@database Heddley @master WORK_GAMES:PROJ/AnimatED/AnimatED.Guide @remark Created with Heddley v1.1 (c) Edd Dumbill 1994 @node "Introductie" "Introduction " @{b}What is AnimatED?@{ub} Welcome to AnimatED, an animationprogram which makes it possible to make your animations just that little bit better. AnimatED allows you to add all kind of different events to your animations. With just a few clicks of the mouse you will, for example, be able to assign a soundsample to a particular frame in your animation or make a frame pause for some time. You can use your favourite drawingpackage, which uses the IFF-Anim standard, to draw your animation and when finished use AnimatED to make your animation really stand out from the rest. Let's introduce some powerful features available in AnimatED: * Support for IFF-animations (modes 5 and 7). * Support for all screenmodes (including AGA). * IFF-soundsamples, which can be played through any channel you like. You can also set the volume and the pitch at which the sample will be played. Looped soundsamples are supported. * Timing, change at any point in your animation the speed at which your animation is played. The speed is measured in Frames Per Second. * Wait, pause your animation for an amount set in seconds. * Play Sound-/Noise-/ProTracker or Med modules during your animation. * Add fades to animation frames. * Control everything with an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface). * Your finished productions can be easily played back in realtime using the stand-alone freely distributable AnimatEDPlay program. * Create stand-alone self-running disks with ease. Use animations, edited with AnimatEDPlay as intro's to your games/demos. @endnode @node "Disclaimer" "Disclaimer " @{b}Disclaimer@{ub} The author of AnimatED can not be held responsible for any damage that this program or the manual that came with it might cause. If you are using AnimatED, you will do so at YOUR OWN RISK. @endnode @node "Registratie" "Registering" @{b}Registration@{ub} AnimatED is shareware, which means it may be freely distributed and copied, as long no alterations are made to the programs or the archive. If you find AnimatED good enough to cheer up your animations you might consider to registrate AnimatED. When you send me the registration fee you will receive a disk containing the latest version of AnimatED and a special personalised keyfile. When you copy this file to the same directory as where AnimatED is started from then AnimatED won't bring up the shareware notice at the beginning. Also scripts saved with a registered version of AnimatED will remove the requester which is displayed when playing your animations using AnimatEDPlay. Your keyfile is personal and it contains your name and address, so don't give it to other persons. I also would like to state that if you do register that all future updates of AnimatED will be free for you. This means that you don't have to pay extra money to use the latest version. Updates of AnimatED will be available through Aminet(-CD's). If you want to register please send me one of these in cash: * $20 (US dollar) * £10 (Pound sterling) * 25 NLG (Dutch guilder) * 30 DEM (Deutsche mark) * 20 CAD (Candadian dollar) * 20 AUD (Australian dollar) * 100 FIM (Finnish mark) * 100 NOK (Norwegian krone) * 100 SEK (Swedish krone) * 100 DKK (Danish krone) * 600 BEF (Belgian franc) * 100 FRF (French franc) or * Eurocheque for 25 Dutch guilders (Hfl 25 gulden) (write your Cardnumber on the back of the cheque!) Other currencies or methods of payment will NOT be accepted! Inning foreign cheques costs a lot of money and accepting this method of payment forces me to increase the shareware fee, so therefore only cash payment and Eurocheques are accepted and the shareware fee is as low as it can be. Please use the 'AED_OrderForm.txt' (included in the archive) for your order. NOTE: Sending money to me is doing so at your own risk! I cannot be held responsible if things go wrong. Don't be too afraid for sending money in cash though. I have registered users from Mexico, USA, England, Italy, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Japan and Australia, so it all seems quite reliable. Click here for the @{"address" link "Adres" 0}. @endnode @node "SystemReq" "System Requirements " @{b}System Requirements@{ub} To use AnimatED you need at least Kickstart 2.04 and 2 Mb of memory, But if you really want to benefit from all AnimatEDs features, more memory is recommended. Also the following libraries should be in your LIBS: drawer: - diskfont.library - asl.library - mathtrans.library - reqtools.library The AED.font (size 8) should be located in your FONTS: drawer. See also @{"Installation" link "Install" 0}. AnimatED has been tested on the following systems: A500 (030) / A1200 (020/030/040) / A2000 (030/040) / A3000 / A4000 (040). @endnode @node "Install" "Installation " @{b}Installation@{ub} This shouldn't be a real problem as all you have to do is copy the AnimatED executable to wherever you like (your harddisk for example). Even easier, double click the Install icon and everything will be copied automatically (including the AED.font, which will be