************************************************************************* * * * * * Document: Changes. * * ------------------ * * * * This document discribes some alterations on the Take_2 package that * * were made since the manual was printed. It also contains some gene- * * ral information to clarify certain functions and explains some new * * ones that were added, mainly on suggestions and remarks from users. * * This does not mean the manual is wrong or useless, it only shows * * that Take_2 is developed and improved every day. This file contains * * the vital information you need to take full use of the latest de- * * velopments and should be printed out and be kept with the manual. * * * * * ************************************************************************* -------------------------------- HARDWARE ------------------------------- Using an NTSC Amiga ------------------- The program recognizes on which machine it is running and switches to NTSC mode if required.The Digitiser NTSC/PAL option is set accordingly, thus the default vertical resolution is switched to 200 lines. Only 18 cells/sounds are displayed in NTSC mode and the default speed is changed from 25 to 30 frms/sec to account for the different video- speed on NTSC video equipment. All Requesters and panels are still centered on the screen. The program is now more consistent in presetting the NTSC switch on the digitiser conytrolpanel. In additition to switching to the appro- priate video displaymode at startup, it will adapt the digitiser reso- lution when NTSC- or PAL-sized images are loaded. It will also try to find the best solution if there is a conflict between a configuration file setting and the systemwide displaymode. The NTSC versions of the (non-RT) VidiAmiga digitisers have smaller internal buffers. Reading a PAL sized image from it will probably crash your machine or give some strange effects. If you are using a PAL digitiser and grab a PAL picture, the bottom 56/128 lines will not be displayed on an NTSC machine, although the FrameBoard will display a scaleddown version of the complete picture. Peripherals ----------- The digitiser should now work will all kinds of other peripherals, including GVP and SUPRA harddisks. Please let me know if you have a hardware setup that is incompatible with Take_2. Graphics boards are the most likely candidats. In this case the program will have to be adapted to use these devices, so you should include any information and programmers support that came with the board. Virtual memory -------------- Take_2 should now make use of virtual memory, if installed. For performance reasons, only pictures can be stored in vmem. The memory display and memory bars will show the added memory. Because third party vmem systems, (such as GigaMem) have to resort to patching some of the system vectors, this could still present some problems, especially on 1.3 machines. -------------------------------- OPTIONS -------------------------------- The audiofilter --------------- The General menu on the xsheet contains a new item for switching the hardware audiofilter of the Amiga on or off. This filter prevents aliasing distortion but cuts all frequencies above 7000 Hz. By disabling it the higher tones will come trough, giving a clearer sound. Distortions will be more apparent, however. The powerled of the Amiga is switched off or dimmed when the audio- filter is disabled. The Monitor option ------------------ The 'General'-menu on the xsheet now has a 'Monitor'-option. If 'Best' is selected, the program will use the best displaymode available to avoid interlace flikker and interline gaps (hardware permitting). If 'Video' is selected, all screens will be in a 15KHz monitor mode to be compatible with video equipment. This mode should be choosen when working with an rgb-encoder,genlock or when transfering to video in any other way. The CameraMount options ----------------------- The suboptions 'Straight" and "Overhead", of which one or the other was set, are replaced by the 'Flip X" and "Flip Y" options. This allows to flip only 1 axis of the digitized image instead of either none or both axis. There seems to be some use of flipping only 1 axis when digitizing slides or mixing different scenes together. These options are saved in the configuration file. The SpeedCheck options ---------------------- Sometimes doubt arises about the actual speed at which the animation is displayed. The FlipMode/DBuff option, for instance, tends to slow down the displayrate dramatically, even more so on recent Kick-start versions. Using 4 soundtracks simultaneously can also have an effect on the displayrate of the animation Although the animation will never be played too fast, the actual speed is restricted by the hardware configuration. It is essential for a linetest system to display the tested scene at the same framerate as the target medium (24 fr/sec for film and 25/30 fr/sec for video). If the hardware can't coop with this speed at the current resolution the user should know about it, so he can adjust settings or reshoot the scene in a lower resolution. Some users, on the other hand, don't care about the actual speed as long as it has the timing they want and they don't plan to reshoot the scene on another medium. For these reasons a new option, "SpeedCheck", has been added to the Flipper menu. Its 2 suboptions "Flash" and "Warning" can both be toggled on or off. If neither is on, the actual speed will not be checked. If "Flash" is on, the screen will flash and a beep will be heard each time the preset speed couldn't be reached. If "Warning" is