Animation you can create an image/animation from a file

As a thumb rule you should only use three quarters of your physical memory.


Quantize Colors Requester

This requester appears if you try to load images or animations containing more that 256 colors. It enables you to choose from different color reduction methods.

You can choose between two reduction methods.

• Nearest Color reduces the image colors by finding the best matching colors within the color palette that is used

• Error Diffusion applies a Floyd/Steinberg dithering to the image. This increases the image quality.

• You can reduce the image to a certain Number of Colors between 2 and 256

• The palette the image is reduced to can be an Optimized Palette that is created from the 24bit image or the Current Palette that is used by the frame.


Preferences Requester

The preferences are very important to customize Pro Motion to your needs. There are a lot of options that affect the applications behavior or look.

The different sections and their options:

Directories

Undo directory is the directory where all undo-files are saved. Please make certain that there is always enough disk space available (5MB, better 20MB). Otherwise the undo function does not work properly.

Default Palette: You may select a different default palette here. Hit the little button besides to open a palette file.

Light Table

Set layer brightness of the light table... sets layer brightness of the light table images to "0" when an animation is played.

This will improve the playback performance when the light table is switched on.

Switch light table off when playing... switches light table off if an animation is played.

Controls

Spacebar hides... means if the spacebar can hide/show certain windows. With the checkboxes you can choose the windows that should be hidden/displayed when hitting the spacebar.

Keys for cycling... allows you to change the keys used to step with the foreground color through the palette.

Windows

Auto-resize after loading... automatically resizes the animation playback window after loading an image/animation.

Auto-move Windows... moves all windows of the application automatically when the main window is moved.

Display New Animation Dialog... shows the dialog box to create a new animation after Pro Motion is started.

Use different Window Positions when... uses a separately saved window configuration (position and sizes) if you use the zoom mode. See descriptions for menu Options submenu Windows.

Miscellaneous

Center Animation Window... centers the animation window on the screen when it is played. After playback the previous window position will be restored.

Correct rectangular... corrects the brush size after creation with the brush picker when the lockgrid is activated. The rightmost and lowest pixel row is removed. This is used to create a brush that has the dimensions of the lockgrid snap spaces. See descriptions for the toolbox and the grid tool.

Use fps instead... uses the measurement unit "frames per second" instead of milliseconds to describe delays between frames. If you use fps then all frames have the same delay according to the fps value you enter on the right side of the animation control panel.

Import Image as... keeps current animation sizes when an image is loaded and imports it as a frame.

Create centered Circles... creates circles from their center. That means you at first set the center of the circle and by moving the mouse you define the radius.

Autotransparency when... If you create a brush using the box selection (brush picker) and all four corner pixels have the same color then this color is automatically used as transparent.

Default Page Size... defines the image size that is used after the program is started.

Default Zoom... defines the zoom value that is used after the program is started.

Default Anti-Aliasing... lets you choose of two types of antialiasing algorithms. Algorithm 1 is better used for drawing lines circles or freehand. Algorithm 2 has better results when creating text.

Activate single Dot Paint Tool... activates the single dot paint tool after creating a custom brush with one of the brush pickers. If this option is not selected the last used paint tool will be switched after creating a brush.

Update Magnify Window when cycling... updates the magnify window too if you use the gradient cycling and you are running your Windows desktop with more than 256 colors. For more information see descriptions for the Gradient Editor/Toolbox.

Text brush is single colored... creates text brushes in single color mode that enables you to change the text color by just selecting a new foreground color.

Save BMP Files with least possible Color Depth... Saves BMP files with only necessary colors. That means if you use only the first 16 palette entries for your image then the image is saved as a 16 color image instead of a 256 color image.

Mouse

Mousespeed... lets you use a different mouse speed that is only used with this application. If you switch to another program the system default is restored.

AniCursor/Icons

Save Icons and Cursors... saves icons and animated cursors with 256 colors.

Hotspot Coordinates... define the coordinates within a cursor to be used as hotspot.

JPEG Export

Quality (0-100)... selects the compression ratio for JPEG saving. "0" is least compression, but highest image quality.

Progressive Encoding... decides if the JPEG image is to be saved with progressive mode.


AnimBrush Settings Requester

Allows you to change the settings for animated brushes such as playback speed and direction or the number of frames to be taken into an animated brush.

• Frames to grab defines the number of frames that are to be taken up into the animated brush when it is created. For informations on how create an animated brush please have a look at the Brush Picker tool (descriptions for the toolbox)

• Animate shows the direction for the AnimBrush playback (backward, none, forward, pingpong)

• Animation Step describes the frames that have to be used while playback (1=each, 2=each second, 3=each third ...)

• With Current Frame you can jump to a certain frame of the current AnimBrush


Change transparent Brush Color Requester

Allows you to change the color index that is transparent within the brush.

With the slider you can scroll through all 256 colors.

Index shows the current color number and R,G,B show the color values of this color.


Paint Mode Settings Requester

This requester is used to set up the scalable paint modes such as Brighten or Darken.

• Brighten is the value for the brighten paint mode and defines how much a color is to be brightened up

• Darken is the value for the darken paint mode and defines how much a color is to be darkened down

• Translucent mixes colors the following way: result color = x% of brush pixel color + (100-xx)% of image pixel color

• Dec/Inc Saturation: The value determines if the saturation is to be decreased (value below zero) or increased (value above zero).

• Dec/Inc Hue: The value determines if the hue is to be shifted downward (value below zero) or upward (value above zero).

• Dither is the dither strength for the corresponding paint mode. The value can be between 0..255 where 0 is no dithering and the larger the value becomes the more foreground color is used for dithering.

This dialog box can stay open while drawing. So you can change certain values quickly without opening and closing it. Below the dither slider you can set up different dither patterns for quick selection.


Resize Image Requester

You can resize the canvas of an image using this requester.

• New Width and New Height define the dimensions the image is to be scaled to

• Maintain Aspect Ratio keeps the images width-height proportion. So you can then only change either width or height.

• Image Top Left places the old image to the top left corner of the new image.

• Center Image places the old image to the center of the new image.

• Scale Image scales/stretches the old image to fit into the new dimensions.

Resizing is not available for animations!


Copy Frames Requester

You can Copy, Move or Insert a frame or a range of frames to another position within the current project or into another one.

If Range of Frames is selected then First Frame and Last Frame define this range. Otherwise only the First Frame is used.

Define a Source Project where the frame(s) are to be taken from.

The destination of the frame(s) must be defined in the To Frames input field.

Here you can type numbers separated by commas and/or ranges using a "-". Example: 3,5,10-15

When using Move or Insert only one destination is allowed!

Also be careful not to overlap destination regions!

The frame(s) are copied/moved/inserted to the Destination Project.


Number of Frames Requester

Use this requester to enter the number of frames the animation will contain.

If the new Number of Frames is larger than the current then new frames are appended and the last image is copied on them.

