ANIM Pro V1.0 ============= by Gurmita Singh additional layout design & help Sucha Singh Instructions: ============ Contents: Anim Pro Program Anim Pro Player Anim Pro Stand Alone Player Anim Pro Example Disk Tutorial Credits Anim Pro Program: ================= The main program will load after the brief intro and will display the credit box, just press any key to continue. It can also be loaded from Workbench by double clicking on the AnimPro icon. Before you begin their are several important notes to consider. * AnimPro only works with 'compressed' (mode5) animations like the ones used in Dpaint 3 and 4 and other packages. * When working with animations AnimPro makes use of 3 file extensions which get added on automatically to a file when saving: .APinfo - Holds an anim's information eg, No of frames. .APscript - Holds the animation list in the Edit Window. .APseq - Holds a list of APscripts to use in a stand alone animation. * When loading and saving files make sure your iff animations, Script files and Sequence files are in an 'Anim' directory because when an animation is played the program will search in the Anim dir for the file. Also make sure the file names have no spaces in them. * Before you can start making your animation sequence you need to convert your iff animations using the converter. All this does is it reads the information from the anim eg,No of frames, and saves them as an information file under the same name as the anim with the extension .APinfo. This can then be loaded into the Edit Window. The display is devided into 4 sections, 1- Information bar on the top. 2- Main Control bar beneath it. 3- Edit Controls to the left. 4- Edit Window in the centre. Information Bar: ---------------- This displays the total amount of available memory and the name of the current Script your editing. Main Controls: -------------- LOAD: Load APinfo - loads an information file into the Edit Window. Load APscript - loads a script file into the Edit Window. SAVE: Save - saves the script under its current name. If it has no name the file requester will pop up so you can give it a name. Save As - saves the script under a new name. ANIM PLAY: PlayAnim - plays the selected animation. PlayScript - plays the whole script. (note- When playing the Left mouse Key moves to the next animation while the Right mouse key exits and returns you to the program.) CONVERTER: Convert iff animation - brings up the file requester asking you to select an animation to convert then gets its info and saves it under an .APinfo file. Previw Animation - once converted the animation can be played. Batch Converter - converts a list of animations. Add Anim- loads an iff anim to the edit list. Del Anim- deletes an anim off the list. Del All - clears the edit list. Ok - begins to convert the animations. Cancel - takes you back to the Converter menu. DISK ED: Make dir- brings up the file requester and asks you to type the name of the new directory. Delete- deletes a file from the file requester. Rename- you first select the file from the requester then type the new name, press return and then the 'Ok' button. Disk Info- displays the name and the free disk space on the currently selected drive. Df0- sets the diskinfo path to df0. Df1- sets the diskinfo path to df1. Exit- exits back to the program. Edit Controls: -------------- Starting from the top, Insert - inserts a space in the edit window. Delete - deletes the selected anim from the edit window. Clear - brings up a requester asking to clear the script from the edit window. Rename - renames the selected animation in the edit window. (Note, make sure you rename the iff animation.) Edit - brings up the edit menu, Speed- sets the animation's speed from 1 to 10. Loops- sets how many times the animation will be played from 1 to 99. Script Loops- sets how many times the script will be played from 1 to 99. HELP: Brings up the help menu which displays the 3 rows of buttons, each one gives a brief explanation of its subject and an 'Exit' button to return to the program. PLAYER: This is where you make a sequence file which is used to group together the script files you make for a stand alone disk or just to view. NOTE: When you place a script into the edit list it places the full path name of that script as well as its name. This is because the two animation Players, when playing a sequence, they use the Path names to set the search path for the scripts and animations. So it is best to make the sequence file once you have created your final animation disks. Add Script- adds a script to the edit list. Del Script- deletes a script from the edit list. Del All- clears the edit list. Seq Loops- Sets the number of times a sequence will be played, from 1 to 99 Load- loads a sequence file into the edit