The AmigaMotion Manual, Draft 1 Introduction AmigaMotion is a full frame animator which allows classic or cel type animation on an Amiga personal computer. It requires 512K of memory and runs under the new 1.2 version of KickStart and the Amiga Workbench(tm). AmigaMotion animates six 320 X 200, 32 color pictures at up to 30 frames a second and uses standard Iff format pictures such as those from DeluxePaint(tm) or GraphicCraft. While AmigaMotion has some painting capabilities it is designed to be used in conjunction with another paint program. DeluxePaint(tm) works very well with AmigaMotion because of it's sophisticated features like the "Rotate" function. Getting Started If you are impatient to see some animation and are proficient with the use of icon driven programs go to the Quick start section first. But read thissection later to learn how to use all the capabilities AmigaMotion. The easiest way to understand how AmigaMotion works is to look at the animation demos provided with this disk. Boot the new version 1.2 of Kickstart and Amiga Workbench(tm) (see your user guide for details). Insert the AmigaMotion disk in any drive and double click on it's disk icon. Double click the AmigaMotion icon in the disk window. Be sure no other programs are running and you have at least 385K of free memory because AmigaMotion requires a lot of memory to hold six 40K pictures. When AmigaMotion is fully loaded into the machine you will see a blank blue screen and a crosshair pointer. This your canvas or "Draw Window". Here you can access the menus and do basic painting and editing of pictures. To start the first demo press the menu button (right mouse button), point to the"Project" menu, and select "Open All". In the "Open All" requester Type Jimbo (you don't have to click in the string gadget). If you have the AmigaMotion disk in df0: then change df1: to df0: in the path name. Now select "Yes" and AmigaMotion will automatically load six Pictures named Jimbo1, Jimbo2, Jimbo3, etc. When the pictures are fully loaded the requester will disappear and your ready to animate. Select "Slow Motion" from the "Animate" menu and watch it go. AmigaMotion is now animating six pictures in a ten frame sequence of frames 1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2 and repeating back to frame 1. To stop the animation press the menu button. Lets try some of options in the "Animate" menu. Select "Animate" and theanimation goes at 30 frames per second, press the menu button to stop. Choose "Next Frame" and you can examine the frames one at a time. Press the menu button to return to the Draw Window. Pick "Last Frame" and you can look at the previous frame in the animation sequence. Select "Set Delay" and you can change the speed of the animation. Try changing this number to 10, notice it moves slower. Try a value of 4 and the movement speeds up. A value of 1 will animate at 30 frames per second while a Delay of 50 animates at 1 frame per second. Select "Current Frame" from the animation menu. If you press the selectbutton (left mouse button) this frame is transferred to the Draw Window. Now you can draw on this frame. Select a color from the "Color" menu and press the select button to draw. If you select "Replace" from the "Animate" menu your drawing is transfered to the animation area and becomes part of the animation. AmiLink Page 1 There are other animation sequences. Select "Open All" and change Jimbo to Venus and click Yes. When the pictures are all loaded choose "Set Order" from the "Animate" menu. This animation goes in a circle so change the order from 1234565432 to 123456 by backspacing over the last 4 digits. Select "Slow Motion" and watch the art world turned upside down. You may change the order any way you like and long complicated order sequences may be produced. Remember there are only six unique pictures so digits 7,8, and 9 are changed to a 1 by the program as are all characters other then 1,2,3,4,5, and 6. The other animation demos are called Gorilla, MTV, and Angel. The order for these demos is 1234565432. Try them. Quick Start Boot up AmigaMotion and select "Open All" from the "Project" menu. TypeJimbo and click "Yes". When the requester disappears choose "Slow Motion" from the "Animate" menu. To stop the animation press the menu button. Other animations are called Gorilla, MTV, and Angel. These are run the same way. To see the "Venus" animation type Venus in the "Open All" requester. When fully loaded select "Set Order" from the "Animate" menu and change the order from 1234565432 to 123456 and click Yes. You can change the speed using "Set Delay" in the "Animate" menu. A value of 1 animates at 30 frames per second and 50 animates 1 frame per second. The Reference Section The Project menu: CLEAR - This will erase everything in the Draw Window so use with caution because there is NO undo function. OPEN - "Open" loads a picture file from a disk into the current frame.Use the "Current Frame" option from the "Animate" menu to examine this frame. If you load an animation sequence using the "Open All" function AmigaMotion remembers the name of each Picture and it's proper frame. If you edit a frame and don't like how the edit looks in the animation use "Next Frame" from the "Animate" menu to select the offending