If the new Number of Frames is smaller than the current then frames are cut off the end of the animation.


Frame Range Requester

This requester is used to define a range of frames. This dialog appears for example if you use the Delete or Revert Frames functions...


Create Animation Requester

This dialog box is used to create animations using the current brush image. The brush is a texture and you can give it rotation and position values within the 3d space.

For a tutorial on how to create such animations please refer to the Painting Tutorial "Animation" in the digital handbook.

Here you will only find a short description of this dialog box to be used as a quick reference.

The idea is to define two keyframes and to set different brush position or rotation values for these keyframes. Then the frames in between are calculated automatically.

• Frame is the frame number of the (first/second) keyframe of the animation sequence that is to be created.

• First Position and First Rotation define the 3d-coordinates and the rotation position of the brush that are to be used for the first keyframe.

• Last Position and Last Rotation are used for the second keyframe the same way.

The position coordinates are relative to the brush center.

Click on one of the two preview images to jump into interactive brush movement.

The rotation/position values relate to the Brush Grip which is the brush center by default (0,0,0).

You can see the look of these keyframes in the corresponding preview images.

The brush is displayed as a bounding rectangle of corresponding size and the brush edges on the right and at the top are white for displaying the brush direction.

The images will be calculated using a perspective view. The positive z-axis is defined into the screen depth.

So the brush gets smaller with increasing z-position. The center of the coordinate system

(0,0,0) is in the middle of the screen.

Preview can be used to see the animation as a wireframe preview.

• Clear Frames erases all frames of the animation before calculation.

• Trace copies the previous frame to the current frame that is to be calculated to create a trace of the brush movement.

• Spare Frame as Background uses the Spare Frame (see description for menu Frame) as background image for each frame. The animation is drawn on this image.

• Brush Grip selects the point within the brush relative to its center, where it should be rotated and moved.

• Linear, Accelerate and Decelerate define the kind of movement.

• Cycle calculates an animation, that can be played as loop. If the first frame and the last frame are identical, an animation jerks a bit, this can be removed with Cycle. The last frame will be calculated that it has a smooth passage to the first frame.

• The C buttons set the corresponding input fields to "0".

• The B buttons can be used to put the last position, where the brush was drawn to, into the corresponding edit fields. So you can stamp a brush down to the canvas (f.e. in the magnify window), go to this animation requester and hit a B button where these coordinates have to be used. This gives you the possibility of pixel precise positioning.

• The S buttons swap the corresponding values between first and last keyframe

• Make Animation calculates the animation finally.

• Frames Modulo... calculates an animation that has the given number of frames. That means, that an animation, which is f.e. 40 frames long, will be calculated into 20 frames when using "...Modulo: 20". To do this the 21st frame will be calculated into the first frame (the frame number selected as First Frame) and so forth.


Interactive Movement Requester

This requester appears when you click on one of the wire frame displays of the Create Animation Requester.

Here you can place the brush position/rotation with your mouse. That means you click on the preview area and move your mouse to change the position/rotation.

To chose between editing rotation or position use the corresponding radiobutton. Mouse control defines which mouse movement changes which coordinate value:

Mousecontrol	Mouse Movement X	Mouse Movement Y

XY	X	Y

XZ	X	Z

ZY	Z	Y

X	X	none

Y	none	Y

Z	Z	none

You may also enter values into the edit fields directly. Each input must be finished by pressing the ENTER key!

Show Frame allows you to display the corresponding frame image if available behind the wire frame. This can help you to place the brush more exactly.


Effects Requester

This requester is used to apply different transition effects on your animation.

Effect describes the type of effect that is to be applied to the animation.

First Frame and Last Frame define the frame range the effect will use.

When applying an effect the transition always starts with the first frame and ends with the last one. That means to create and effect in reverse order just swap the values for first and last frame.

So for example to fade out an image over 20 frames (1-20):

• copy it to frame 1

• enter 1 as first frame, 20 as last frame

• use the Fade Out Effect

But if you want to fade in the image you must

• copy it to frame 20

• enter 20 as first frame, 1 as last frame

• use the Fade Out Effect

Note: Depending on the type of effect chosen, additional checkboxes or edit fields can appear to change certain effect settings.

The transition effects are quite hard to describe. So here are only brief descriptions of how they work. In the directory Animations\FX examples of all effects can be found.

Shifting Bars (horizontal)

The images are divided into horizontal bars. The bar height can be defined with Bar Height.

During transition the last frame is shifted over the first frame, where alternately a bar is shifted from the left and from the right side. That means all odd bars (1,3,5...) are shifted from left to right and all even bars are shifted from right to left.

See file Animation\ShiftBH.flc

Shifting Bars (vertical)

The images are divided into vertical bars. The bar width can be defined with Bar Width.

During transition the last frame is shifted over the first frame, where alternately a bar is shifted from the top and from the bottom border. That means all odd bars (1,3,5...) are shifted from top to bottom and all even bars are shifted from bottom to top.

See file Animation\ShiftBV.flc

Stepping Bars (horizontal)

The images are divided into horizontal bars. The bar height can be defined with Bar Height.

During transition the last frame is copied on the first frame, where at first all odd bars (1,3,5...) are copied from top to bottom and then all even bars are copied from bottom to top.

See file Animation\StepBH.flc

Stepping Bars (vertical)

The images are divided into vertical bars. The bar width can be defined with Bar Width.

During transition the last frame is copied on the first frame, where at first all odd bars (1,3,5...) are copied from left to right and then all even bars are copied from right to left.

See file Animation\StepBV.flc

Window Shade (horizontal)

The images are divided into horizontal bars. The bar height is automatically defined by the number of frames used for the effect.

During transition the last frame is copied on the first frame, by lifting the bars up. So it looks a bit opening a window shade.

See file Animation\WShadeBH.flc

Window Shade (vertical)

The images are divided into vertical bars. The bar width is automatically defined by the number of frames used for the effect.

During transition the last frame is copied on the first frame, by lifting the bars aside.

See file Animation\WShadeBV.flc

Growing Window

The last image is copied over the first one using a window that starts from the center and grows to the full size of the image.

See file Animation\Grow.flc

Fade Out/In

Fading Out means that the brightness of an image is turned off step by step where the opposite effect is Fading In. You can also fade an animation sequence. To choose between image and animation fading a Copy button is displayed. If Copy is enabled then a single image is faded out/in. The image entered as first frame will be automatically copied to all other frames and the brightness will be changed.

If Copy is disabled then the brightness of each selected frame will be changed without modifying the image data.

Animation\FadeOut.flc

Fade Over

This effect fades over from one image to another. A 24bit with Dithering option appears. This mode yields better results, but causes the images to be dithered. This can lead to a bad compression ratio when saving this animation.

Animation\FadeOver.flc

Color Cycle

Cycles the colors of the currently selected gradient once over the selected range of Frames. As well as with the FadeOut/In effect you can use this effect on an animation sequence or on a single image.