copied to FONTS:). AnimatED will look for it's prefs-file (if available) in the same drawer AnimatED was started from. You should also have the following libs and font installed. LIBS:asl.library LIBS:diskfont.library LIBS:mathtrans.library LIBS:reqtools.library FONTS:AED.font Libraries are not included as these are part of WorkBench and should be on your WorkBench-disk. NOTE: AnimatED needs version 38.25 or higher of the asl.library. The version included with WorkBench 2.x will NOT do! @endnode @node "Main" "AnimatEDGuide ©1997 Marco Vigelius" @{b}AnimatED v1.45@{ub} © Marco Vigelius, 1997. AnimatED is a @{fg shine}SHAREWARE@{fg text} product Read the distribution section for information on distribution and registering. @{"      Disclaimer       " link "Disclaimer" 0} Use it at your own risk. @{"     Introduction      " link "Introductie" 0} What is AnimatED? @{"  System Requirements  " link "SystemReq" 0} What does AnimatED need? @{"     Installation      " link "Install" 0} How to install AnimatED. @{"      Main Screen      " link "MainPanel" 0} What are all those buttons for? @{"        Events         " link "Events" 0} What and which events? @{"     AnimatEDPlay      " link "CartoonPlayer" 0} I want to be famous! @{"   Questions+Answers   " link "QenA" 0} I've got a problem?! @{"       History         " link "History" 0} Story of my life. @{"        Future         " link "Future" 0} What's next? @{"     Distribution      " link "Registratie" 0} I want to register! @{"       Credits         " link "Adres" 0} Not that spectaculair. @endnode @node "MainPanel" "Main Screen" @{b}Main Screen@{ub} From the main screen, which can be in any screenmode or the Workbenchscreen, you'll be able to control all of AnimatEDs features. AnimatED can be quit by pressing the close window button of the Project Window. You are free to drag any of the windows around. New windows positions will be stored in memory as long as AnimatED is running. You can save new windowpositions by clicking the Save button on the AnimatED prefs page of the Prefs window. Windowspositions will be automatically saved if the @{"Auto-save prefs" link "Options" 0} option is enabled. Here is a description of the functions of all those windows: @{b}Project window@{ub} @{"  Load Anim  " link "LoadAnim" 0} Load an IFF-animation. @{" Unload Anim " link "Unload" 0} Unload an animation & script @{"    About    " link "About" 0} Display program info. @{" Load Script " link "Load Script" 0} Load an AnimatED-script. @{" Save Script " link "SaveScript" 0} Save an AnimatED-script. @{"    Prefs    " link "Options" 0} Change/Save the prefs. @{"  Cont Anim  " link "Cont Anim" 0} Start animation from the current frame. @{" Start Anim  " link "Start Anim" 0} Start animation from the beginning. @{" Show Frame  " link "Show Frame" 0} Show the current frame. @{b}Frames window@{ub} All frames are displayed in this window. On the bottom is the currently selected frame. All further actions will affect this frame. Click on a framenumber to make that frame the current frame. Double click a frame to fetch and display it. You can resize the Frames window to make more frames easy accessible. You may also add a comment (max. 20 characters long) to all frames by pressing the comment button. @{b}Events window@{ub} Shows a list of all events availble in AnimatED. Events which are attached to the current frame have a checkmark. Clicking on one of the events causes that particular eventwindow to open. Only 1 event of it's kind can be attached to a single frame. @{b}Search for event window@{ub} Select an event to search for and then use prev and next to search backwards or forwards for the selected event starting from the current frame. When a frame contains the event searched for it will become the current frame. If nothing is found the screen will flash. @{b}Text Buffer window@{ub} Shows information and error messages. If something doesn't go as you expected look at this window to see if there is an (error)message displayed. The last 50 messages will be remembered. @endnode @node "LoadAnim" "Load Animation " @{b}Load Anim@{ub} When you press this button AnimatED will bring up a file-selector and from here you should select your IFF-Anim and click Ok. AnimatED will then load your animation in memory. If for some reason AnimatED failed to load your animation, due to low memory for example, an error message will be displayed. Don't forget that at the moment AnimatED only supports IFF Anim5 and Anim7 animations. Also animations can only be loaded into contiguous memory. Which means it is important to have a big largest free memory block. For animations it doesn't matter if this is fast-memory or chip-memory. See @{"Q+A" link "QenA" 0} for more information about memory usage. IMPORTANT! AnimatED expects your animation to have looping frames at the end, so when the end of your animation is reached your animation will start all over again from the beginning. However some programs don't add these frames to the animations they save and when playing such an animation in AnimatED it will when it loops around become a real mess. I have done a little test of which programs fail to save IFF-animations with looping frames and I have come to the following conclusions: Program Looping frames? