By Brian Greenstone
AOL: BrianG19
APPLELINK: PANGEASOFTWR
AnimHelp is a shareware utility designed to help you draw sprite-based
animations. The utility came about because I am a Mac and Super
Nintendo game developer, and the artists I work with find it almost
impossible to draw animating objects with applications like Painter,
Studio/32, Photoshop, etc., because none of them have any kind of
animation features.
Most game artists are used to working with Deluxe Animate on the PC,
so I have designed AnimHelp to be a substitute. The ?1? and ?2? keys
switch frames, and the arrow keys are used to align each frame.
All you?ve got to do is copy each frame from your drawing program into
the clipboard (via Copy or Cut) and then select either Add, Replace,
or Insert in AnimHelp to include the frame in the current animation
sequence. For example, say you have a 5 frame walking animation for a
dog:
? drag the lasso around frame 1
? Cut it into the clipboard
? click on the Animation Window
? select Add
? repeat this for all 5 frames
? align each frame using the arrow keys
? set the animation speed from the Animation menu
? select Run Animation from the Animation menu
? click to stop the animation
Holding down the ?2? key to advance a frame is a quick way to check
your anim.
Selecting New from the File menu will erase all frames so you can
start over.
Note that the only item in the Edit menu that does anything is
Preferences. The Preferences allow you to set the bit depth of each
frame. For best performance, it should be set to the depth of the
screen, however, lower bit depths are better for memory. A 16 bit
depth will use twice as much RAM as an 8 bit depth.
The SET WINDOW SIZE menu item will change the size of the Animation
window. This also changes the size of each frame?s buffer. The larger
you make the window, the more memory each frame will use. The smaller
the window, the less memory each frame will use. You can use ResEdit
to permanently change the size of the default Animation Window. The
size of the window is used when printing Anims to the printer.
PRINT ANIM from the File menu is a new feature which will group all of
the frames of your anim and print them - as many will fit on a page.
You can use this to make a flip-book type animation. Because this
feature is new, I don?t know how well it will work on everyone?s
printer, so please let me know if you have problems. It works fine on
my HP LaserJet IIp.
Just remember that this is a shareware utility, and all I?m asking is
a measly $5. So please donate so that I can continue to do more
shareware utilities and games.
If you have any questions or problems, I can be reached at the
following addresses:
Pangea Software
10918 Kirwick
Houston, TX 77024
or
America OnLine: BrianG19
AppleLink: PANGEASOFTWR
=======================================================
VERSION INFO
=======================================================
v1.0: It worked.
v1.1: Fixes a bug with the Replace feature. The old version did not
erase the existing frame correctly, so if the new frame did not
overlap the old, then both appeared. This version fixes the erase bug,
and Replace works fine.
v1.2: After many people ?begging? me but none paying me any shareware
money, I finally put in a Save feature so that anims can be saved and
reloaded later. NOTE: If I ever get a single shareware donation for
this, I?d be tempted to put a scripting feature in so that you can lay
out complex animations. Heck, I might even put in QuickTime support
eventually.
v1.3: Adds the ability to change the window size from within the
application instead of having to use ResEdit. Adds printing
capabilities.
v1.3.1: Fixed a problem with Brushstrokes and possibly some other
programs.
============================================
KNOWN BUGS
============================================
1\. A known bug with Print Anim is that sometimes printing does not
begin until you quit AnimHelp. I don?t know why, but it just does. If
it doesnt seem to do anything, then try quitting the program and your
printer should suddenly come to life.