Animation\Cycle.flc

Mosaic Out/In

Mosaic Out means that an image"s  resolution is made lower. That means more and more neighbored pixels are combined to a larger pixel. The destination pixel (mosaic) size can be set in the Size edit field. As well as with the FadeOut/In effect you can use this effect on an animation sequence or on a single image.

Animation\MosaicOut.flc

Dither

Fades over from the first image to the last one by showing more and more pixels from the last image.

Animation\Dither.flc

Zoom

Lets the last frame zoom from the first frame"s center.

Animation\Zoom.flc


Light Table Requester

The light table is a very powerful tool that enables you to display several (key)frames of an animation upon another to draw animation steps between. You may even use different projects to be used in the light table layers. This method is also known as onion skinning. Each layer of the light table may get a unique brightness value so that you can differ between the key frames.

For a more detailed description on how to use the light table please have a look at the Painting Tutorial "Animation”.

Layer are the different layers on the light table. Where "1" is the upper image and "12" is the lowest one. For each of these levels you may select a certain Project where an image is to be taken from. With Show you can select which frame is to be shown. You may choose the Spare Frame (See description for menu "Frame”) of this project or a regular Frame.

Up to twelve layers can be used

Position specifies the position relative to the current frame-number. A value of "-1" shows the previous frame and "2" the next but one.

Brightness adjusts the brightness an image layer is displayed with where 0 is normal brightness.

The current frame of the animation is always displayed on top with normal brightness.

Use Color displays a layer using a single color that can be chosen.

The light table can remain active when you start playing an animation. See preferences section "miscellaneous” for the corresponding option (descriptions for menu "File”)

Please notice that if you select brightness<>0 the playing speed will be quite slow.

It is recommended to select automatic brightness control in the preferences.

The Transparent Color is used to define a color for each single layer where the next underlying image is to be displayed.

The playing speed also slows down if the images shown by the light table have different color tables!


Melt Frames Requester

This requester enables you to melt the frames displayed by the light table.

With Start and End you can define a range of frames which are to be melted.

Melting frames means that the frames that are displayed using the light table are included in the animation. So that the animation looks like if the light table was still on.

So you can add background images to an animation. Or you can make one animation out of different ones. For example you have a general character animation and a separate animation for a backpack in the appropriate position in a second project. You can make a new animation containing backpack and character by laying these animations over another with the light table and by melting them using this dialog box.

Please keep in mind that the animations should use the same color table. Otherwise the best matching colors of the current animation are used.


Load Animation to Position Requester

With this requester you can load an animation to a special position (x, y coordinate and frame number) within the current animation.

• Top left X and Top left Y define the coordinates, where the animation has to be loaded to

• First Frame is the starting frame to which the animation is loaded


Load as single Images Requester

Use this requester to create an animation from sequentially loaded pictures.

Hold CTRL-Key and choose images from the list with your left mouse button.

These images will be loaded in alphabetical order.

When "Use largest Image's Size" is checked, the new animation will have the size (width/height) of the largest image selected. Otherwise the current size will be used.

The 24bit Images button enables you to select the color reduction method for true color images.


Save clipped Animation Requester

This requester lets you save a part of the animation. You can define a clipping box as well as first and last frame.

• Top left X, Top left Y, Bottom right X, Bottom right Y define the region that is to be saved as an animation

• First Frame and Last Frame is used to save a certain range of frames


Save Animation as single Images Requester

Use this requester to split an animation into files containing single images.

First Frame and Last Frame define the range of frames to be saved.

At Filename Prefix you can enter a name for use as a filename prefix. The images will be saved in numbered order (i.e. img001.pcx, img002.pcx ...).


Edit Palette Requester

This requester is made to change single entries of the current coor palette.

Foreground and background color are defined by left/rightclicking on the color boxes.

Their values (palette index and RGB) are shown below the color table.

To change the color of a certain palette entry just double-click and a color requester appears.

You may also use the little button on the left side of the "foreground" label to open an online color requester that allows immediate color definition. Click on the button again to close it.

• Ramp to allows you to create a smooth color ramp from one color to another one. To do this leftclick on a color where you want to start ramping. Hit the Ramp to button. The mouse cursor becomes a crosshair. Now leftclick on a second color to calculate a ramp to.

• Rampmode is used to define the color space where the ramping is to be calculated. You may select from HSV or RGB which yield different results

• Copy to allows you to copy a color value from one palette index to another. To do this leftclick on a color where you want to copy the values from. Hit the Copy to button. The mouse cursor becomes a crosshair. Now leftclick on the color you want to copy the values to.

• Swap with swaps the color values of two palette entries. Works like Copy to, but swaps the colors.

• Invert inverts the color values of the current foreground color.

• Gray makes the color values of the current foreground color to a gray value.

• Undo makes the last change undone.

• To Gradients takes you to the gradient editor (see descriptions for the Gradient Editor).

Auto update immediately makes color changes visible in the current image.


Color Requester

When changing color values of a color palette entry the color requester is always used.

Use the RGB sliders to change the Red, Green and Blue values of the color.

The HSV sliders change the values for the HSV color model where H=Hue (0..360°), S=Saturation (in %) and V=Value or Brightness (in %)

You can click on the color bar to choose a color directly.

• Auto update immediately updates color changes to the image


Gradient Editor

With this editor you can define and change color ranges within the palette.

A color range (gradient) is a group of color palette entries selected by a start and an end color.

You can have up to sixteen different gradients.

The first color of a gradient is surrounded by a yellow box and the last color by a green box.

To select a new start or end color hold the SHIFT key and leftclick on a color to select it as the first color or rightclick to select it as the last color. All colors belonging to the gradient are surrounded by a white box.

Below the color table you can see the gradient look.

Also color data is displayed for the first and last color (index and RGB-values).

• Ramp allows you to create a smooth color ramp from the first color to the last color.

• Rampmode is used to define the color space where the ramping is to be calculated. You may select from HSV or RGB which yield different results.

• Flip swaps the first and the last color index and lets you change the gradients direction.

• Copy to allows you to copy a gradient to another position.. Hit the Copy to button. The mouse cursor becomes a crosshair. Now leftclick on the color you want to copy the gradient to.

• Swap with works like Copy to, but swaps the colors instead of copying.

• Gray makes the selected gradient to be gray

• Undo makes the last operation undone.

• Auto update immediately updates color changes to the image

• To Palette takes you to the Palette Editor

• The slider besides the label Gradient allows you to change between the different gradients

You can also set keys within a gradient selection which are recognized when ramping a gradient. This is done by rightclicking on a color between the first and the last gradient color. Such a key color is marked with a red box.

