Belgian Amiga Club - ADF Collection/BS1 part 27.zip/BS1 part 27/Take2_v1.7_d1.adf/Hints&Tips

Text File | 1978-02-19 | 18KB | 341 lines

                        Some hints and Tips for Take 2
                        ------------------------------


    GENERAL WORKMETHOD
    ------------------

    Organizing the work environment

        All functions to alter the exposuresheet are grouped together on
        Panels releating to one of the animation elements. The purpose for
        this is to have an uncluttered view of the xsheet at all times. Since
        you will be concentrating on the cells, pictures, sounds and samples
        at different moments only two of the Panels are needed simultaneous,
        at most. It is therefore good practice to remove any panels that
        aren't needed at the moment. You can easely reaccess them from the
        Panels-menu or with the functions keys. They will then reappear at
        the place and in the same state they were when removed.

        There is a trick, however, to use all Panels at once.
        When all four mainscreen Panels are displayed, the xsheet will all-
        most completely be obscured by them. Placing identical sized Panels
        over eachother will reveal more of the xsheet, while allowing access
        to all Panels by switching the covering Panel to the back, using the
        WindowToBack gadgets on the the Panels titlebar. As you may have no-
        ticed, the CellPanel can be used with the SoundPanel and the picture-
        Panel can be used with the SamplePanel.

    Multiple menu selection

        When you need to select more than one menuitem, it is not necessary
        to release the right mousebutton over each item you want. Instead,
        you can hold down the right mousebutton and select (click) with the
        left mousebutton all items in one go. Actually, this is a lesser
        known intuition feature which is (should) be used by more software,
        but tends to be forgotten about.
        Use it, it is very convenient in many situations.

    Naming your Pictures

        If you are planning to save your animation to disk, it is better to
        enter an initial name in the namestring of the digitizer controlpanel
        before you start digitizing, rather than having the default "a-001",
        which is used by the program if no name is entered.
        If all pictures of all animations have the same name, it is ineveta-
        ble that problems will eventualy occur, either when identifying the
        file, when merging animations into one directory or when loading more
        than one scene into take 2.
        When choosing the initial name, you sould consider a short descrip-
        tive one, followed by as many digits that are needed to form the
        highest picturename (example: "bal-01" if you have no more than 99
        pictures).
        The leading zeros are also usefull whenever the files are sorted.
        Whithout them you would get somenting like: 1,10,11,..19,2,20,21...


    EDITING THE XSHEET
    ------------------

    Repeated InsertCells

        When you want to greatly elongate the timing of only one certain
        image, the normal procedure would be to change the multiplynumber
        to a big value, insert the cells, and change the number back to the
        usual value. Some people would go back and forth several times,
        clicking on the insertgadget and the cellposition in the xsheet,
        rather than having to change the multiplynumber two times.
        Holding the left mousebutton over the insertposition will repeat the
        insert operation until the button is released, thus having the same
        effect as the last method, but without the need to select the insert-
        gadget each time. You can watch the framenumber in the titlebar to
        check the the number of frames you are adding.

    Use undobuffer for temporary timing

        If you have deleted some cells to alter the timing, but you decide
        the previous timing was better after all, just use the undofunction
        to restore the deleted cells by clicking on the standard levelheaders
        or pressing the spacebar. This saves you having to reconstruct the
        original timing.

    Moving cells to another position in xsheet

        Most alterations to the xsheet can be done in several ways. When you
        become acquainted with the editing facilities, you will find a more
        effective way of accomplishing many actions.
        The quickest way for moving a block of cells to a new position, for
        instance, is to mark the block, insert it in the new position and
        delete it, while it is still selected.

    Viewing cycles before altering the xsheet

        Before repeating a part of your animation for use as a cycle, you
        should always check if you have selected the right cells.
        Set all cells to be used in a block and go to the flipper. Only the
        cells in the block will be shown in a cycle allowing you to check if
        the repetition of these cells will work or not. You can then duplicate
        this block (insert under last selected cell) to create a cycle within
        your animation.

    PingPong animation

        Although there is no PingPong function (flipping back and forward
        through the animation) in the flipper, this can easely be simulated
        within the xsheet. First, create the forward part in the xsheet,
        select a block from the second white cell to the just before the last
        white cell, and insert the block inversed (bottomleft gadget on the
        CellPanel) under the last cell.

    Creating a series of sounds

        If you have to set many sounds close under eachother in a track
        you can best work from the bottom (highest framenumber) to the
        top of the trackcolumn, rather than set each sound and adjust its
        lenght to create space for inserting the next sound.