frame, press the menu button to return to the Draw Window and choose "Open". This will have correct file name for this frame and you can reload this picture by selecting "Yes" from the "Open All" requester. SAVE AS - This option works like the "Open" command except it saves an Iff format picture to the disk. Be carefull using this option because it will replace a picture with the same name. If you change a picture be sure to change the name of that picture if you don't want to lose the original. AmigaMotion remembers the correct file name for each frame. OPEN ALL - The pictures for an animation sequence should be named with a number from 1 to 6 appended to it. Name1, Name2, Name3 etc. To load this sequence type Name (your picture name) without a number and AmigaMotion will load six Picture files starting with Name1. ABOUT - Contains authors name and copyright infomation. QUIT - Exit the program. The Animate Menu: ANIMATE - Animates the frames at 30 frames per second using the frame order in the "Set Order" option. The animation speed cannot be changed. AmiLink Page 2 SLOW MOTION - Like "Animate" except the animation speed can be changed using the "Set Delay" command in the "Animate" menu. CURRENT FRAME - View the current frame selected by "Next Frame" or "Last Frame". To return to the Draw Window press the menu button. By pressing the select button you can transfer the picture to the Draw Window. NEXT FRAME - View the next frame in the animation sequence using the frame order in "Set Order". To return to the Draw Window press the menu button. If you press the select button instead of the menu button you can transfer that picture to the Draw Window. LAST FRAME - Same as above showing the previous frame. If you use the keyboard shortcut A-J (hold the right amiga key and J down at the same time) you can flip through the animation backwards. SET ORDER - You can change the order using this option. Use digits 1 to 6 only because there are only 6 unique pictures. Digits 7,8, and 9 are changed to frame 1. Do not use spaces. Order strings can be up to 150 characters long and a digit can be repeated to cause a frame to show for an extended period of time. The order 111111234565432 will display frame 1 six times as long as the other frames. SET DELAY - Enter a number between 1 and 999. This will set the delay between frames. A value of 1 will animate frames at 30 frames per second and a value of 50 will animate at 1 frame per second. A value of 999 wil show each frame for almost 20 seconds. REPLACE - This will transfer the contents of the Draw Window along with it's color palette to the current frame. The Tool menu: PEN - To use "Pen" simply hold down the select button (left mouse button) while moving the mouse. As long as you press the select button the "Pen" will draw. You can select the color from the "Color" menu. LINE - Select "Line" from the Tool menu and that item will get a check mark indicating you're in the "Line" mode. To draw a line move the pointer to the spot you want to begin your line. Now hold down the mouse select button move the mouse to the end of your line. A ghost image of the line will appear to mark where the line will go. When the line is where you like it release the select button and a line will be drawn in the current color. To find the current color look at the "Color" menu, the current color will have a checkmark in front of it. BOX - Point the mouse to a spot for any corner of a box. Hold down theselect button while moving the mouse to the opposite corner. A ghost image of the box will show you how that box will look when drawn. When the box is right release the select button and the box will be drawn in the current color. FILLED BOX - This works exactly like "Box" except it produces a filled box. If you select the first color in the Color menu (upper left hand corner) this box will work like an ereaser. CIRCLE - This works like the "Box" command except the first point is thecenter of a circle. Point the mouse to the center of where you want a circle. While holding down the select button move the mouse in any direction until the circle is the correct size then release the select button. AmiLink Page 3 FLOOD FILL - Point the mouse to an area to be filled and that color will be filled with the current color. The color fills until it reaches a boundry with another color. CYCLE - This mode works exactly like the "Pen" mode except it cycles through different colors as you draw. Try it, you like it. PALETTE - This restores the Palette to the original AmigaMotion colors that you have when first booting the AmigaMotion. This is useful when you have transferred a picture from one of the animation frames and the menus don't show up clearly. The Color menu: To use the color menu just hold down the menu button and point to one of the colors. That color will be highlighted with a box, release the menu button and that color becomes the current color. A checkmark appears in front of the color to indicate which color is selected. Copyright to : AmiLink & Tib Bit Software 1986-87 Created by : James G.Donaldson Tid Bit Software Distribution : AmiLink SA AmiLink USA 7 Rue Cherbuliez 2400 Mc Bride Lane, Suite 55 CH-1207 Geneve USA-Santa Rosa, CA 95401-2731 Tel:022/86.54.42 Tel:707/579-0522 BBS:707/579-0523