It is possible to cycle a gradient. That means that the colors are shifted within the defined gradient range. For this purpose you have the Speed slider. Here you can give each gradient a unique speed value. This value is defined in steps per second and can go from 0 to 100. If you hold the little play button right besides the speed slider the cycling is activated. Now all gradients that have a speed different to zero are cycled. As default the cycling can only be seen in the animation window. To cycle the magnify window too you can set an option in the preferences section "miscellaneous” (see descriptions for menu "File”). The cycling can also be activated outside this editor while drawing. There is a play button near the gradient display on the information panel. See the description for the workspace in section Getting started.

Be sure not to overlap gradients that are cycled. Otherwise you will get wrong results!

For a little tutorial on how and where to use gradients and cycling please have a look at the Painting Tutorial "Working with Gradients" in the digital handbook.

Gradient data for an image can only be saved with the file type .lbm!!!


Reduce Colors Requester

Use this requester to reduce the colors for a single image or a range of frames.

• Use First Frame and Last Frame to define the range of frames that will have to use the same color palette.

• Use current palette applies the current frame's palette to all other frames.

• Create new Palette builds a new palette from all different color tables.

• You can also reduce the number of colors that should only be used by checking the Reduce Number of Colors

• Dither applies dithering to the color reduced image


Single Palette Requester

This requester helps you to make a range of frames using one palette.

• Use First Frame and Last Frame to define the range of frames that will have to use the same color palette.

• Use current palette applies the current frame's palette to all other frames.

• Create new Palette builds a new palette from all different color tables.

• You can also reduce the number of colors that should only be used by checking the Reduce Number of Colors

• Dither applies dithering to the color reduced image


Copy Palette Requester

This requester helps you to copy parts of the current palette to other ones.

• First Color and Last Color define the first and the last color index of the range to be copied.

• First Destination Color is the color index the range will be copied to.

• The to Frames input field contains the destination palettes. You can enter single frame numbers or ranges separated by commas.

• You may also select a different destination Project.

Example:

You want to copy colors 16-31 of the current color palette to colors 64-79 of the palettes 1,3 and 5-10.

"First Color": 16	"Last Color": 31

"First Destination Color": 64

"to frames": 1,3,5-10


Create Stencil Requester

The stencil is a mask that is defined through the color table. That means you can mark colors that are left untouched when drawing over them.

• Colors that are masked are surrounded by a white box

•  to select/deselect a color left-/rightclick on the corresponding box

• Clear deselects all colors

• Invert inverts all selections

• Undo makes all changes undone

• use Get Colors from Image to select colors directly from the image. Just click on pixels on the canvas. The dialog stays opened.

• A Tolerance value can be used to select a group of colors which are near to the actual selected color

• Make creates the mask

• Current shows the color index under the mouse cursor

The stencil can be used together with any drawing function except the fill tool.

When you capture a brush with the brush picker tools the masked colors are not taken into the brush. They are replaced by the transparent color. So you can create a brush using a color mask.


Adjust Zoom Grid Requester

This requester is used to customize the zoom grid.

• Grid Color defines the color of the normal grid

• The slider defines the minimum zoom level where the grid will be drawn

• Rule Color defines the color for additional rules

• Additional horizontal and vertical rules can be added with different pixel spaces defined by the corresponding input fields


Single Dot Spacing Requester

The Single Dot Step defines the minimum space between to single brush dots while drawing.


Dot Spacing Requester for Lines

This requester defines the dot mode for all tools using lines.

• Continuous is the default setting and does not create any space between single dots, but connects them by a line

• Every Nth Pixel draws a brush dot after leaving a space of N pixels

• N total Dots draws a line that consists exactly of N brush dots

• N defines the value needed for the last two modes


Fill Style Requester for Flood Filling

This requester enables you to select a special type of filling an area.

It is used by the filled polygon and the fill tool.

Fill type meanings:

• Solid color is used to fill the foreground or background color, depending which mouse button you used with the drawing tool

• Current Paint Mode fills with the current paint mode

• Outline surrounds the filling area with a pixel line

• Circular Gradient  creates a circular color shade centered to the specified point

• Horizontal Gradient  creates a horizontal color shade starting at the specified pixel column and spreading to left and right

• Vertical Gradient creates a vertical color shade starting at the specified pixel line and spreading to top and bottom

• Linear Gradient  creates a color shade of the given orientation

• Horizontal Line Contour Gradient  creates a horizontal color shade that is always fitted to the width of the current pixel line

• Vertical Line Contour Gradient  creates a vertical color shade that is always fitted to the height of the current pixel column

• Contour Gradient  creates a color shade that is fitted to the whole shape that is to be filled.

• Radial Gradient creates a radial color shade

• Brush Pattern  uses the current brush shape as a tiled pattern

• Brush Wrap matches the current brush to the shape of the area that is to be filled

To increase the filling area you can add set a tolerance value. If this value is "0" only the selected color will be used. The large the value is set the more neighbor colors will be filled too.

There are two different dither schemes:

• Ordered dithering increases the virtual color depth by applying an ordered dither pattern.

• Random dithering increases the virtual color depth by mixing neighboring pixels randomly.

Note: if Antialiasing is switched on (type 1), it is also applied to the filled area.


Spray Can Settings Requester

Use this requesetr to set up the spray type.

• Radius defines the size of the spray cone

• Pressure determines how much color is sprayed or how many brush dots are set

• Step is the distance that is used between the spray dots

The different spray types are:

• Airbrush  which simulates spraying with a single color

• Spray using brush simply draws brush dots randomly within the given radius

Using the airbrush simulation is very slow. Because of the 256 color restriction for each pixel that is calculated the best matching color within the color table must be found. Thus the results are often quite poor.


Fill Style Requester for Primitives

This requester selects the fill style that is used for filled primitives (rectangles and circles).

• Single Color fills with the foreground color using the current paint mode or with the background color

• Brush Pattern fills the shape with the current brush as a tiled pattern

• Brush Wrap fits the current brush to the shape


Lock Grid Requester

Use this requester to set up the lock grid.

• X-Step and Y-Step define the horizontal and vertical spaces between the grid points

• Align Left and Align Top set the position for one grid point to define the position of the grid

• Get from Brush uses the current brush"s width and height for X-Step and Y-Step and the last position the brush was stamped down for Align Left and Align Top

• Enable Tile-painting starts the tile mode (see below)

The grid can be used for all drawing tools except airbrush.

You can also use it together with the brush picker. There is an option that can be used to pick rectangular brushes correctly.

For example:

• you have a grid 16*16 aligned to 0x0

• that means the brush picker always snaps to a multiple of 16 for both coordinates x and y

• if you want to pick up a brush from f.e. 16x16 to 31x31 this is not possible, because the crosshairs of the brush picker snap to 32x32

To resolve this there is an option that automatically removes the rightmost and lowest pixel lines when picking up a brush this way. This option can be set in the preferences section "miscellaneous” (see descriptions for menu "File”).

The tile painting can be used to draw endless tile graphics. A tile has the size that is specified in the input fields for X-Step and Y-Step. Before you start drawing with this mode you need to clear the image! Otherwise the image data will be destroyed and you will get strange effects.

