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Software of the Month Club 1996 June
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Software of the Month Club 1996 June.iso
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cycle.tut
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1995-01-08
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AniMagician Palette-Cycling Tutorial
AniMagician Copyright (c) 1993-95 KAVIK Software
All Rights Reserved
The following steps guide you through the process of producing an
animation with palette-cycling. Palette-cycling creates the illusion of
motion by modifying the color values of the cells in the color palette.
1) Start AniMagician:
Start AniMagician by typing ANMAG at the DOS prompt and striking
<Enter>. If a message panel appears, left-click on the "OK" control.
You will be presented with the Main options panel and the mouse
cursor will have a hand shape. Note that the active frame counter
reads "SCR", which means you are positioned at the scratch frame.
The scratch frame is not part of your animation, but is used to create
frames, objects and background images.
2) Load the primary image:
A) Select "FRAME" from the Main panel.
B) Select "PCX" from the Frame panel.
C) Select "BROWSE" from the PCX panel.
D) Left-click on the file name 'GEM.PCX' in the Browse list to
highlight the file name.
E) Left-click on the highlighted file name again to select the file.
F) Select "LOAD" from the PCX panel - this will load the image onto
the current frame.
G) Right-click to return to the Frame panel.
H) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
3) Redefine the system palette.
The next steps will store the palette associated with the PCX
file as the AniMagician system palette.
A) Select "COLORS" from the Main panel.
B) Select "MIX" from the Colors panel.
C) Select "SYS PALETTE" from the Mix panel.
D) Select "OK" from the Prompt panel.
E) Right-click to return to the Colors panel.
F) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
4) Define the background image:
A) Select "BKGRND" from the Main panel.
B) Select "CAPTURE" from the Background panel. This will store the
current frame image in the Background Buffer.
C) Select "PRELOAD" from the Background panel. This will cause the
background image stored in the Background Buffer to be painted
onto each new scratch frame whenever you "shoot" a scratch
frame.
D) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
5) Generate a series of frames containing the image in the Background
Buffer:
A) Select "FLIC" from the Main panel.
B) Select "GEN FRAMES" from the Flic panel.
C) Enter the value '99' in the edit box of the Frame Count panel.
D) Select "OK" from the Frame Count panel. This step may take
several seconds as it will generate 99 frames containing the
image in the Background Buffer. Each frame will contain the
background image because the "PRELOAD" option was enabled in
step (4).
E) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
6) Define the Shift Palette.
The Shift Palette defines the set of colors that will be "cycled"
during a palette-cycling operation.
A) Select "COLORS" from the Main panel.
B) Select "PALETTE" from the Colors panel - you will be presented
with a panel containing the current color palette.
C) Position the top of the paintbrush cursor to the right of the
two white color cells on the second row of the palette. This
should be the tenth color cell from the left on the second
row.
D) Hold down the Shift key on the keyboard.
E) Press the left mouse button and hold it down while also holding
down the Shift key.
F) Drag the top of the paintbrush cursor to the left of the two
white color cells on the fifth row of the palette. This
should be the twelfth color cell from the left on the fifth
row. Note that the shift palette will be highlighted as you
drag the cursor.
G) Release the left mouse button.
H) Release the Shift key.
I) Right-click to return to the Colors panel.
7) Right-cycle the current Shift Palette across the frames in the
current animation:
A) Select "R CYCLE" from the Colors panel.
B) In the Range Select panel enter the value '1' as the "START FRAME"
value and the value '99' as the "END FRAME" value.
C) Select "OK" from the Range Select panel. The system will cycle
the Shift Palette across the specified range of frames.
D) Right-click to return to the Colors panel.
E) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
8) Define the playback speed:
A) Select "OPTIONS" from the Main panel.
B) Set the PLAYBACK SPEED to a value of '2'. To position the speed
slider, position the hand cursor within the slider tab, hold
down the left mouse button and slide the mouse to the left and
right to modify the value. Release the left mouse button when
the speed value reads '2'.
C) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
9) Play the current animation:
A) Select ">>" from the Main panel.
B) Click a mouse button or strike a keyboard key to halt playback
of the animation.
10) Save the animation to disk:
A) Select "FLIC" from the Main panel.
B) Replace the word 'UNTITLED' in the Flic panel edit box with 'GEM'.
C) Select "SAVE" from the Flic panel.
D) Select "OK" from the message panel. This will save the current
animation as 'GEM.FLI'.
E) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
11) Reset AniMagician:
A) Select "FLIC" from the Main panel.
B) Select "RESET ALL" from the Flic panel.
C) Select "OK" when the message panel is presented. All settings
are reset.
D) Right-click to return to the Main panel.
12) Now you are ready to generate your own animation or play around
with some of the other features of AniMagician. If you haven't
already, try the other tutorials.