
EASY ANIMATOR: RELEASE 2
------------------------

CONTENTS

 1.     INTRODUCTION

 2.     GETTING STARTED

 3.     MANIPULATING FRAMES

 4.     EDITING A FRAME

 5.     DISPLAYING AN ANIMATION

 6.     ANIMATION OPTIONS

 7.     LOADING AND SAVING ANIMATIONS

 8.     IMPORTING DRAWFILES

 9.     TUTORIAL - A SIMPLE ANIMATION

10.     THE SUPPORT APPLICATIONS

11.     COPYRIGHT AND DISTRIBUTION CONDITIONS

12.     BUGS AND OTHER PROBLEMS


SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
-----------------------

Easy Animator (hereafter referred to as EasyAnim) is an animation program
originally designed for use by primary school children but now also suitable
for almost any age from primary school to adult. An animation is split into up
to 768 frames which are displayed at a user specified rate, these frames can be
edited using built-in editing tools. These tools are suitable for simple artwork
but not for complex pieces.

If you wish to get started quickly, I suggest you read sections 1 and 2 then
skip straight to section 9, which takes you through the creation of a small
animation.

RISC OS 3.1 at least is required to run the program. An ARM3 and at least 2Mb of
memory are strongly recommended. A hard disc is also useful. EasyAnim has been
tested successfully on a 2Mb A4000, 4Mb A5000 and briefly on a 13Mb Risc PC 600.

This manual can be printed in the normal way but has not been designed
specifically for printing so you may end up with paragraphs split over two
pages. You can print easily from Zap or alternatively load the document into
Impression, Pendown+ or suchlike and print from there. If you are using
StrongEd/Edit/DeskEdit, then change to Zap immediatly!

Within this manual, menu options are shown as Menu  Submenu  Option, keys are
shown as Ctrl-A and the mouse buttons are just select, menu and adjust. Key
shortcuts will only work when the frames window is open and has the input focus
(ie the title bar is cream instead of the usual grey).

It is advisable to copy the EasyAnim program and all its associated resources to
your hard disc, if possible, before using it. You must copy the !EasyAnim
application along with !EasyHelp, the Examples directory and this Manual file.

Interactive help is supported on most windows with Acorn's !Help application.


SECTION 2: GETTING STARTED
--------------------------

To start, load the program by double-clicking on the !EasyAnim icon in the filer
window. The EasyAnim icon should then, all being well, appear on the right-hand
side of the iconbar and a window should open in approximately the centre of the
screen. This is the frames window and attached to the left-hand side of it is
the rather large frames toolbox. The frames window displays all the frames in
order, side by side and allows you to edit, move, copy and generally manipulate
them.

Within the frames window you will at first see one large white rectangle with a
red number below it and covered by a red grid. This is a frame, the red number
and grid show that it is the current or selected frame as opposed to a
non-selected frame which has a black number and no grid. To select a different
frame, click below the required frame, on the number. All operations accessed
from the frames toolbox work on this current frame.

Clicking on the icon on the iconbar with select will open the preview window and
toolbox which displays the animation running and allows you to control the way
it is played and step through the frames one at a time.

Clicking menu on the frames or preview window will open the EasyAnim main menu
which contains many functions referred to throughout this document. The iconbar
menu can also be accessed by clicking menu on the iconbar icon.


SECTION 3: MANIPULATING FRAMES
------------------------------

An animation can be made up of up to 768 frames or as many as will fit in
memory. This section describes how to manipulate these frames using the tools on
the frames toolbox and from the main menu:

 COPY
This operation can be performed by choosing Frame X  Copy from the main menu,
by pressing Ctrl-C or by clicking on the Copy icon in the frames toolbox. The
current frame will be copied to a temporary area in memory known as the frames
clipboard. Any previous frame in the clipboard will be overwritten. A beep will
be heard after a successful copy and the frame can then be pasted in again any
number of times using the paste tool.