The tile painting can only be used with the following tools:

• dotted/continuous drawing

• (filled) rectangle

• (filled) circle

• lines

All other paint tools ignore this mode, so do not use them!


Clear Frames Requester

Use this requester to define a range of frames that is to be erased.

• Current Frame only erases the active frame

• All Frames erases the complete animation

• From ... to ... clears the specified range of frames


Create Text Requester

Use this requester to create a text brush.

Select a font that is to be used for the text brush. You can alter the size, style (bold, italic, underlined) and the alignment (left, center, right).

You may enter a multiline text.

The window can be resized!

The brush uses the current foreground color as text color and the background color as transparent. A text brush can get any color from the color palette.


AntiAlias Settings Requester

This requester lets you choose out of two antialias algorithms.

Type "1" has good results when drawing lines, circles or freehand but it can only be used with brushes larger than one pixel!

Type "2" yields better results for text brushes. It can be slightly scaled with the weight value. The larger this value the less the antialiasing will be.


Animation Control Panel

The animation control panel at the bottom of the main window:

   |	|	             |	Animation Control buttons	          |	    |

First frame	|	Last frame	         Frame Delay	    |

for playback	|	for playback	    |

|	         All" button

Scrollbar to navigate

through all frames

All animation playback functions refer to the selected range of frames. That means only the part of the animation that is selected with "First frame for playback" and  "Last frame for playback" will be played. The scrollbar can be used to quickly jump to certain frames.

Shortcut: Shift+4

Loops animation backward until Stop is pressed

Shortcut: ESC

Stops animation playback

Shortcut: Shift+1

Jumps to the first frame

Shortcut: Alt+1

Goes to the previous frame

Shortcut: Alt+2

Goes to the next frame

Shortcut: Shift+2

Goes to the last frame

Shortcut: Shift+5

Plays animation backward one time

Shortcut: Alt+5

Plays animation forward one time

Shortcut: Alt+6

Plays animation pingpong until Stop is pressed

Shortcut: Alt+4

Loops animation forward until Stop is pressed

Shortcut: Ctrl+Ins

Inserts a frame to the current position

Use Ctrl while clicking on this button to insert a range of frames

Shortcut: Ctrl+Del

Deletes the current frame

Use Ctrl while clicking on this button to delete a range of frames

The "Frame delay" can be set in two different modes:

1. Each frame has an own delay value that is used before the next frame is displayed. The delay must be given in milliseconds (ms). This is the default mode. When using this mode the "All" button can be used to set the current delay value to all selected frames. Use the Ctrl-key together with the "A" button to specify a different range of frames to set the current delay to.

2. The delay is given in frames per second and thus all frames have the same delay value. This mode can be switched on in the Preferences (menu File) section Miscellaneous.

When you start a playback mode the animation is centered to the screen an the playback starts. As soon as the animation stops the window is placed to its old position again. This is the default behavior which can be changed in the Preferences too.

The title bar of the animation window always contains the current frame number and the number of frames.


Brush Container

The brush container is used to work with different brushes at the same time.

You can place a brush into this conatiner and you get load one from it. This even works with animated brushes.

With the right mouse button you can place a brush into one of the nine containers and with the left mouse button you can retrieve a brush from it. Use SHIFT+left mouse button to swap the current brush with the one in the container field.


Workspace

This is a snapshot of the Pro Motion workspace.

To get more information about certain controls and windows just click on them...


Main Status Line
The status line shows informations about tools or functions and displays a progress bar when doing time consuming operations such as loading and saving data.


Main Colors
Current palette with buttons to scroll and to pull down.

Foreground/ background color are displayed together with a swap button.


Main Gradients
Currently selected gradient. Scrollbar to change. Buttons for gradient cycling and direction flipping.


Main Positions
Size information for brush and object.

Brush positions (top left, center, lower right)


Main Project Buttons
You may use up to 6 different projects which can be accessed through these buttons. Rightclick on a button to create a new project. The trash can is used to delete the current project.


Main Magnify Window
The magnify window displays the current image using the selected zoom level (see toolbox) and you can use its canvas to draw into this image.


Animation Window

This window is used for drawing and for playing back an animation. The menu Scale allows you to set the scaling size for the animation frames. Fit Window makes resizes the window borders so that it fits the image size.


What is Pro Motion?

Pro Motion is a drawing and animation package for graphics that contain up to 256 colors. You can use it to create comics, logos, still images, presentations, clip-arts or game graphics as well as to spruce up your web-pages.

The wide range of powerful functions and tools will help you to create high quality animations. Even if you are not one of the talented artists this software can help you with rendering various color or graphic effects for you. The built in keyframer allows you to calculate animations in 3d-space without expecting you to draw something on your own. Professional artists will find useful tools like the light table, helping to create smooth animations (also known as onion skinning).

You can bring your ideas down to sketches easily. Pro Motion was designed similar to the legendary Deluxe Paint which became very popular on the Amiga computer systems. Thus it is the best solution for all people who have been moving from Amiga to PC.

Although it is a 256 color only software you can import and export true color images and animations too, for example AVI-clips or JPEG files. Numerous supported file types will help you to work hand in hand with other graphics software.

To give you a little overview, here are some features:

* up to 2999 images, each can have its own color table with up to 256 colors and  a screen refresh rate of 60 images per second and even more

* images with a size up to 5000*5000 pixels (maximum width/height of 16384 pixels)

* 6 projects can be used simultaneously

* animations with different delays between frames, ideal for displaying images step by step for presentation graphics or for web-banners

* a light table that can be used to lay several images/animations upon another to draw smooth animation steps (also known as onion skinning)

* multi step Undo/Redo

* AntiAlias Functions

* free defineable Drawing masks

* animated Brushes (use a brush which is an animation itself)

* a keyframer, which helps you creating 3d-Animations based upon a 2d-image, ideal for presentation graphics

* special effects like mosaic, fade in/over/out, zoom or palette animations

* over 20 different painting methods like smoothing, colorcycling, embossing,

brighten, darken, smear, blend ...

* different filling methods for color shading

* 2 dither methods to increase color depth

* brush container to work with different brushes at the same time

* dozens of drawing tools (lines, curves, polygons, spray cans...)

* functions to create tile based textures

* brush manipulation (bend, shear, stretch...)

* a simple plugin-interface to expand prgram functions

* Autodesk´s FLI/FLC-support

* AVI Input/Output

* 24bit support via JPEG, BMP files or the Windows Clipboard

* support for 256 color icons and animated cursors

* a simple file format for sprite graphics, ideal for game developers

* separate freeware animation player


Getting started

To get started as fast as possible please check out the following:

1. Have a look at the screen elements of the main window.

2. Read and/or print the list of shortcuts to have an overview of the most important functions.

3. You can get context sensitive help for each active window by pressing F1.

4. The statusbar at the bottom of the main window will contain hints and descriptions on how to use functions or tools.

5. Try to usethe tutorials Ball and Text.

6. Check out the menus and their functions. A short description is given here.

7. Use the search function of the menu Help. The keyword index shows only the most important keywords. If you want to search for special informations use the free search.