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DeluxePaint III,IV(AGA),V Yes, no problems with this classic. Brilliance 1 & 2 Same story here, no problems at all. Main-Actor v1.55 Save the animation as IFF and when the program has saved your animation it will ask you if it should add looping frames. Simply answer this with a yes, and it works fine with AnimatED. Personal Paint 6.1 This seems to be the only troubleshooter at the moment, as it won't add looping frames. If you're animation doesn't have looping frames there are several things you can do: - Load your animation in a program which does add looping frames and save it from there. - Add looping frames yourself by adding frame 1 and 2 to your animation. - Let AnimatED do all the work and select 'No looping frames' from the @{"Prefs-window" link "Options" 0}. It's best to add looping frames and don't let AnimatED do the work. @endnode @node "Load Script" "Load Script " @{b}Load Script@{ub} This button, when pressed, will bring up a file-selector and allows you to select an AnimatED-script. Only files with a .AED extension are displayed. This script contains all the events-data and the names of the used animation and possibly used soundsamples, Trackermodules and/or Medmodules. When you load a script, AnimatED will also automatically load your animation and possible soundsamples/trackermodules/medmodules. AnimatED will try to load these files from the same directory they were originally loaded from. Therefore it may be possible that AnimatED asks you to insert a disk containing those files. If you don't have that disk anymore or you have copied the files to another disk, AnimatED is not able to locate the needed files. However AnimatED will also look in the same directory where you're scriptfile was loaded from, for that particular file needed. Please read the @{"AnimatEDPlay" link "CartoonPlayer" 0} section for information on this. If still a particular file can't be found both AnimatED and AnimatEDPlay will try to play the animation anyway. Except, of course, if it can't find the animation itself... :) @endnode @node "SaveScript" "Save Script" @{b}Save script@{ub} With save script all the events-data will be saved. AnimatED will automatically add a .AED extension to the name you have given to save your script and an icon. Remember that AnimatED does not save your animation, soundsamples and trackermodules. AnimatED does however save the directories where it can find these files, so if you load the script another time in AnimatED it will try to load these from the disks/directories they were originally loaded from. If this fails it will also look in the same directory where the script was loaded from. See for more information @{"Load Script" link "Load Script" 0}. @endnode @node "About" "About " @{b}About@{ub} This brings up a requester which shows what amount of free memory you have. Especially important are the largest free memoryblock and CHIP memory. See @{"Q+A" link "QenA" 0} for more information. @endnode @node "Events" "Add Event " @{b}Events@{ub} @{"  Freeze frame  " link "Wait" 0} Freeze a frame temporarily. @{"     Timing     " link "Framerate" 0} Set the playback speed of your animation. @{"Soundsample I/II" link "Soundsamples" 0} Load and play IFF-soundsamples. @{"  Trackermodule " link "Tracker" 0} Load and play Trackermodules. @{"    Medmodule   " link "Medmodule" 0} Load and play a Medmodules. @{"  Channel Mask  " link "Channel Mask" 0} Mask Tracker- or Med Channels. @{"   Load Script  " link "Load Script Event" 0} Load a new script. @{"      Fade      " link "Fade" 0} Fade palette and/or volume in or out. Buttons available in all events: Ok - Accept the specified values and close the eventwindow. Cancel - Nothing changes and the event window will be closed. Remove - Remove the event from the current frame and close the eventwindow. Clone - Copy the values attached to another frame to this frame also. Execute event at loop - Specify at which loop the event should occur. 0 means execute the event everytime the animation has looped around. @endnode @node "Wait" "Freeze frame event " @{b}Freeze frame event@{ub} Here you can make the current frame wait for an amount of time set in seconds (maximum 600 seconds), a mouseclick/keypress or both. If you set the waiting time 10 seconds and also tick the wait mouseclick/ keypress box, AnimatED will wait 10 seconds before it continues the animation, but if the user presses a key or the left-mouse then AnimatED will also continue your animation. Be sure to have set the correct Refreshrate of the display mode you are using, otherwise it could suddenly happen that a second isn't a second anymore. :) @endnode @node "Framerate" "Timing event" @{b}Timing event@{ub} Here you can set the speed at which your animation from the current frame will be played back. 1 frame per second is the minimum 50 frames per second the max. On slow Amiga's it is possible that animations with a big resolution don't achieve the specified speed. Also be sure that the specified Refreshrate matches the refreshrate