on, a requester will pop up to inform you about the speed failure. The latter method is more secure, since you could miss a flash for wathever reason, but it requires to choose 'PROCEED' each time, which could be annoying. The speedcheck-requester displays the exact speed in frms/sec the animation was actually flipped, if it differs from the set speed. It needs at least 1 second of animation to calculate the actual speed. Try flipping 99 frms/sec to see how fast your Amiga will animate ... Both SpeedCheck options can be used simultaneously and are saved in the configuration file. NOTE: The flipperspeed is now more accurate and will closely follow the requested speed. An internal controller tries to keep the actual speed as close as possible to the speedsetting. Slight inaccuracies were caused by the time it takes to start and stop the timer, system load and multitasking. This new 'varispeed' system should make syn- chronising long samples and storyboard timing very accurate. A complete rewrite of the flipper routines makes all animation faster and frees the 680xx much more. Only when many cells are on 'ones' the speed will suffer as it did before ...A BIG PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT ! The Flipper/startFrame option ----------------------------- A new option, called "StartFrame" has been added to the Flipper menu. This was done on a request from users. Some want to start the Flipper on the first frame every time, others want the flipper to start from the frame it was on when they returned to the main screen. Choosing the StartFrame/First option will restart from frame 1 every time the flipper is invoked. The StartFrame/Current option will start the flipper with the current frame, which is set to the frame the flipper was on when you returned to the main screen. The current frame can be set manually by clicking on the framenumber, in which case this frame will be the first frame when the Flipper is invoked. --------------------------------- XSHEET -------------------------------- Dragging items on the exposuresheet ----------------------------------- Some operations involving cells and sounds can't be achieved using the existing tools in an easy and intuitive way. A new concept of altering the exposuresheet has been added to make editing even more flexible. Each element on the xsheet can now be dragged over the screen, thus accomplishing a certain editing operation.This is in fact an extension of the select function for each of these elements. Clicking once over a cell or sound and releasing the mousebutton will still (de)select that item. If the left mousebutton is held down, however, moving the mouse will deselect the item and perform the new dragging function. How does it work in practice ? When used on a cell, dragging the mouse will alter the timing of this cell. This means you can stretch or shrink the repetition of each cell without using any CellPanel tool or change the multiply number. This is especially useful if you want to tailor the timing of a cell to a certain framenumber or when you only want to alter one cell. When used on a sound, dragging the mouse will change the startposition of the sound to a new frame,if possible. Although you can drag a sound beyond another one, it can't replace an existing sound. This replaces the need to remove a sound and insert it again at a new position, simply to move the sound to another frame. It is also possible to drag the current (white) frame, but this is only useful in combination with the FrameBoard at the moment. Thus you can search more rapidly through the images to see a certain image, without the need to see all frames or to switch between back and forward scroll. Merging levels -------------- A new option has been added to the Project-menu which allows to merge multiple levels into 1 new level, retaining the overall resolution of the original pictures, merging them as opaque colors on transparent celluloid sheets. About the Merge Levels method. It was opted to have immediate results while linetesting with multiple levels, even on entry level Amigas (A500/600). This imposed some restrictions to the resolution while flipping, as it isn't possible to merge 4 multicolored pictures in 1/25th of a second. The presented solution, as described in the readme-file for version 1.5, proved satisfactory for linetesting purposes. Some users, however, want to use the program to present early results to their clients. As the number of colors per level is restricted to only 2 for each picture on the same frame, this resolution was not satisfactory for presentation purposes. It is now possible to merge all levels into 1 new level, which can thus be played at its full resolution. The normal procedure would be to edit the animation until you are satisfied with it, using the normal "restricted" method for speed, and then use the Merge option to create a presentation animation. Look at the working method as the wireframe mode in 3D software and the Merge option as the rendering. Thus you will have speed and efficiency while creating as well as good image quality on the end result. Some notes about the merging process. The levels are merged right to left for each frame. Thus level 1 contains the bottom picture (background) and level 4 contains the top picture. The transparent pixels in first picture (right level) are replaced by corresponding pixels of the picture on the left of it. The transparent color of the leftmost level will be displayed unchanged. When a new frame is merged into a new picture, the earlier composed pictures are searched for corresponding