8. Have a look at the Preferences (menu File). There you can set a lot of options to change the behavior of Pro Motion.

9. Some technical informations can be found here.

10. If you like download the Pro Motion manual at http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion     It contains guided tours and different tutorials


Keyboard Shortcuts

Brush commands

Shift+Y	double brush height

Shift+X	double brush width

H	halve brush size

Shift+H	double brush size

X	mirror brush horizontally

Y	mirror brush vertically

Z	rotate brush 90° counter clockwise

Ctrl+Z	rotate brush 90° clockwise

O	outline brush with foreground color

Ctrl+O	cut off outer pixel row

Alt+O	outline brush with foreground color and erase the inner area

Alt+C	brush grip center

Alt+X	brush grip top left

Alt+Y	brush grip lower right

Alt+H	set cutsom brush grip

Shift+B	restore last brush

Shift+Z	resize brush interactively

A	settings for animated brush

Shift+D	make brush to be single colored

Paint Modes

F2	normal brush paint

F3	brighten

F4	darken

F5	tint

F6	shift hue

F7	shift saturation

F8	invert

F9	draw with difference colors

Shift+F1	translucent

Shift+F2	dither

Shift+F3	gray

Shift+F4	high pass filter

Shift+F5	soften

Shift+F6	soften more

Shift+F7	light edges I

Shift+F8	light edges II

Shift+F9	emboss I

Ctrl+F3	emboss II

Ctrl+F5	shade

Ctrl+F6	draw with foreground color

Ctrl+F7	replace

Ctrl+F8	smear

Ctrl+F9	blend

Alt+F1	rub trough to spare frame

Ctrl+T	paint mode settings

Tab	color cycling

Ctrl+R	remap brush colors

Toolbox Commands

Alt+A	anti-alias on/off

B	grab brush as box-selection

Alt+B	grab brush freehand

C	circle

Shift+C	filled circle

D	draw continuous

F	fill

Shift+F	fill settings

G	lock rid on/off

I	redo (also Shift+middle mouse button)

Ctrl+I	executes all redo steps

K	clear frame

Shift+K	clear settings

L	light table on/off

Ctrl+Alt+L	light table settings

M	magnify tool on/off

R	rectangle

Shift+R	filled rectangle

S	draw dotted

Shift+S	stencil on/off

T	create text brush

Shift+T	define stencil

U	undo (also middle mouse button)

Ctrl+U	execute all undo-steps

V	current line tool

,	pipette

.	single pixel brush

Animation Control

1	previous frame

Shift+1	first frame

2	next frame

Shift+2	last frame

4	loop forward

Shift+4	loop backward

5	play forward

Shift+5	play backward

6	play pingpong

7	previous animbrush frame

Shift+7	first animbrush frame

Alt+8	next animbrush frame

Shift+8	last animbrush frame

Ctrl+Ins	insert frame

Ctrl+Del	delete frame

Navigation

Cursor keys	scroll image

Shift+Cursor keys	scroll through image pagewise

Pos1	left border

Shift+Pos1	upper border

End	right border

Shift+End	lower border

N	center area under mouse cursor

Colors

P	edit color table

Q	edit gradient

Shift+Q	flip gradient direction

[,]	previous, next color (these keys can be changed under preferences)

Special Keys

F10	toolbox on/off

Shift+F10	info panel on/off

F11	animation window on/off

Shift+F11	animation controls on/off

F12	onscreen palette on/off

Shift+F12	brush container on/off

Ctrl+Alt+1	shift image one pixel to the left

Ctrl+Alt+2	shift image one pixel to the right

Ctrl+Alt+3	shift image one pixel upwards

Ctrl+Alt+4	shift image one pixel downwards

Shift+A	spare frame as mask on/off

Ctrl+B	take whole image as brush

Ctrl+C	copy frame(s)

E	restore window-positions

Shift+E	save window-positions

Alt+F	fix image as background

Alt+G	zoom grid on/off

J	swap image with spare frame

Alt+J	copy image to spare frame

Ctrl+J	copy spare frame to image

Shift+M	keyframer

Ctrl+R	load image

Alt+R	load animation

Ctrl+S	save image

Alt+S	save animation

Alt+T	flip toolbox orientation

Alt+V	center animation window

W	change between two zoom levels

Ctrl+X	single pixel cursor on/off

+,- 	increase/decrease brush size

<, >	increase/decrease zoom level

Multiply key on NumPad	switch gradient cycling on/off (NumPad must possibly be switched on)

Ctrl+1..9	zoom levels 1..9

Alt+L	load animation

Alt+S	save animation

Ctrl+L	load image

Ctrl+S	save image

Control Keys for Drawing

Ctrl	temporary pipette

Shift	lock movement (hold shift and move the mouse to the direction that is not to be locked)

Ctrl+Alt	an animated brush it will be stamped into the animation frame by frame

The Alt-key has certain meanings for different tools:

Pipette

• by leftclicking on a pixel all pixels of this color will be replaced by the current foreground color

• when clicking with the right mouse button, the background color is used instead

Dotted/Continuous Painting/Line Tool

•  starts AnimPainting where you advance through the frames while drawing

Circle/Rectangle

• switches between circle<>ellipse or square<>rectangle

Brush Resizing

• switches between proportional (keeping aspect ratio) and free stretching

Fill Tool

• all following animation frames are filled too


Tutorial Jumping Ball

Please get familiar with the workspace elements first!

This tutorial is a very brief list of instructions showing you only an excerpt of the functions available in Pro Motion. The digital handbook contains more detailed descriptions and drawing lessons. It can be downloaded from the Pro Motion homepage at http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion

Jumping ball (file "Animation\jball.flc")

We will now create an animation step by step, which displays a jumping ball using 30 frames.

Create a new animation  (menu File->New Screen/Animation) that has a width and height of 128 pixels and contains only 1 frame.

Press Ctrl+1 to go to zoom level 1.

1.Drawing the ball

First draw a filled circle with the corresponding tool from the tool box with a width and height of ca. 30 pixels. To see the size of an object you are drawing just have a look at the DIMENSIONS display at the top right of the application's main window.

Now we give the circle a ball-look.

Go to the gradient editor (menu Colors->Edit current Gradient) and choose a gradient that becomes darker from left to right. Use the right mousebutton on the [image] symbol of the tool box and choose "Contour Gradient" as fill style in the appearing dialogbox.

Fill the circle by leftclicking on its center. Now it should look like a ball.

Pick this ball up as a brush using the [image] tool of the tool box.

Now your brush contains the ball image.

Clear the frame by clicking on "CLR" at the tool box or by painting over the ball with the background color using the right mousebutton.