of the used displaymode. Otherwise unpredictable things can happen. :) @endnode @node "Soundsamples" "Soundsamples event" @{b}Soundsample event (I and II)@{ub} Here you can load samples and assign one of them to the current frame. The samples loaded in memory are displayed in the listviewer on the left and the currently selected one is displayed on the bottom. You will see that there is already one sample present, namely Sound Off. This sample does exactly what you expect, namely turning the currently playing soundsample off (this is if you specify the same channels ofcourse). Load - This will bring up a file-requester and allows you to load 8SVX IFF soundsample into memory. IFF soundsamples are used a lot on the Amiga and there are thousands available in the Public Domain. You can also sample your own sounds using a soundsampler and some samplesoftware which can save the samples in the required format (almost all do). You can't load soundsamples which are bigger than 128.000 bytes. You can load a maximum of 250 different soundsamples. NOTE: soundsamples can only be loaded in CHIP memory. Kill - This option deletes the currently selected soundsample from memory. All frames which had this soundsample assigned to itself will lose their event-data. Hear - Plays the currently selected sample with the current volume-, pitch- and channelsettings. Stop - Stops the currently playing soundsample. Channel - Here you can select through which channels your soundsample should be played. The Amiga has 4 different channels with which you can make any combination possible. Volume - This allows you to set the volume from silence (0) to very loud (64). Pitch - Controls the pitch at which the soundsample will be played back ranging from high (100) to low (600). Press the Default button to set the slider to the pitch at which the soundsample was saved. Loop - When turned on this will loop the soundsample. NOTE:To loop an IFF soundsample it must have looping information. Soundsamples saved without this information will NOT loop and produce some afwul noises instead. Led - Turns the soundfilter on/off. @endnode @node "Tracker" "Trackermodule event" @{b}Trackermodule event@{ub} With the tracker event you can load a upto 20 sound-/noise-/pro-trackermodules which can be started or stopped at any frame in your animation. It is possible to play both a trackermodule and a soundsample simultaneously, see @{"Channel Mask" link "Channel Mask" 0} for more information. Load - Will try to load a trackermodule into chip-memory. NOTE: trackermodules can only be loaded in chip-memory, which means it may happen that you have plenty fast-memory left but still get an out of memory error if there isn't any chip-memory left. Also note that there is no filetype-checking on trackermodules, so loading in any other file than a trackermodule will probably crash AnimatED! Start - Starts the currently from the listviewer selected trackermodule from the specified pattern. Pressing the Ok button will now assign a start trackermodule event to the current frame. Stop - Stops the currently playing trackermodule and/or when pressing the Ok button will now assign a stop trackermodule event to the current frame. Pause - Pause the currently playing trackermodule. Pressing the Ok button will assign a pause trackermodule event to the current frame. Cont - Continue the paused trackermodule. Pressing the Ok button will assign this as an event to the current frame. Kill - Remove the module from memory. All frames which had this trackermodule assigned to itself as a start event will lose their trackermodule event. Pattern - Here you can specify from which pattern your trackermodule should start. Volume - Use the slider to set the volume of the trackermodule. NOTE: Don't try to play a trackermodule and medmodule simultaneously. @endnode @node "Medmodule" "Medmodule " @{b}Medmodule event@{ub} With the Medmodule event you can load upto 20 four channel MMD0 or MMD1 Medmodules which can be started or stopped at any frame in your animation. It is possible to play both a trackermodule and a soundsample simultaneously, see @{"Channel Mask" link "Channel Mask" 0} event for more information. Load - Will try to load a medmodule into chip-memory. NOTE: medmodules can only be loaded in chip-memory, which means it may happen that you have plenty fast-memory left but still get an out of memory error if there isn't any chip-memory left. Start - Starts the currently in the listviewer selected medmodule from the specified pattern. Pressing the Ok button will now assign a start medmodule event to the current frame. Stop - Stops the currently playing medmodule and/or when pressing the Ok button will now assign a stop medmodule event to the current frame. Kill - Remove the medmodule from memory. All frames which had this medmodule assigned to itself as a start event will lose their medmodule event. Pattern - Here you can specify from which pattern your medmodule should start. Volume - Use the slider to set the playback volume of the medmodule. NOTE: Don't try to play a trackermodule and a medmodule simultaneously. @endnode @node "Channel Mask" "Channel Mask " @{b}Channel Mask