picture data. If a match is found this picture will be used instead, avoiding duplicate data in memory. It is therefore possible that the merging slows down to the end of a lengthy x-sheet, especially with many similar pictures. At the moment, the palette of the leftmost picture is used for the new picture. You should take care that all pictures on a frame use the same palette, otherwise you'll get some strange looking results. You can use BLANKS to pad levels. They will be rendered as completely white pictures on that level. If you want another color instead, a monochrome picture should be loaded or digitized and inserted at the appropriate positions. For normal merging of linetests, the standard BLANKS will work fine. If all levels on a frame contain a BLANK, a normal BLANK will appear in the merged scene at that frame. Note that after the merging has finished, only 1 level is occupied, leaving 3 empty levels for some more merging. The Merge Levels requester. When you choose Merge from the Project menu on the main screen, you will be presented with the Merge Level requester. Of course, you must at least have 2 levels in use, for this option to work. Enter merged name: Since new pictures will be created, they must have a proper name, so that they can be identified and stored to disk. You should type in an initial name for these new pictures in the stringgadget before the merging process is started. If you don't, the default name "mergepic-001" will be be used. Since this doesn't say much about the animation it should be avoided. Only use a unique name, which isn't used for any pictures in the PicturePanel. The MERGE will fail if a duplicate name is used, but it will skip found name-numbers while merging and use the next free number, instead. Transparent color: When preparing your animation in another package, care should be taken that either the first or the last color are used wherever you want the picture to be transparent. Normally this would be color 0 (first) because it is used for genlocking and is best to be left black to keep the gadgets and requesters of the software clear. When digitizing drawings on white paper, you will probably want the paper to be transparent, which is the last color since the palette is sorted dark to bright. Use the PREVIEW function (explained later) to make sure that the correct color is used for the merging process. Take care that the overlaying picture is to the right of the underlaying picture on the exposure sheet. BLACK: The first color in the palette (usually the darkest) will be replaced with the underlaying picture. WHITE: The last color in the palette (usually the brightest) will be replaced with the underlaying picture. Original pictures: If you no longer need the original pictures after the operation, they can be removed while merging, thus freeing valuable memory. In many cases, when memory is low, this will be the only way to successfully merge the levels, as the new pictures need the memory. Naturally, you can save the originals to disk before merging. KEEP: All pictures stay in memory. Use the PicturePanel "Find Unused" menuoption and the "Delete pics" function if you should wish to remove the obsolete pictures after the merge has been completed. REMOVE: Obsolete pictures are removed while merging. A warning requester will appear before the merging starts, allowing to cancel the destructive operation. Main merge gadgets MERGE: Starts the actual merging operation. The Merge Levels requester disappears and the current frame indicator advances from the first to the last frame, showing which frame is being processed. If the REMOVE original pictures option is chosen, the merged frames no longer show the original cells, as the corres- pending pictures are removed from memory. PREVIEW: Merges the current frame and displays it without altering the pictures or the exposure sheet. No new picture is created, either. This allows you to check if the correct pictures are in the correct levels and test which of the transparent options works best. The preview screen is displayed until the leftmouse button is clicked. CANCEL: Removes the Merge Levels requester without altering or crea- ting any pictures or cells. The current settings are preserved. An example. After all this information you may think it's quite a complex matter, but in practice it is a very simple operation (on the part of the user, that is. Its a complex matter to program, though.) I will presume you are familiar with the basic Take_2 functions, such as loading scenes and using the flipper. On the distribution disk you will find a directory called "arrowhit" Load it as a Scene and flip the animation. The 2 levels are displayed in multilevel mode, so only 2 greys per level are used. Now return to the main screen and choose "Merge" from Project menu. Click on PREVIEW when the Merge Levels requester appears. The preview screen will show the current frame as a merged picture. It seems only the arrow on level 2 is shown, but you can see a small part of the tree through the arrowhead, which is in fact black on the original. Obviously the transparent color is set wrongly. Click the left mouse- button to remove the previewscreen, set the transparent color to LAST and click on PREVIEW again. Now the frame is merge correctly. Because the originals are safely on disk, you can set the original pictures option to REMOVE and click on MERGE to start the process. After choosing PROCEED on the verify requester the actual merging commences and the xsheet shows the progress of the merge. When the process has finished (when the pointer