2.Doing the ball movement

Choose the function at menu Animation->Create Animation.

This will bring you to the 3d-keyframer which lets you create different brush movements from one keyframe to another.

The first half of the animation will be a falling movement. That means the ball falls down from top to bottom.

At first enable the "Clear Frames" option.

Enter 1 as "First Frame" and 15 as "Last Frame". This will cause the keyframer to calculate the animation from frame 1 to frame 15.

Now we need to define the top position of the ball within the first keyframe.

For "First Position" enter an Y-value of  40. As you can see the wireframe display for the first frame is updated automatically.

For "Last Position" enter an Y-value of  -40...

All other fields must have a 0-value.

Now switch on "accelerate". You can watch the first part of the animation by pressing "Preview".

The wire frame representing the brush (and thereby the ball) should accelerate from top to bottom.  This movement simulates the falling ball downwards.

Hit "Make Animation" and wait until the animation has been calculated successfully.

Now you can view the first part of the animation.

Go to the keyframer again with menu Animation->Create Animation.

The second part of the animation must have the inverse movement.

So "Last Frame" will be number 15, and "First Frame" number 30.

Use "Make Animation" again an wait for the calculation.

Voila, now you have got a simple jumping ball.


Tutorial Flying Text

Please get familiar with the workspace elements first!

This tutorial is a very brief list of instructions showing you only an excerpt of the functions available in Pro Motion. The digital handbook contains more detailed descriptions and drawing lessons. It can be downloaded from the Pro Motion homepage at http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion

Flying text (file "Animation\ftext.flc")

We will now create an animation step by step, which displays a flying text. At the end it will fade over to another text.

Create a new animation  (menu File->New Screen/Animation) that has a width and height of 128 pixels and contains only 1 frame.

Press Ctrl+1 to go to zoom level 1.

1.Creating a brush containing text

Press on the [image] symbol in the tool box to create a text brush.

Choose the new font "Times New Roman", bold, size: 36. Enter the text "Hello" into the edit field and press "OK".

Now you have a "Hello"-brush. Choose the color white as foreground color (and thereby as text/brush-color).

2.Doing the flight movement

Choose the function at menu Animation->Create Animation.

This will bring you to the 3d-keyframer which lets you create different brush movements from one keyframe to another.

The first part of the animation will be a flying movement from the background to the foreground.

At first enable the "Clear Frames" option.

Enter 30 for the "Last Frame" and 1 for the "First Frame".

"First Position" receives a Z-value of 2000, "First Rotation" an X-value of  90 and an Y-value of 270. All other fields must have a 0-value. This will set the brush into the screen depth. It is turned on the x- and y-axis.

Switch on "linear" to create an animation with even speed.

Now you can watch the first part of the animation by pressing "Preview".

The square that represents the brush (and thereby the text) moves from the depth to front and rotates.

Press "Make Animation" and wait until the animation has been calculated successfully.

You can now play the first part of the animation.

3.Applying effects

Choose  menu Animation->Number of Frames and increase the number of frames to 40.

Create a new text brush with the method we used before and enter "Folks" as text. Go to the 40th frame and Erase it using "CLR" from the tool box and paint this text on the position where "Hello" has been. To make the positioning easier you can switch between the last and the current frame with the previous/next frame buttons from the animation control panel.

To create a fade over effect from "Hello" at frame 30 to "Folks" at frame 40 you need to enter the effects requester with menu Animation->Effects.

Choose "Fade over" from the effect list and set the "First Frame" to 30 and the "Last Frame" to 40, enable "24 bit with Dithering" and press "OK".

When the effect has been calculated successfully you can play the animation to see the result.

It will play continuously with the same speed. We will change this after applying just another effect:

Set the number of animation frames to 50 .

Go to the effects requester again and choose "Mosaic Out/In" from the effects list.

The "First Frame" is 40 and the "Last Frame" is 50. Choose 20 for "Size".

Enable "Copy" and hit "OK".

If you play the animation now it is much too fast and plays with the same delay values for all frames.

4.Setting different delay values for the animation

At first go to frame number 30. We will make the animation to stop there for just one second. The delay value can be set using the number field right beside the animation control buttons. Set this value to 1000 (milliseconds).

By default all frames have been set to a delay of 50ms. This is too fast for the animation parts created with the effect creator. Go to frame 31 and set its delay to 70ms. To set a delay value for a range of frames hold the Ctrl-key and click on the "A" button on the right side of the delay input field. This will open a requester to set up a range of frames. Enter the frame range 32 to 50 and hit OK. This will set the current delay value to all of these frames.

Set the delay for frame 40 to 1000ms and for frame 50 to 3000ms.

Now the animation will stop for a while after each part we have created.


Using Plugins

A "plugin" is a single program that is executed by "Pro Motion" and that has certain functions. So plugins are extensions for the application. Hobby programmers can extend this program by themselves. "Pro Motion" offers a simple plugin interface and can differ between three kinds of plugins:

1. IMPORT-Plugins

are programs that can read images or animations that use a file format that is not supported by the application.

2. EXPORT-Plugins

are the opposite type of plugins than the IMPORT-Plugins and can write out image or animation data to other file formats than supported by the application.

1. MANIPULATION-Plugins

are programs that modify a single image or an animation and can be used to create special effects.

You can execute a plugin by selecting it from the menu Plugins and the corresponding submenus.

Technical informations about the plugin interface can be found on our home page at http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion


Technical Informations

Here you will find some important notes which will improve the performance of Pro Motion

Color Depth

Although Pro Motion is made to create 256 color based images and animations it is recommended that you do not run it under a 256 color Windows Desktop.

If you do so you won"t be able to use all colors. This is because Windows reserves 20 colors for its own use, colors 0 to 9 and 246 to 255. They can not be changed! That means if you load an image or animation that uses these colors they will be displayed wrong. There are ways to fix this (see function Remap Colors of the menu Colors), but the results can be very poor.

So please make your Windows Desktop to run with a color depth of at least 16bit (high color) or 24bit (true color).

Memory Management

Pro Motion keeps image and animation data plain in your computer memory (RAM). Disk streaming or online compression is not supported. So if you create an animation always be sure that you have enough free memory.

The requester for creating a new image/animation shows how much virtual memory you have available (Memory available) and how much is needed (Memory Usage).

As a thumb rule you should only use three quarters of your physical memory. If you use more than three quarters, Windows  always swaps the memory to your harddisk. This will slow down the animation playback speed dramatically.

Windows sometimes swaps memory to disk even if you have enough physical memory installed and the animation plays jerky. But after the animation cycled two or three times it should be completely loaded into the physical memory.

Here are some hints helping you to improve the performance of Windows:

Windows has a file cache system that automatically increases its cache size and the larger the file cache the less memory you have available. So you should limit the file cache.

