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7. The Menus

## 7.9 The Web Menu

### 7.9.1 The Dynamic Animation

#### 7.9.1.1 Basics

Introduction

Animations are an often used element of web pages. Dynamic Animation is a comparably simple way to create quite complex animations. The layers of a document can be moved, rotated, scaled and faded in and out. This has been possible with the old Create Animation function, too, but while there all steps of the animation are calculated fix at once, the Dynamic Animation only stores commands, that can be edited later very simply.

In PhotoLine a Dynamic Animations is build from two main parts:

- Tracks
Tracks have the same meaning in animations, that layers have in normal documents. The first track will be display at the bottom, the second one above it and so on. By using tracks several objects can be animated independently.
- Sequences
A track consists of sequences. A sequence stores, which layer will be displayed at a certain period. Furthermore it contains commands how to modify the layer in this period.
If the layer assigned to a sequence is a group, this group can be a Dynamic Animation on its own. Such a group is called subanimation. A subanimation can contain several tracks, too. Subanimations allow to create very complex movements.

PhotoLine can export Dynamic Animations as GIF- and as SWF-file. If Quicktime support is activated, export as MOV-file is possible, too.

On saving an animation as GIF-file you should use a color reduction scheme (see chapter 7.10.1.14), that replaces transparency by a color (usually white), because this way the resulting file will be smaller.

Very important: if you intend to edit a Dynamic Animation later (you normally want to do that), you have to save the animation as PLD-file, because only the PLD-format can save Dynamic Animations without loosing information. If you save your animation only as GIF-, SWF- or MOV-file, you will not be able to edit it later.

The "Dynamic Animation" Dialog

The main dialog of the Dynamic Animation has 3 parts:

- the preview
This one is at the left edge. Pressing the play-button shows the animation. Above the play-button is a slider, that visualizes the currently shown time. If you click with the mouse in the slider, you can step frame wise through the animation by using the Arrow-Left and the Arrow-Right key. This way it is possible to inspect the timing between tracks.
- the working area
The working area has an icon bar containing the most important commands at the top. Below that there is the track-list which shows all tracks and sequences of the active animation. This area is where most of the work is done, therefore it is explained more detailed later.
- the layer-list
At the right edge there is the layer-list containing all layers, that can be used in the animation. A layer here can be clicked and dragged to the track-list. A layer can be dragged to the track-list several times and to different tracks. Then it will be displayed several times, too.

The Working Area

The dominating part of the working area is the track-list. It shows all tracks of the animations. At the top edge of the track-list a time-bar, that shows the time in second. At the left side of every track there is a small field, where a small eye-icon can be used to turn display of the track on or off. The state of the eye-icon will not be saved, but it will be used for preview and export of the animation.

The sequences are shown as pink bars in the tracks. Every sequence has a small preview of the connected layer. If the connected layer is a subanimation (more of this later), additionally a small film-strip is displayed.

If the mouse is moved to the edge of a sequence, it becomes a . This visualizes, that the start- and the end-time of the sequence can be changed. If 2 sequences lie next to each other, the end-time of the first one and the start-time of the second one will be changed synchronously. If you don‘t want this behaviour, you will have to manually create a space between the sequences either by moving one of the sequences or by using the Sequence Properties-dialog which will be explained later.

If you click on a sequence, it will be displayed red and a small slider appears at the bottom edge. This way it becomes the active sequence. Additionally the corresponding layer will be selected in the document and in the layer-list. The slider is very important for editing sequences. First it can be used to inspect the behaviour of a sequence. By changing its value the layer in the document changes accordingly to the settings of the sequence. If you defined, that a layer should move from the left to the right, the layer will be moved by using the slider, too. Second the slider can be used to transfer the current state of the layer to the sequence for the current slider position. Usually you use this function to define the layer appearance at the sequence start and at the sequence end. But you can create midpoints, too. Midpoints are shown as small rhombs in the slider. This will be described more detailed later. If the length of a sequence is modified, the midpoints will be scaled accordingly. This can be prevented by holding the Ctrl-key.