list. Save- saves the sequence file. Exit- returns you back to the program. Edit Window: ------------ The edit window is used to display the list of animations to play. The mouse is used to select an animation either to edit or play, when selected the animation is highlighted. The Scroll bar and arrows to the left of the window are used to move up and down through the script. The following information is shown for an animation, Its number, its name, no of frames, its speed, no of loops, no of colours, its resolution and the size of the animation. The script can only have a maximum of 30 animation files. Anim Pro Player: ================ The player works independant of the main program and is used to play any sequence file. To load it from workbench just double click on its icon, a file requester will pop up asking you to select a sequence file to play, it will then load and play it automatically. At the end of the sequence just press the left mouse button to exit. If you load the player up and you want to exit just type anything in the file requester and press return. Anim Pro StandAlonePlayer: ========================== The standaloneplayer is the same as the AnimPro player except it will only play a sequence file with the name 'Sequence.APseq'. Because this player is used for making a stand alone animation, (explained below). To load it from workbench just double click on its icon and it will load and play the sequence file automatically. At the end of the sequence just press the left mouse button to exit. Anim Pro Example Disk: ====================== The example disk is a stand alone animation produced by myself, Sucha Singh,and is a great example of what Anim Pro can do. The animation can be loaded by itself or through Workbench by double clicking on the StandAlone Player icon. It will play automatically, at the end just press the left mouse key to exit. You can also load the animation's script file into Anim Pro and see how it was made which might help you with your own projects. Episode 2 of this gripping series is available soon. Tutorial: ========= This tutorial will explain how you can make a stand alone animation you can either do it the easy way or the hard way. Easy Way: --------- Step1 - Make a copy of the AnimPro example disk. ----------- Step2 - Delete the contents of the Anim directory. Step3 - Place your own Iff animations and Script files into the empty 'Anim' Directory. Step4 - Rename your new disk. Step5 - Load up Anim Pro and make your sequence file and save it in the 'Anim' dir on your new disk. (Make sure you use the script files from your final animation disk to get the correct path names of the scripts and you name your sequence file 'Sequence.APseq'). Step6 - Reboot the Amiga with your disk in Df0 and enjoy. Hard Way: --------- Step1 - Format a new disk and create an 'Anim' directory. Step2 - Copy the following directories and files from the Anim Pro Program disk to your new one. c - Endcli, Run devs - system-configeration libs - amos.libray, icon.library, translater.library s - startupII StandAlonePlayer StandAlonePlayer.info Step3 - Rename 'startupII' to 'startup-sequence' on your new disk. Step4 - Place your own Iff animations and Script files in the 'Anim' dir. Step5 - Load up Anim Pro and make your sequence file and save it in the 'Anim' dir of your new disk. (Make sure you use the script files from your final animation disk to get the correct path names of the scripts and you name your sequence file 'Sequence.APseq'). Step6 - Load up workbench and enter the Shell or Cli, insert your disk into any drive and type: Install Drive "name of drive with your disk in" eg, Install Drive Df0: Then press return. If your only using one drive you will have to do several disk swaps. This process makes your disk bootable. Step7 - Reboot the Amiga with your disk in Df0 and enjoy. Multi disk Animation: --------------------- To make a 2 or more disk animation follow the simple steps, Step1 - Follow either way shown above to make the first disk of your stand alone animation. (Create the sequence file after you have made the other animation disks so you can get the correct path names for the scripts.) Step2 - Format a new disk and create an 'Anim' directory. Step3 - Copy your Iff animations and script files into the 'Anim' directory of your new disk. Step4 - Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each disk. Step5 - Reboot the Amiga with your first disk in Df0 and enjoy. When playing the animation the computer will pop up a requester asking you for the next disk. If you have more than one disk drive then the other disks can be placed in those drives and they will be loaded automatically. Credits: ======== AnimPro was produced using Amos Professional & AmosPro Compiler. -----------