becomes arrow-shaped again), you can flip the finished animation in its full glory. The block counter ----------------- Whenever some cells on the exposure sheet are in a block (red BG), the exact number of all blocked cells is displayed on top of the framenumber column. This is useful for measuring parts of the scene or to find a range of cells that can be used for synchronizing the animation with a soundtrack. Fake Cells ---------- Any cell in the exposure sheet that doesn't correspond with a picture in the PicturePanel, such as BLANKS or the virtual inbetweens used when testing keydrawings, are now marked with an asterix (*). This was added on request from several users. Furthermore, any new pictures will be checked against fake cells in the xsheet and linked if a match is found. This makes it possible to create an xsheet and attach the pictures afterwards or to add missing inbetweens to a linetest made with only the keydrawings. If you load an .xsht-file first, edit it and then load the whole scene only the pictures used in the current xsheet will be loaded. This is useful when you only want so load a part from a very long scene. The BLANK cells --------------- The addblanks gadget on the PicturePanel (top right) has been split and now allows to have white blanks by selecting the lefttop triangle of the gadget or black blanks by selecting the rightbottom triangle. Remember that blank cells, either black or white, have no influence while merging a Scene. They serve as placeholders to simulate real xsheets... Automatic cell creation ----------------------- Creating an initial xsheet after loading or grabbing some pictures has always been somewhat unintuitive.It requires you to open the PicPanel, select the new pictures and then select the 'appendcells'-gadget. It allows the user to dispatch pictures to different levels and create as complex an exposure sheet as required. This method tends to confuse beginners and is unnecessary for simple tests, though. In practice most linetests are sequentialy arranged in one level. Only the final animations and dialogue-tests need complex dispatching. A new option has been added to the 'General'-menu on the main screen. When 'AddCells->Manual' is selected, no cells will be created when new pictures are loaded or grabbed from the digitiser. This is the default mode, as it leaves the cell creation as it was before. When 'AddCells>Automatic' is selected a number of new cells (depending on the multiply number on the CellsPanel) will be appended to the current level. If the multiply number is zero or negative no cells are added. Remember to preset the current level on the PicturePanel, if you want the new pictures to be in a specific level. This new feature is especially useful when testing key-drawings. Although a few functions are provided to cater for this, testing keys was never straightforward. When the KEYS-mode in the digitiser is used while the Automatic-option is selected, the fake inbetween cells will be created, as well as the normal cells. If the pictures are properly named, the correct timing will await you when returning to the xsheet. In many situations there will no longer be any need to open the Cells- or PicturePanel, as the timing of the automatically created xsheet can be adjusted by dragging cells. This makes editing more intuitive. The NewPics option is saved in the configuration file. ---------------------------------- DISK --------------------------------- Loading and saving Scenes ------------------------- This is quite a dynamic area of the program. Because about 70 students have to share the same harddisks at my school, the saving procedure has to be both foolproof and automatically organizing the data. Eventually, the system using a namerequester and automatic extension naming proved satisfactory for this situation. Some users, however, liked the old system using the bottom filenamegadget on the filere- quester better. You can now use whichever of these systems you like most. If no name is entered in the filenamegadget on the filerequester when the SAVE gadget is selected, a requester will appear and query to enter a name, otherwise the saving will take place immediately, using the provided name. Entering a carriage return in these stringgadgets has the same effect as selecting the SAVE gadget (or PROCEED on the namerequester). When loading Scenes you must only select the directory containing the needed files and select LOAD on the filerequester. This enables you to load several Scenes at once, providing they are all in the same directory. It is now possible to load scenes with a different number of levels correctly. Empty levels of the first loaded scenes are padded with blanks when a new scene, using more levels, is appended. Also, the sound will now appear at the correct frame in the appended scene Whenever a name is defined for a scene by either loading or saving it to disk, this name is shown in the titlebar on the exposesheet. This makes it easier to identify the animation at all times, especially when it is part of a large production. I would still advise you to give each picture a logical name to avoid identical named pictures on disk and while appending scenes. You can now save a Scene with the same name as a previously saved Scene. If PROCEED is choosen on the "File already exists."-requester the directory and its contents will be deleted and the Save will continue as before. Also, directorys containing files can be deleted with the "DEL!"