event@{ub} This events allows you to mask out audio channels needed by soundsamples stopping the medmodule or trackermodule currently playing using them. Normally when you try to play a soundsample when there is also a med-/trackermodule playing will produce an afwul noise. Here you can specify which channels should be masked so a soundsample can be played using these channels. Ofcourse it is also possible to turn channels on again so the med-/trackermodule can use them again. A channel must be masked (Mask On) before the sample is started. This may also be done on the same frame as the soundsample is attached to as internally AnimatED first handles the mask event before the soundsample event. Any mask settings will remain until another mask event occurs. Don't try to do nasty things like playing a medmodule and trackermodule simultaneously. @endnode @node "Load Script Event" "Load Script event" @{b}Load Script event@{ub} This event allows you to load a new AnimatED script from within another script. NOTE: This only works when playing your scripts using AnimatEDPlay! Actually this event shouldn't be an event, it should have been an option in the (animation)prefs window. This because it doesn't necessarily is of influence on the frame this event is attached to. It was easier to code this as an event than rather an option, so that's why I made it an event. This event deletes the currently playing project from memory and then AnimatEDPlay starts loading the specified new one. There are several options when this needs to happen. Tick the checkbox to activate the Load Script event. Now you can select an AnimatED scriptfile. There are 3 possibilities when AnimatEDPlay loads the script: - When the current frame has been reached. - When the animation is quitted (by pressing the right mousebutton). NOTE: Also if the animation ends this option will execute the Load Script event. - When the animation has ended (if the animation isn't played in an infinitive loop). There are also 3 possibilities to choose what AnimatEDPlay should display whilst loading the new script: - The Workbenchscreen. - The last shown frame. - A blank screen. NOTE: When you use one of the last 2 options then the new loaded animation MUST have the same screen dimensions as the one currently displayed. So width, height and depth (ie. amount of colours) must be the same. The palette doesn't need to use the same colours, so it's perfectly legal to play an animation with a different palette. Ofcourse this event can be only attached once to a frame in a particular animation. If the event already exists and you attach this event another time to a different frame then the previous one will lose it's eventdata. @endnode @node "Fade" "Fade event" @{b}Fade event@{ub} With this event you can add fades to your animation frames. You can fade the current frame in (from black to the used palette) or out (from the used palette to black). Use the buttons to set the speed at which the fade will work with 1 being the fastest and 10 the slowest. A speed of 0 turns the fading off. NOTE: At the moment the fade is calculated on non-AGA principles, so it may seem a bit dull on AGA Amiga's. Also HAM screens can't be faded! Since version 1.44 of AnimatED it is also possible to fade the volume of a soundobject. Tick the appropiate checkbox to select which objects should be effected by the fade. @endnode @node "Options" "Prefs" @{b}Prefs@{ub} There are 3 pages of options which can be accessed using the cyclegadget. One of the pages contains options for AnimatED itself only, the other two are of influence on the currently loaded animation. Which means they can't be accessed when no animation has been loaded. @{b}Animated Prefs@{ub} Select Display - Allows you to select any screenmode available for AnimatED to display it's windows on. Screens must be at least 640 x 200 in size. Use Workbench - Use the WorkBench screen. Show Framenumber - Shows the framenumber of the current frame in the top-left corner when playing your animation or showing a frame. Auto save prefs - Saves the prefs, including windowspositions, when AnimatED is quitted. CycleGadget search - As default the event search window will display a list to select an event. This option allows you to switch between this and a CycleGadget (as used previous versions of AnimatED). Close Workbench - This option will try to close the Workbench screen. This will give you more (valuable) free Chip memory. (NOTE: If other programs are using the Workbench then it's not possible to close it) Save - Saves the above options and all windowspositions to a prefs-file. This file is called AnimatED.prefs and is located in the same drawer as AnimatED. At start-up AnimatED will look for this file and read the prefs if possible. @{b}Animation Prefs@{ub} Select Display - Allows you to select a different displaymode for your animation to be played in. Please be careful with this, selecting some displaymodes may cause a software failure. Refresh rate - Sets the amount of times the screen is updated per second. On normal PAL-screens this is 50 times ont NTSC-screens this is 60 times. A screenmode like Euro72 for example updates 72 