 PASTE
This operation can be performed by choosing Frame X  Paste from the main
menu, by pressing Ctrl-V or by clicking on the Paste icon in the frames toolbox.
The frame stored in the frames clipboard will be pasted in again after the
current frame. You can store a frame in the frame clipboard using the cut and
copy tools.

 CUT
This operation can be performed by choosing Frame X  Cut from the main menu,
by pressing Ctrl-X or by clicking on the Cut icon in the frames toolbox. The
current frame will be copied to the frames clipboard and then removed from the
animation. To restore it again, use the paste operation.

 INSERT
This operation can be performed by choosing Frame X  Insert from the main
menu, by pressing Ctrl-I or by clicking on the Insert icon in the frames
toolbox. A new, blank frame will be inserted straight after the current frame.
This tool is similar to the paste tool except that a blank frame is inserted
instead of the clipboard contents.

 VERTICAL FLIP
This operation can be performed by choosing Frame X  Flip V from the main
menu or by pressing Ctrl-V. The current frame will be turned upsidedown.

 HORIZONTAL FLIP
This operation can be performed by choosing Frame X  Flip H from the main
menu or by pressing Ctrl-H. The current frame will be flipped from left to
right.

 SAVE
You can save the current frame by moving to the Frame X  Save menu option on
the main menu and dragging the icon in the save box to the directory viewer
where you wish to save. You can also drag to another application such as Paint
in the normal RISC OS manner. Note that EasyAnim cannot yet reload frames saved
in this way.


SECTION 4: EDITING A FRAME
--------------------------

A frame can be edited using all the drawing tools in the bottom two-thirds of
the frames toolbox. All these operations happen in the currently selected
colour, this can be chosen using the 256-colour palette situated at the bottom
of the frames toolbox. These colours are only accurately shown in 256, 32
thousand or 16 million colour modes so you should change to a mode of this type
while using EasyAnim. On older machines, a mode such as mode 28 for VGA monitors
or mode 15 for standard monitors is recommended, on the Risc PC and A7000, the
largest 256 colour mode is best.

There are twelve tools, just above these colours, that can be used to edit a
frame. Simply select the tool you require then click in the place you wish to
draw on the frame. If the grid is active, all drawing will be snapped
approximately to grid lines. The grid state can be altered from the main menu.

The tools are, from left to right, top to bottom:

 FILL
This will fill in an enclosed area with the current colour, starting at the
mouse pointer. Do not click many times in quick succession when using this tool
as this occasionally seems to cause a long wait while the computer tries to
cater for all the mouse clicks. 

 TEXT
Choosing this tool produces a small window allowing you to set the font name and
size. No anti-aliasing is used as it seems to be rather counter-productive at
small sizes. Clicking on a frame will paint the text with the bottom right
corner at the mouse pointer.

 LINE
To use this tool, click once in the start position for the line then move out to
the end position and click again to complete the line.

 BRUSH
This tool is controlled by another small window which allows you to set the
brush shape, circle, square, triangle or spray. You can also set the brush size
by dragging out the shape in the window to the required size. The brush is
painted onto the frame, centered around the mouse pointer.

 COPY BLOCK
Using this tool, you can copy a section of a frame to another clipboard known as
the block clipboard. You must click once in the corner of the area you wish to
store, then pull out the box to the required size and click again. The area can
then be seen in the clipboard window and pasted with the paste block tool.

 PASTE BLOCK
This will paste a section of frame previously grabbed using the copy block tool
onto any frame, in any position. The block will appear with its bottom right
corner at the mouse pointer.

 OUTLINE RECTANGLE
 FILLED RECTANGLE
 OUTLINE CIRCLE
 FILLED CIRCLE
 OUTLINE TRIANGLE
 FILLED TRIANGLE
These six tools allow you to draw rectangle, circle and triangle shapes onto a
frame. Simply click once in one corner then move out to the required size and
click in the other corners - once more for rectangles and circles and twice more
for triangles.