    Simulating echoeffects

        Altough it isn't possible to alter the sampledata to create an echo or
        reverbeffect within the program, you can simulate the process using
        sounds on the xsheet.
        Echo or reverberation is achieved by shifting and mixing a sample with
        itself severeal times at different volumes. To simulate this, a sound
        starting at frame 1 could be repeated on another track one or more
        frames after the original sound (depending on the desired effect) with
        a lesser volumesetting. You can repeat this procedure once again on
        another track (or the original if is free at the desired position) to
        exaggerate the effect. A flanging effect can be acheived by starting
        on the same frame but altering the pitch setting slightly.
        Since no actual sampledata is altered, you can't loose anything with-
        out being able to undo it in some way. Some experimenting will reveal
        more possibilities and make your soundtracks more varied.

    When to alter SoundLenght and when SoundPitch

        It can make a big difference if you adjust the lenght or the pitch of
        a sound to make it fit a certain action in your animation.
        Altering the lenght will stop the sound early, thus cutting of the
        last part of the sample, while altering the pitch will play the whole
        sample but at a higher speed, making it shorter.
        Which setting you alter expecialy makes a difference in combination
        with the repeat setting. For instance, if the last part of a sample
        has a disturbing effect within a sound repetion, you should alter the
        lenght since a different pitch would keep the unwanted part.


    WORKING WITH THE DIGITIZER
    --------------------------

    New Scene from digitizer

        Sometimes you will want to redo a complete animation while digi-
        tizing. You would then have to return to the main screen to clear
        the already recorded pictures from memory with the Delete Pics
        function or choose New/Scene from the XSheet-menu.
        Simply switching to another digitizer resolution and then select
        PROCEED when the "All data will be lost"-requester appears, will
        have the same effect. Then switch back to the original resolution.

    Deciding the resolution

        It is in a computer users nature to use the biggest resolution and
        number of colors available. This reflex can invoke many restrictions
        to the animation. Expecially memory usage and flipspeed will suffer
        from this. You should always try to use the lowest resolution and
        number of colors that shows enough detail to understand the picture.
        Remember that each frame is only shown for a brief moment, which
        means only the general movement is seen by the viewer and any small
        details will tend to be overseen. While a detailed resolution and
        enough colors are necessary to perceive a still picture as realistic,
        you can get away with much less in animation where the movement is
        the most important aspect. Take advantage of this effect !

    Digitize each picture only once

        Remember that digitizing your drawnings or pictures isn't an equi-
        valent of traditional rostrum camerawork. While an image would be
        filmed several times to adapt the timing to the animators xsheet,
        you should digitize each picture only ONCE.
        Think of digitizing as transfering your images to the computer's
        memory (handing them over to the cameraman). The timing is achieved
        by altering the xsheet, which is a list of instructions defining
        which picture(s) should be shown at which frames. No camerawork is
        simulated, instead the animation is projected (flipped) immediately.
        Since each image can be displayed many times, no extra memory is
        needed for each occurance of this image.


    MISCELLANEOUS
    -------------

    Getting rid of function pointers

        Some functions change the pointer, while waiting for you to take some
        action, like choosing a position to insert selected cells.
        Selecting the same gadget again will cancel that function and restore
        the previous pointer on most occasions, should you change your mind.

    Getting a certain image on the Frameboard

        Scrolling through the complete animation with the frameboard to find
        and see a certain image can be quite lenghty. In such case, it is
        better to use the main scrollbar on the xsheet until the desired
        framenumber is shown on screen and select it (narrow column) to make
        it the current frame. The frameboard will then be updated to display
        the image(s) on this frame.

    Printing on another occasion

        Users that own the VIDI hardware will probably have it connected
        while using Take 2. As it's unconvenient and unwise to switch the
        digitizer for a printer while your Amiga is turned on, you can't
        print the xsheet immediatly.
        You can print the xsheet to a file instead, by altering the de-
        fault "PRT:"string in the printrequester to the name of a new file
        on any diskdevice such as "Work:tempxsheet.prt". You can then,
        when the printer is connected, print this file from the CLI, Shell
        or any printer utility in the same way you would print a normal
        textfile.
        Printing a saved xsheet will not give the same result, as no frame-
        numbers and printercodes are inbedded in them.

    Moving files to another directory

        You can move a file or directory to another place on disk from within
        the filerequester. Select the file or directory you want to move and
        click on the RENM gadget. A stringrequester will appear, showing the
        complete path of the file/dir. If you change the path (but not the
        diskname) and select PROCEED, the file will be moved to the new place
        on the same disk, if possible. You can change the file/dirname at the
        same time, if you wish.

    Creating a lightning effect

        A lightning or electrifying effect can easely be achieved by digiti-
        zing an image twice, once normal and once with the NEG gadget on.
        Alternating these complementary images on the xsheet with varieing
        timing for about 12 frames will do the trick. Adding some blanks can
        also contribute to the effect.

