Animation Not Working

[Sailfish]

I'm using IFA v3.41 and cannot seem to get animation to play in the browser; although, it does play fine within the program.

The link below is the movie file (and components) that should illustrate this problem. I'm running Win98SE, 256M RAM, Flash 5 r41 plug-in.

Any suggestions?

http://projectit.com/download/wtcreflections.zip

[blanius]

I can't get it to work either. You should definatley send this one in to support.


I know that you sometimes have to use a PLAY action, but I couldn't get that to work either.

[zoranvedek]

I have had nearly the exact same problem before(it was butterfly, not a dove). I never did get it to work. The problem(I think, though I could easily be totally wrong here), lies within the scaling of the animation file, and the fact that it actually consists of multiple files and not a single file.

If I come up with a workable solution, I'll let you know, but I'm pretty sure you're going to have to rethink your concept...................


A good work-around would be to draw your doves on a layer inside 3dfa and use a morph event on the entire layer to animate them through key positions.

[Sailfish]

Thanks for taking the time to look at this problem. I've been pulling what little hair I've got left out trying different methods to get it to work. For example, I initially brought them in as an animated gif file but couldn't get the transparency to work.

I've sent this into the insane folks and hope they can figure out how to fix it since I've got several of these types of animations I wish to use and trying to do this with morphing layers doesn't seem too inviting :-)

Again, thanks for the input.

[iosffzjqkafggfdqq]

Hi, Sailfish and zoranvedek

I'm on the verge of polishing the final details on a work-around for the problems we're having doing simple animation.

(see my Thread dated 29 December 2001 for the description of the problem)

This solution involves synchronised graphics on identical 'Move' paths with alternating Action commands. It's tested and it works.

I will write up the solution shortly once I get the procedure simplified to its most basic form


Thanks and Happy New Year !
Marc

Key words for this Post ; HOW TO HOWTO animation sprite child movie export

[iosffzjqkafggfdqq]

Hello,

I've just added the tutorial (PDF file + two sample MOVIES) to the Flashkit Tutorials section.

IT HAS NOT, as of 5 January, BEEN REVIEWED YET. IT IS NOT YET ON-LINE.

These are the coordinates ;
We have received the following link:

Title: HOW TO simple animated sprites moving around using Insane Flash Animator
URL: http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/va...65/index.shtml
Description: Show how to make a bird flapping its wings and flying around. For users of Insane Flash Animator
Contact Name: Marc Petroff
Contact Email: marcpetroff@freesurf.fr
Category: Animation/Cartoons
Classification: Intermediate
Version: Flash_4


Here is a text version of the tutorial ;

Step1 :

Note : This is where you will establish the direction, distance and speed of the bird. Each ‘ frame ’ of the flapping wings is contained in its own MOVIE. The movement of the elements in the should be identical ; same path and timing

Bird up.MOVIE
CONTAINS :
Element: bird with wings up
Event : Move

Bird down.MOVIE
CONTAINS :
Element: bird with wings down
Event : Move

STEP 2:

This a new MOVIE in which you must add the bird up and down MOVIES as elements. In this Bird MOVIE we will alternate between the up and down images of the flapping wings. Add 3 keyFrames as shown below ;


Bird.MOVIE
CONTAINS :
Elements : Bird up.MOVIE
Bird down.MOVIE





KeyFrames :
KeyFrame1
Action:
Setproperty
Bird up opacity = 0
Setproperty
Bird down opacity = 100
KeyFrame2
Action:
Setproperty
Bird up opacity = 100
Setproperty
Bird down opacity = 0
KeyFrame3
Action:
Goto Frame Bird.KeyFrame1

You May now export the Bird.MOVIE to test it under Flash.

If there’s a bug, make sure delays, durations and especially, Key Frames and Actions are coherent and whole.

STEP 3:
Main.MOVIE


Element : Bird.MOVIE


IMPORTANT :
When adding the Bird.MOVIE element to a MOVIE, you must correct the broken links in the Actions sections of each KeyFrame in the Bird.MOVIE element.
If you have 2 or more Bird.MOVIEs in the same main MOVIE, in addition to correcting the broken links, you must rename the additional movies and their respective KeyFrames so that they are unique for the Main.MOVIE


NOTE :
Try different durations and delays for the various parameters of each element .
Different KeyFrame delays will give faster or slower flapping.
The child MOVIES don ’t have to be of the same size as the Main movie because you can move imported elements beyond the borders of their original containers.
If you prefer, you can create the individual Bird up and down MOVIEs directly as Child MOVIES of the Bird.MOVIE


Thanks

Marc

[Sailfish]

Originally posted by iosffzjqkafggfdqq

Marc, thanks for the workaround to this problem. I've played with it and it does seem to provide a simulated version of the animation but not as realistic at the animated gif version. I suspect this is because I'm only using two of the original seven frames in the test. I've not tried it with the additional frames since creating/positioning/and opacity transitioning seems a bit duanting and the book-keeping task would soon become over-whelming (as a reminder, my desire is to add several animated scenes to the eventual production using other sprites than just doves.)

Before resigning myself to this significant effort I have a question I am hoping you might be able to answer. Is importing animated frames the way I wanted originally a limitation of IFA or of Flash itself? If its a limitation of IFA, then I might decide to hold off on your solution until a fix is found. However, if its a Flash limitation then I may not have a choice.

Again, thanks for the considerable time you've invested in this and I really do appreciate the effort.
[Edited by Sailfish on 01-05-2002 at 02:07 PM]

[blanius]

Originally posted by Sailfish

Originally posted by iosffzjqkafggfdqq

Before resigning myself to this significant effort I have a question I am hoping you might be able to answer. Is importing animated frames the way I wanted originally a limitation of IFA or of Flash itself? If its a limitation of IFA, then I might decide to hold off on your solution until a fix is found. However, if its a Flash limitation then I may not have a choice.
[Edited by Sailfish on 01-05-2002 at 02:07 PM]

The import of GIF's is a little buggy but I have had some success. If you created them your self try turning OFF transparency and then in 3dfa select transparency x,y and see if that doesn't work for you. Transparency x,y uses the color of the pixel at 0,0 and makes it transparent.

Oh and Marc you are welcome to post that article to the Into3dfa site. Send it to JASON at into3dfa@geocities.com

[blanius]

http://bretlanius.com/flash/movie_222.html
http://bretlanius.com/flash/movie_221.html

These are both done as animations on a layer, the animations are animated gifs loaded from a file. As usual the first frame has the transparency wrong, but fix that one frame(sometimes have to fix it every time I reload the project). and used Show event to move it. in Movie_222 and used volocity to move it in movie_221..


The show event I've had problems with it and certain elements since verions 2.5 of this program.

[Sailfish]

Originally posted by blanius
http://bretlanius.com/flash/movie_222.html
http://bretlanius.com/flash/movie_221.html

Blanius, many thanks, it worked like a champ. I merely converted the gif frames to bmp (I suppose jpg would have worked as well?), which removed the transparency and then set the transparency within IFA as you described and, Voila!, it works great both within IFA and the browser.

Again, thanks a bunch...

[blanius]

Originally posted by Sailfish
Blanius, many thanks, it worked like a champ. I merely converted the gif frames to bmp (I suppose jpg would have worked as well?), which removed the transparency and then set the transparency within IFA as you described and, Voila!, it works great both within IFA and the browser.

Again, thanks a bunch...

Happy to have been of help