SECTION 5: DISPLAYING AN ANIMATION
----------------------------------

To see an animation in the desktop, click select on the EasyAnim iconbar icon.
This will open the aforementioned preview window, which displays the animation
running considerable slower than normal. Affixed to this window is the preview
toolbox, which has several tools, described below:

 |< MOVE TO START
This will move the preview display to frame one.

 << MOVE BACKWARD ONE FRAME
This will move the preview display back one frame.

 <  PLAY BACKWARD
This will play the animation backwards within the window.

 >  PLAY FORWARD
This will play the animation forwards within the window. This can also be done
by choosing Animation  Play from the main menu.

 >> MOVE FORWARD ONE FRAME
This will move the preview display forward one frame.

 >| MOVE TO END
This will move the preview display to the last frame.

 || PAUSE
This will pause the animation at its current position. This can also be done by
choosing Animation  Pause from the main menu.

Below these icons, the frame currently being shown and the total number of
frames are displayed within two icons.

By clicking on the Full icon in the preview window, choosing Animation  Full
screen from the main menu or pressing Ctrl-F, you can see the animation running
at full speed. The animation is shown in the centre on a blank screen and all
other tasks are paused. Normal activity is restored when a mouse button is
pressed.


SECTION 6: ANIMATION OPTIONS
----------------------------

There are several options which control an animation. All of these options are
saved along with the animation so they remain the same when it is reloaded.

 ANIMATION TITLE
This can be set from the Animation  Title window on the main menu. The title
can contain any characters and can be up to 32 characters in length. This title
is displayed in the title bar of the preview and frames windows.

 ANIMATION SPEED
This can be set by chosing one of five different speeds from the Animation 
Speed submenu on the main menu. It is best to test each of these speeds then 
choose the one that works the best. The speeds are:

        Name            Centiseconds between frames
        Very fast       0
        Fast            5
        Normal          10
        Slow            15
        Very slow       20

Each speed should be roughly the same on different machines, except the very
fastest setting. However, this may not always be the case and it is really up to
the user to set a speed appropiate to their machine and taste.

 GRID SPACING
The grid spacing can be set from the main menu to one of four sizes, None,
Small, Medium and Large. The grid is one of the most problematic parts of the
program at present. It functions decidedly oddly at scales other than 100% and
is very inexact. However, I am working on it... but don't hold your breath.

 FRAME SCALE
This can be set from the main menu and refers to the frames window only. The
frames in the frames window can be displayed at any size from 20% to 500% in
steps of 10%. This is useful for exact drawing work.

A quick overview of the current animation status can be seen from the Animation
 Info window on the main menu. This displays the number of frames, animation
filename, size on disc and title. 

If you wish to return to a blank animation, you can choose the Fresh start
option from the iconbar menu or the Animation  Fresh start option from the main
menu.


SECTION 7: LOADING AND SAVING ANIMATIONS
----------------------------------------

To load an animation, you must first load the EasyAnim application as described
above and then simply drag the animation icon from the filer window onto the
EasyAnim icon on the iconbar or alternatively double-click on an animation in a
filer window. You will asked if you wish to remove the animation that is
currently present and if you reply yes, the animation will be loaded and its
frames displayed in the frames window ready for editing. If the animation you
wish to load is larger than the memory availiable, you will be told by the
program. Should this happen, you are advised to quit any unwanted applications
and attempt to shrink all system memory allocations using the task manager (eg
RAM disc, font cache, system sprites and module area).

To save an animation, simply move to the Save window on the main menu, type a
filename into the writable icon in the normal way and drag the animation icon to
a directory viewer. You should not drag this icon to another application unless
it is designed to take EasyAnim animations. You can also click on the OK icon to
save if there is already a filename present (if you have saved before for
instance).