-function. Directorys within directorys will not be deleted, however, since this would provoke potential disasters, especially in schools and companies... IFF-ANIM files -------------- The Anim (opt-5) format, as defined by Sparta/Aegis, has many advan- tages but it also has some strange peculiarities in order to optimize playback speed, which do not fit-in with the Take_2 concept. I have tried to solve all discrepancies to allow Animfiles to be fine- tuned using this program, though. Here are some comments I would like to make, so that you know how Anim files are handled by Take_2. This will allow you to make a better preparation when creating Anim-files in other programs, DPaint in particular, which will make live easier. The extra pictures. Sometimes, when you load an Anim file created with another package, two extra pictures will be created, which are identical to the first two. These are cycle-pictures, which are added to the Anim to allow AnimPlayers to cycle the animation. Not all programs write these, however. It is therefore not possible to skip these two frames. I found that DeluxePaint knows the exact length of an animation it has saved by adding an extra DPAN (DPaint ANimation ?) chunck to the Anim file. When such a chunck is found by Take_2, no extra pictures will be created. I have taken the liberty to save such a chunck when saving an Anim,so that Take_2 animations are loaded correctly by DeluxePaint. Anim to Pictures. When an Anim file is loaded into Take_2, seperate pictures are created to allow flexible editing. This means that you will need more memory than was needed to create the original Anim file. Also, the names for each individual picture are derived from the filename with a unique number added to identify each seperate picture. Anim's created with Take_2 contain the original name for each picture, so that a complete reconstruction can take place. When the Anim is resaved using another package, this information will probably be lost. Anims and sound You should also take note that no sounds are imbedded in an Anim file. If you want to save your animation with sound, you should save it as a Scene and use the ScenePlayer or Take_2 itself to play it back. I could manage to save the samples and sounds along with the pictures in the Anim file, but this would be useless, since no player programs would play them. I could write a special Anim Player, though .... As you can see, much effort has been made to make Take_2 the perfect tool to allow timing adjustments of Anim files using all the flexible functions of the program, while retaining optimal compatibility with other software. It can also be used to create an Anim from separate ILBM pictures,split Anims into their components to be used in software that doesn't handle Anim files or to merge several Anims into a single file. All palette information is preserved in the program and saved along with the ANIM or ILBM file. The INFO panel -------------- The panel, which pops up when the INFO gadget on the Filerequester is selected, will now display how many pictures will (at least) fit on the current (hard)disk in addition to percentage of free diskspace. This number shows how many pictures with the current resolution would fit on the disk with no compression. This means you can probably save more pictures on it, depending on the nature of the images. --------------------------------- SOUND --------------------------------- Sample size ----------- It is now possible to use samples that are longer than the 130K restriction imposed by the custom sound chip. Because copying the sampledata from fast to chip-ram, as soundeditor programs do, would slow the animation down, the samples still have to reside in chip-ram. Thus, the amount of chip-ram available will now be the physical size limit for samples. The SMP: device --------------- Only the original name and directory of samples are stored in the track- sheet when a scene is saved to disk, mainly to save valuable diskspace. It makes no sence to store the same data multiple times on your harddisk. When scenes are exchanged between different Amigas (using quarterback or other exchange/backup tools) the program often can't find the samples. If you have encountered this problem you should assign the SMP: device to the directory where you keep your samples. Take_2 will now search the SMP: device if a sample can't be found. If you will use this feature often, you can add the assign command to the startup-sequence. You may create subdirectories in the sampledirectory for different kinds of sound. The program will search directories within the SMP: directory. Sound display on xsheet ----------------------- There is now a graphical representation of the sounds in the track-column on the xsheet. It shows the modulatation of the sound at each frame, using the offset, length and pitch-settings for that sound as well. This feature can be useful while synchronising and could even be used as a guide for a rough soundtrack breakdown. It is actualy part of a bigger scheme that will allow accurate soundtrack breakdown whithin the program. The colors of the sounds on the xsheet now have the following meaning: * The sound's framecount (explained later) indicates the current sound. You can alter the parameters of the sound with white framecount numbers. Doubleclick on a sound to make it the current sound. * The sound's data display (name or graphic) indicates selected sounds. You can remove red sounds with the remsound gadget on the Samplepanel. Clicking on a sound toggles its selection state. Offset parameter for Sounds ___________________________ The 'Repeat' parameter on the SoundPanel has been replaced by an 'Offset' parameter. It