• Make a backup copy of the file "System.ini" which can be found in the "\Windows" directory

• Open the file "System.ini" with your favorite text editor

• Go to the end of the file and insert the following text:

[VCACHE]

MinFileCache=1024

MaxFileCache=2048

These lines limit your file cache to a minimum of 1024Kbyte and to a maximum of 2048Kbyte. These values are only examples! The sizes depend on the amount of physical memory you have installed.

Assume "M" is the amount of physical memory you have installed, then:

MinFileCache= (M-16) / 16 * 1024

MaxFileCache=(M-16) / 8 * 1024

Example:

If you have 32MB installed the values should be

MinFileCache= 	(M-16) / 16 * 1024	=(32-16) / 16 * 1024	=1 * 1024	=1024

MaxFileCache=	(M-16) / 8 * 1024	=(32-16) / 8 * 1024	=2 * 1024	=2048

These values should also be used if you have only 16MB installed.

• Save the file "System.ini". The changes will take effect after your next reboot.

Do not change any other values in the "System.ini" file!!!! This can make your operating system unstable or not to boot!

Another topic when talking about memory and performance is the pagefile (swapfile). This pagefile should be set to a fixed size! A thumb rule says that it should have the doubled size of your physical memory!

Supported File Formats

Pro Motion supports different file formats for loading and saving images and animations:

Description	Type	Suffix	Load	Save	Color Depths for loading

Amiga animated IFF	Animation	.iff	y	n	all up to 256 colors

Amiga IFF	Image	.iff	y	y	all up to 256 colors

Autodesk FLIC	Animation	.flc	y	y	256 colors

Autodesk FLIC	Animation	.fli	y	n	256 colors

Portable Network Graphics	Image	.png	y	y	all up to 256 colors

Deluxe Paint Image	Image	.lbm	y	y	all up to 256 colors

JPEG Image	Image	.jpg	y	y	16.8 million colors

Paintbrush Image	Image	.pcx	y	y	256 colors

Pro Motion Sprite	Animation	.spr	y	y	256 colors

Windows animated Cursor	Animation	.ani	y	y	all up to 256 colors

Windows AVI	Animation	.avi	y	y

Windows Bitmap	Image	.bmp	y	y	all up to 16.8 million colors

Windows Icon	Image	.ico	y	y	all up to 256 colors

Pro Motion always saves images and animations with 256 colors only, except Windows Bitmaps (.bmp).

In the Preferences (menu File) section Miscellaneous you will find an option called "Save BMP Files with least possible Color Depth...".

If this option is enabled BMP files are saved with only the colors necessary. That means if you use only the first 16 palette entries for your image then the image is saved as a 16 color image instead of a 256 color image.

When loading an image or animation that contains more that 256 colors (i.e. 24bit-BMP, JPG or AVI files) a requester appears to set the color reduction mode. This requester is described in the References (descriptions for the menu File).

Pro Motion supports different file formats for loading and saving non-graphical data such as palettes or stencils:

Description	Type	Suffix	Load	Save

Microsoft Palette	Color Palette	.pal	y	y

Pro Motion Palette	Color Palette	.pal	y	y

Pro Motion Stencil	Stencil	.stn	y	y

File Format Descriptions

Pro Motion has an own file format for saving animations, the Sprite format.

This file type saves an animation by writing the image data plain uncompressed into a file. So these files can be easily read and converted to other formats.

The Sprite file structure:

The Header defines the dimensions of the animation.

Position	(bytes)	Type	Description

$00	3 ASCII-chars	"SPR" as sign for this format

$03	Word	Number of frames

$05	Word	WIDTH in pixels

$07	Word	HEIGHT in pixels

The Header is followed by the color and animation data at position $09+.

For each frame repeating:

Position	(bytes)	Type	Description

$00	Word	delay value for this frame in ms

$02	256*3 Bytes	describes the 256 color table with the values Red, Green, Blue

$302	WIDTH*HEIGHT Bytes	image data of this frame

Values are stored in the WORD format usingthe low byte order (little endian). That means that the least significant byte is saved first folloed by the most significant byte.

Color palettes (*.pal)

These color tables are exactly 768 Bytes large and contain for each of the 256 colors 3 byte values for Red, Green and Blue.

Expansion of  the Autodesk FLC-Format

So far you can save only animations using Autodesk FLC-format that only have one delay value for all frames. I expanded the format a bit so that each single frame can have its own delay value.

The following change has been made:

Now the bytes 8 and 9 of each FRAMEHEADER (yet unused and 0) are a 16-Bit delay value for this specific frame.

A complete description of the FLC-format is available at FTP://x2ftp.oulu.fi/pub/msdos/programming/formats/  or at http://www.compuphase.com


How to create animated GIF89a files

Because Pro Motion does not support GIF-files you need to use another software to create such animations.

You can save the animation as single images (see menu "animation") and use other software to create an animated GIF89a-file. Also some GIF-creation tools may support AVI or FLC-files as input (like "GIF Construction Set").


Do animated Cursors

The size of animated cursors is restricted to be 32x32 pixels!

• create a new animation with a size of 32x32 and 1 frame (menu File->New Screen/Animation)

Now you need to decide how much colors your cursor is to use, either 16 or 256 colors. To select the number of colors used for saving an animated cursor use the corresponding entry in the preferences  (menu File->Preferences) section AniCursors/Icons. If it will be a 16 color cursor then load the palette "Palettes\icon16.pal". It's a palette that contains the 16 predefined Windows colors only. Although the colors are repeated in the palette use the colors 16-31 for drawing! Do not change the values of these colors!

If the cursor is to contain 256 colors, you may use any color palette.

An animated cursor always has a transparent color. When drawing a 16 color cursor use any color outside the range 16-31 as your background color. If you create a 256 color cursor use any color as background. When saving a cursor the background color is selected as transparent. If you load a 16 color cursor the color entry 32 is automatically used as background color.

Cursors can also have a hotspot. This is the sensitive mouse point. You can change the hotspot coordinates for a cursor in the preferences (menu File->Preferences) section AniCursors/Icons.

For saving animated cursors use the corresponding file type from the save animation requester.


Work with Icons and Cursors

The size of animated cursors is restricted to have a maximum size of 256x256 pixels!

You need to decide how much colors your icon is to use, either 16 or 256 colors. To select the number of colors used for saving an icon use the corresponding entry in the preferences  (menu File->Preferences) section AniCursors/Icons. If it will be a 16 color icon then load the palette "Palettes\icon16.pal". It's a palette that contains the 16 predefined Windows colors only. Although the colors are repeated in the palette use the colors 16-31 for drawing! Do not change the values of these colors!

If the icon is to contain 256 colors, you may use any color palette.

An icon always has a transparent color. When drawing a 16 color icon use any color outside the range 16-31 as your background color. If you create a 256 color icon use any color as background. When saving an icon the background color is selected as transparent. If you load a 16 color icon the color entry 32 is automatically used as background color.

For saving icons use the corresponding file type from the save animation requester.