Sequences have a context menu, too. It contains the following commands:

- Use Transparency, Use Position, Use Scaling
The given state will be transferred to the sequence for the time defined by the slider.
- Set Rotation Point
The rotation point set by using the layer tool (see chapter 6.2.1) will be used as rotation point in the sequence. The layer will no longer rotate around its center but around the rotation point.
- Copy Sequence Data, Paste Sequence Data
The settings of the active sequence are copied and pasted respectively. This applies to all values with the active of the start-time, the end-time and the connected layer.
- Enter Subanimation
If the current sequence is a subanimation, you can edit it by using the this command. Double-clicking the sequence has the same effect.
- Leave Subanimation
If the currently edited animation is a subanimation, you can edit its parent-animation with this command.
- Update Automatically
If this entry is selected, the layer in the document will automatically be modified accordingly to the position of the sequence‘s slider.

Beside that there is an icon bar in the working area. It contains the following commands:

- Create/Edit Animation
Using this command you can create a new animation for a document or a new subanimation for a group. An existing animation can be edited, too (see chapter 7.9.1.2).
- Create New Track
This function inserts a new track after the active one.
- Delete Active Track
This function deletes the active track without further request.
- Move Active Track Backward
- Move Active Track Forward
- Delete Active Sequence
The current/active sequence will be deleted without further request.
- Show Sequence Info
This command opens a dialog listing the settings of the active sequence (see chapter 7.9.1.3). On creating complex animations this dialog is very important. Furthermore this dialog is the only way of rotating a layer in the animation.
- Use All
This command transfers the transparency, the position and the scaling of the sequence‘s layer to the sequence. It is a combination of the commands Use Transparency, Use Position and Use Scaling available in the context menu.
- Zoom In , Zoom Out
These commands change the zoom of the track-list. It allows to edit the details of an animation and to get an overview.
- SWF Preview
The current animation will be saved as SWF-file and displayed in the default web-browser.

First Steps

If you want to create a Dynamic Animation, you should first consider the size of the animation, for example typical advertisement banner on web pages have a size of about 400x80 pixels. After that you should create a document with that size. Now you have to use Create Edit/Animation (see chapter 7.9.1.2). Here you can set up the duration of the animation. After leaving the dialog with OK a single track is created. Furthermore the document will switch to document mode, if it has been in picture mode previously.

If you want to create a small animation containing a text scrolling in from the top, you should proceed like this:

- Create the text layer and fill it with text.
- Move the text layer to the position where it should start scrolling.
- Drag the text layer from the layer-list to the track-list in the working area. This action creates a sequence.
- Set the start- and the end-time of the sequence.
- Select the sequence and move the slider of the sequence to the end.
- In the document move the text layer to the destination position.
- Use the command Use All to transfer the position to the sequence.

If you now press the play-button in the preview area, you should see the text layer moving accordingly to your commands.

You can fade in and out or make the layer larger and smaller analogously.

Subanimations

Subanimations are needed for more complex animations. Imagine the following: a text rotates around one of its axis and - while doing this - it moves backwards, so that it gets smaller and smaller. This text has to be animated in two ways: it rotates around its axis and it gets smaller. Such cases are solved by using subanimations.

The proceeding is something like this:

- Create the text layer and fill it with text.
- Group the text layer (see chapter 7.5.42 "Group Marked Layers")
- Select the text layer inside the group.
- Use Create/Edit Animation.
Using this function makes the group a subanimation. In our example Duration should be the time needed by the text to rotate one time completely around its axis. Leaving the dialog with OK creates a track in the subanimation.
- Drag the text layer to the track
The sequence for the text layer should fill the whole track bar of the subanimation.
- Rotate the text layer around its axis
Rotation around an axis is usually simulated by horizontally or vertically - depending on the axis - scaling a layer to -100% and back to 100%. If done with the right progress curve, the rotation looks very realistically. Entering the scaling is easiest by using the Sequence Properties dialog (see chapter 7.9.1.3). Here you can enter -100% as vertical or horizontal destination scaling. The progress curve should be the following: . This is a mirrored and shifted cosine curve which is well suited to simulate circular movements. This curve is already part of the curve list of PhotoLine.
After entering the scaling and the progress curve you should be able to see rotated text in preview area.
- Leave the subanimation.
By using the context menu of the track-list you can leave the subanimation most comfortably. Another way is to select the group containing the text layer in the layer dialog.
- Use Create/Edit Animation.
This creates the Dynamic Animation.
- Scale group in the document window to your desired start size and move it to the start position
- Drag the group to the track-list and adjust the start- and end-time.
- Move to sequence slider to the end.
- In the document window scale the group to the destination size and move it to the destination position.
- Use Use All

Now your text layer rotating and moving backwards is completed.