allows to set the offset (in frames) into a sample at which position the sound should start playing. This is usefull when only part of a scene is being tested using a long sample. Before, blanks or holds had to be used to skip the extraneous sound and synchronize the animation. In the soundtrack column on the xsheet, each sound now has a framecount showing the position from the beginning of the sample for each frame that the sound will be played. Soundtrack playback ------------------- Before, the Flipper only started a sound when a (white/red) soundheader was encountered while in 'play forward' or 'play once' mode. The sountracks are now tied more closely to the frame sequence. When an animation is restarted from within the flipper, the remaining part of any pending (partly played) sound is also started. In addition, the soundtracks are also played at reduced speed when in any of the slow/ fast modes. This is only ment as a cue, the sound can be distorted (especially when played backwards...). The build-in software 'chase synchroniser' will try to match the speed of the sound to the speed of the animation. This means that the sound should stay in sync, even when the flipper can't play at the set speed. The base-, play- and altspeed settings -------------------------------------- The fixed speed settings in the Flipper (24,25/30,TURBO) have been repla- ced by a more flexible system. There are now 2 numbergadgets on the Flip- per's controlpanel. The left gadget sets the playspeed, which is the speed for the contineous playing modes (cycle forward, cycle backward and play once). The right gadget sets the alt(ernate)speed for the search modes (slow/fast forward, slow/fast backward). These speedsettings can be any number between 1 and 100. This allows ani- mators to check their work at a conveinient speed to follow the progres- sion of the animation. A problem appears when sound is involved. Which is the correct speed to play the sound ? It must stay in sync and must thus be scaled to the set speed. The 'real' animation speed (the speed of the simulated medium) is set with the basespeed-requester. This can be accessed by choosing 'Base- Speed' in the General-menu on the xsheet. This number should always be set to the speed for which the timing of the animation was made, such as 24 for film, 25/30 for video or even 15 for CD-I preparation. This feature can also be used to make storyboardtiming with Take_2 easier. Setting the basespeed to 1 or 2 gives a better overview and timingcontrol, while prerecorded music or dialog will stay in sync... A 1-second marker in the framecountcolumn on the xsheet serves as a guide. -------------------------------- DIGITISER ------------------------------ The NameStep gadget ------------------- A new gadget has been added on the digitiser controlpanel to allow English users to use the numbering system they are accustomed to. It seems it is common practice to use only odd numbers to identify drawings in animations that are intended to be shot on doubles, thus allowing to inbetween extra drawings if needed. Below the autoname stringgadget there's a numbergadget that allows you to set the incremental step for the autonumbering system. This number is added to the previous name-number to create a new name when a picture is grabbed. So if it's on 2 and the name is a-001, a-003 is will be new name. Because the number can be anything between 0 an 9999, this feature can be usefull in other situations as well (1 key for every 5 drawings, etc.). If set to 0, the current name will not be changed in any way. This can be used to prevent the program from adding an initial number to the name. The NameStep number is stored in the configuration file. Continuous digitizing (VCR) --------------------------- Choosing GRAB IT while the VCR-gadget is highlighted will bring up a requester showing the memory usage while grabbing. Before, this memo- rybar was displayed at the righthand side of the ControlPanel. Since this position was also employed for the selection of a DUB picture, it wasn't possible to use the VCR in combination with the DUB option. -------------------------------- FLIPPER -------------------------------- Show a specified frame ----------------------- You can now go to whichever frame you like in the flipper, either from the exposure sheet or from within the flipper itself. Doubleclicking on a framenumber on the exposure sheet invokes the flipper and brings it to the specified frame. It stops immediately at that position. You can then use the flipper controlpanel as usual. If you click on the framenumber indication on this controlpanel, a cursor will appear in it, allowing to enter a new framenumber. Hitting return (CR) while the cursor is active brings you to the specified frame, anything else restores the original framenumber. 