    Recording an animation to videotape

        Unless you have a professional videostudio equiped with a singleframe
        videorecorder, you will have to transfer your work to videotape in
        realtime, using the flipper-part of the program.
        You should use a fairly good Gen-Lock or RGB-converter to maintain as
        much as possible of the image quality. If you don't have access to
        such a device, you can connect the mono(chrome) output of your Amiga
        to your VCR. Although this will work, the resulting image quality is
        only usable for archieving linetests or timing presentation.

        After you have prepared and tested all hardware connections, you can
        set the Pointer/Hide and the FlipMode/DBuff (if necessary) options in
        the Flipper menu you go to the Flipper screen. Now stop the flipping
        (LMB), hide the controlpanel (RMB), reset to frame 1 (BACKSPACE-key),
         start recording and play the animation once (O-key). When the anima-
        tion has stopped the last frame stays displayed, allowing to stop re-
        cording. Naturally, you can cycle (C-key) the animation for as long
        as you needed, if the animation requires such an approach.
        Don't forget to record any synchroneous sound at the same time.
        Connecting both sound outputs on the Amiga (or amplifier) to your VCR
        will record the sound simultenious with the image.

    About speed

        The flipperspeed is controlled by a hardware timer and is independant
        of the speed of the onboard microprocessor. This means an animation
        will be played exactly the same on an accelerated as on a standard
        Amiga. The program will allways try to match the speedsetting on the
        Flipper ControlPanel. Although it will never be played too fast, the
        speedlimitations of the processor can cause it to be played too slow.
        A slow or fix pointer indicates that the processor isn't able to
        handle the requested displayrate. The limitations are on the amount
        of data (picturesize) that has to be moved. A HAM picture, for in-
        stance, can be played on an A3000 at 25/30 frames per second but will
        be played slower on a standard A500 with a Motorola 68000 processor.
        However, except for linetesting, the real speed doesn't matter that
        much since adjustments can be made to the xsheet to compensate timing.
        In fact, a slower displayrate gives a longer animation ...

        NOTES:
        The Flipper/FlipMode/DBuff option takes up time as does Multitasking.
        The TURBO speedsetting plays the animation as fast ast the CPU allows.

    Celluloid Simulation versus Background Projection

        There are two ways to simulate a unionskin effect implemented in the
        program. You can mix an existing picture while capturing images in the
        digitizer (called Background Projection (DUB)), or you can use multi-
        ple levels of animation on the xsheet (called Celluloid Simulation).
        Although the resulting effect of both methods is simular, they are
        quite different and should be used for different purposes.

        You should think of Background Projection as a photographic procede,
        which double-exposes the original pictures each time it dubbed. Thus,
        the 2 pictures are physicaly mixed together and can't be separated
        should you change your mind. It can be used for mixing a fixed back-
        ground or animation layout on each new image to check the position of
        the animation against the background or other boundraries.
        You can use all preset greyscale resolutions in this manner.

        When using multiple levels to simulate seetrough celluloids, the pic-
        tures on each frame are mixed together on the flipperscreen leaving
        the picturedata in memory untouched. Any changes made to the xsheet
        will be shown correctly while flipping, allowing great flexebility.
        This method should be used when different layers of animation are
        used, at least to check if everything combines well. Later, you can
        print out the xsheet and use the Background Projection method to as-
        semble the definetive animation, should you wish to do so.
        Only the two darkest colors are used for each layer of animation.

    About the ANIM format

        The Load-Save/ANIM options in the PicturePanel menu are mainly for
        interchanging your animations with other software. There are some
        limitations and peculiarities you should know about:

        1. No sound information is imbedded in an ANIM file.
           If you don't save a Scene as well as an ANIM file and you have
           synchroneous sound for the animation, you should save a Track file
           before exiting, or the sound information will be lost.
        2. The last image has no timing information.
           To auto-create an xsheet after loading an ANIM file, the program
           uses the timinginfo found for each image. Because the timing of
           a certain image is held in the next image, the last image has none.
        3. Two extra frames are created at the end for cycling.
           When loading an ANIM file, these last frames will sometimes be
           expanded into pictures. They are exactly the same as the 2 first
           images and can therefore be removed to free memory.
        4. Not all animplayers use the timinginfo per frame.
           The semi-official animplayer "ShowAnim" does use the timinginfo,
           which is a much better and effecient method of storing image
           timing than duplicating the image x times (DPaint).

        These things should be accounted for when Loading or Saving ANIMs.
        Using the custom timing (.xsht), track (.trck) and animation (scene)
        formats is recommended while working with the program.

        MORE TIPS WILL FOLLOW...