SECTION 8: IMPORTING DRAWFILES
------------------------------

EasyAnim has the capability to take a drawfile and put it into an animation as
a frame. To do this, drag a drawfile icon from the directory viewer into the
EasyAnim frames window. A window will open showing the drawfile name and size.
Click on Import to convert the drawfile. The screen will blank for a few moments
then the desktop will reappear with the drawfile inserted after the current
frame. You can then import the same drawfile again in the same way, should you
wish. Clicking on the Close icon will close the window and you must drag in
another drawfile to reopen it. Once drawfiles have been loaded into EasyAnim,
they can edited in the same way as any other frame and saved as a sprite in the
normal manner but they cannot be returned to drawfile format.


SECTION 9: TUTORIAL - A SIMPLE ANIMATION
----------------------------------------

This section illustrates how to create a very simple but rather boring
animation. The final animation is included in the Examples directory.

1 The best method of creating an animation is to draw the background on one
frame then copy and modify it for each successive frame. We are going to create
an animation featuring a sun rising above the horizon. So, firstly draw a green
rectangle covering the bottom half of the first frame and fill in the top half
blue for sky. Remember which colours of green and blue you used for each.

2 Choose frame 1 by clicking below it on the number, then select Copy from the
frames toolbox. After that, click on Paste in the frames toolbox to paste a copy
of that frame. Now draw a large, filled yellow circle on the second frame in the
centre horizontally and one grid square up from the bottom. This covers up half
of the ground so draw it in again in the same position as before.

3 Select frame 2 and click on Paste in the frames toolbox to put in another copy
of the first frame. Draw another yellow circle on this frame, one square above
the position in frame 2 and fill in the ground again.

4 Paste another copy of frame 1 in after frame 3 by selected frame 3 and
clicking on Paste. Again, draw a yellow circle of the same size but this time
three squares up from the bottom and draw the ground in again.

5 Now click on the EasyAnim iconbar icon to see how the animation looks. You can
see it at proper speed and colours by clicking on the Full icon.

6 Almost the last thing to do is to give the animation a title. Click menu over
one of the large animation windows and move to Animation  Title and type in a
suitable name. Rubbish is an appropriate name but you may use another if you
wish. You can also set the speed of the animation by choosing one of the speeds
on the Animation  Speed submenu.

7 If you wish you can then save the animation using the save box on the main
menu. Simply type a filename in the normal way and drag the icon to a filer
window.


SECTION 10: THE SUPPORT APPLICATIONS
------------------------------------

This rather grandiose section title is rather silly as there is only, at
present, one support application. This called EasyHelp and is an on-line help
program for EasyAnim. It was originally intended as a substitute for a manual
but it takes up over 200K in memory and cannot be printed. It is very easy to
use, simply click on the raised icons to move between pages.


SECTION 11: COPYRIGHT AND DISTRIBUTION CONDITIONS
-------------------------------------------------

This program and all resources associated with it are copyright  Nicholas
Marriott and Alpha Programming. It may be distributed by anybody as long as no
part of it is changed in any way without my permission and as long as all of
the following four items are included:

        !EasyAnim
        !EasyHelp
        Examples
        Manual

Also, no more than 2.50 should be charged for the program on a normal or high
density disc. If you wish to include the program on a CD-ROM you may not charge
more than 50 for the entire CD-ROM and please inform me so I may supply the
latest version. In my opinion, any CD-ROM costing more than 50 is a complete
rip-off.

This program has taken, so far, over a year of work on my part so I would
appreciate it if you obeyed these few conditions.

This program is Freeware. You can send me money if you wish, but it is not
essential.


SECTION 12: BUGS AND OTHER PROBLEMS
-----------------------------------

If you find a bug or any other kind of problem or if you simply want to
complain, then I can be contacted at:

        54 Moneymore Road
        Cookstown
        Co. Tyrone
        N. Ireland
        BT80 8EH

or      nic@alpha-programming.co.uk

If you e-mail me and expect a reply, you MUST include your postal address and
be prepared to wait. If you write to me and REALLY want a reply, send a stamp.