'Fast search' in Flipper ------------------------ The slow backward and slow forward gadgets on the Flipper controlpanel are assigned a second function. By holding down the right mousebutton when one of these gadgets is selected (slow flipping), the animation will be advanced very fast, much as the fast search modes on VCR's and Steenbeck editing tables. Releasing the right mousebutton while still holding the gadget selected will return you to normal slow flipping. Holding down the left SHIFT-key together with one of the shortcuts for these gadgets (left and right arrows) has the same effect. Unfortunately, on 1.3 Amigas any keyboard event cancels the previous key, even if it is still pressed. This means you must press the SHIFT- key before one of the arrow-keys. On 2.0 or higher machines the shortcuts work exactly as the gadgets. You can press the left SHIFT-key while holding an arrow-key to enter fast search mode and release it to return to slow flipping. NOTE: Don't be fooled by the speed. All this function does is skip a number of frames, so the speed of your Amiga isn't enhanced without installing an accelerator board. Centring the Animation ----------------------- The Flipperscreen can be positioned freely anywhere on the monitor by clicking on the displayed picture, then dragging it (by moving the mouse while holding the left mousebutton pressed). This can be useful for calibrating the display before transferring the animation to video and for centring overscanned pictures. The AutoCentre gadget, located between the slow backward and slow forward gadgets on the Flip controlpanel, will try to centre the screen automatically. It can also be used to reset the position of the display after moving it around. (This gadget was previously used to stop the animation. Its function became obsolete, because the controlscreen now disappears whenever the animation is played at full speed ...) ----------------------------- MISCELENEOUS ---------------------------- The LowMem Alert ---------------- The Lowmem Alert has been finetuned and should work alright now. It is invoked when the amount of memory needed for safely saving your work is no longer available. You should therefore try to free as much memory as possible before commencing the Save operation. Quit the FRAMEBOARD, DIGITISER and FLIPPER screen if they are opened, and close all unneeded Panels on the XSheet. If you should still have lack of memory, then the Workbench can be closed as well via the Gene- ral Workbench menuoption provided the Workbench is open at the moment. The alert will only be displayed once and will only report again when a New/Scene is invoked. This is to prevent numerous alerts being dis- played while saving the files to disk. Normal 'Not enough memory'- errors will still be displayed when a function failes, naturally. Duplicate naming ---------------- It is now no longer possible to have pictures or samples with the same name in memory. This caused some strange effects, especially when se- veral scenes where loaded using a-001 and so on. Also, it wasn't pos- sible to regrab a certain picture without confusion. Whenever a picture is being grabbed or loaded with an existing name, you will be asked whether to PROCEED (replace picture/sample) or to CANCEL the procedure (leave original picture untouched). Printer check ------------- Because many users will own the vidi digitiser, a sound sampler and a printer, all using the parallel port, a switchbox is a solution. It has to be said that it is not advisable to switch while your com- puter is on, as it can crash the system or even damage your hardware. To have an extra safety and avoid printing to anything else than the printer, a check for the availability of the printer is made before the actual printing starts. An error requester will inform you when no printer is found, allowing to correct the situation. KS2.0 on a standard A500/A600/A1500/A2000 ----------------------------------------- It seems that a few system routines have slowed down when the new operating system is used on a model with a M68000 CPU. One of the most noticeable effects being the jerky movement when a screen slides up or down. Because the annoying effect this has, the program will skip the screen scrolling when it detects a KS2.0 used with a M68000 CPU. Some other side effects of this combination are looked into. Auto Configuration ------------------ Because of the more flexible speedcontrol, confusion can arise if these settings are not checked out before starting a session. This is ecspecial- ly the case when more than 1 animator uses the system, such as in schools and studios. To avoid these potential problems, the configuration system of the program has partly been automated. * Starting from a .conf file creates new default settings. * Loading a .conf file with 'Load/Conf' creates new default settings. * Saving settings with 'Save/Config' makes the current settings default. * Choosing the 'New/Scene' option resets to default settings. * Choosing the 'New/Config' option resets to default settings. * A .conf file is now saved with every Scene to adjust the speedsettings. * When a Scene is loaded, the .conf file recreates the speedsettings. This is only for your information, because the system is intended to be transparant to the user by automaticaly setting up a logical environment. Note: There are some predefined configuration files on the distribution disk. These serve only as examples. You can save your own preferred settings to customise the program environment to your needs. AGA compatibility ----------------- The size of palettes is no longer fixed to a maximum of 32 colours, which means the new AGA modes should work fine with Take_2. AGA resolutions should give no problems either, but try turning 'mode promotion' off in case you encounter problems with the screenmodes. There are no more restrictions on the resolutions and rastersizes. Pictures that are larger than the screen are clipped, smaller pictures are centred on the screen automatically. You should try to use a screen width that is a multiple of 64, like 704 for overscan. Because all bitmap widths are padded in this way for AGA compatibility, more work has to be done to fit pictures with other sizes, which can slow down the animation. READ THE UPDATE DOCUMENT FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE LATEST VERSION.