times a second. The Timing is based on this value. So calculating a framespeed based on a PAL screen (50 times) but played on an Euro72 screen (72 times) isn't very wise. HAM screen - Tick this checkbox to maken AnimatED open a HAM screen for the animation to be displayed in. Normally AnimatED recognises HAM animations automatically. Single Palette - Since version 1.2 of AnimatED different palette per frame animations are supported. Unfortunately on some (non AGA) Amiga's a wrong palette is initialized with some animations. As a default this option is turned on to keep AnimatED compatible with all Amiga's. X Pos & Y Pos - Allows you to set the coördinates at which the animationscreen must be displayed. This is useful for Overscanscreens which seem to be displayed wrong most of the time. Negative values are accepted. Play anim x times - Sets the amount of times the animation must be played. 0 means an infinitive loop. Can't quit anim - Normally a press of the right-mousebutton will quit the animation. When the checkbox is marked this can't be done. This option is only of influence when playing your animation with AnimatEDPlay. Set password - This allows you to password protect your scripts. You may enter a password up to 10 characters long. The correct password is needed to load the script into AnimatED. For playback using AnimatEDPlay the password is NOT required. Info requester - This allows you to select an ASCII-text which will be displayed once in a requester before your animation starts. There are 2 textformatting commands (case sensitive!!): Allows you to set the window title. Allows you to set the button text. The Info requester will only be displayed when playing your animation using AnimatEDPlay. NOTE:Don't use lines longer than 50 characters. Don't use too many lines of text either, as it otherwise may not fit on (some peoples) Workbench screen. No looping frames - If your animation doesn't contain looping frames you'll notice the last 2 frames of your animation are missing. If this is the case tick this box or even better add looping frames to your animation. See @{"LoadAnim" link "LoadAnim" 0} for more information. @{b}Animation Prefs@{ub} Directory paths - Here it shows all the directories and filenames of the animation, soundsamples, trackermodules and medmodules which AnimatED needs to load a script. I think it's wise to make make a backup of your original script before changing any paths or filenames in the Prefs-menu. NOTE:You can change the filenames of soundsamples, trackermodules, medmodules and the animation, but please be careful, as if you accidentally specify a wrong file AnimatED will probably crash. Also notice that you can't change the animation itself! This should always be the same file when loaded the first time in AnimatED using the LoadAnim button. @endnode @node "Cont Anim" "Cont Anim " @{b}Cont Anim@{ub} This option will start your animation from the frame currently displayed. It will take notice of any rate-events which may have occurred before that frame. It won't however continue sound/tracker-events which may still be heard when running from the beginning of your animation. Press the right-mousebutton to quit back to the editor. @endnode @node "Start Anim" "Start Anim " @{b}Start Anim@{ub} Surprise surprise, this option will actually play your animation from frame one. Press the right-mousebutton to quit back to the editor. @endnode @node "Show Frame" "Show Frame " @{b}Show Frame@{ub} Shows the current frame. You can quit back to the mainscreen by pressing the right-mousebutton. Pressing the left-mousebutton will show the next frame. If 'Show framenumber' is selected in the @{"Prefs-window" link "Options" 0} the framenumber will be displayed in the top-left corner of the screen. @endnode @node "Unload" "Unload Project" @{b}Unload@{ub} You wil be asked to confirm this option, which will delete the current project from memory. So be sure you have saved you're scipt before selecting this option. Otherwise all data will be lost. @endnode @node "CartoonPlayer" "AnimatEDPlay" @{b}AnimatEDPlay@{ub} Your Finished productions can be easily played back in real time. Record onto video tape or distribute your production on disk, using the freely provided, distributable AnimatEDPlay. You can start AnimatEDPlay from the CLI, by typing: AnimatEDPlay or from Workbench by double-clicking on it's icon. In both these cases a file-requester will pop up, allowing you to select an AnimatED scriptfile. You can also start an AnimatED scriptfile by simply typing the directorypath and filename where you're AnimatED script is held in the CLI: AnimatEDPlay MYDISK:AEDscripts/greatanim.AED This will load and start your animation directly. It wil thus load the necessary files needed to play your animation (ie. the animation itself, soundsamples etc.). At first AnimatEDPlay will look if the volume where they were originally loaded from is avalaible. If it's not it will try to locate the file in the same directory you're script was loaded from. So if you, for example, have saved a script which looks for a file called 'greatanim.anim' in the directory 'ANIMS:mine/' then if this volume isn't avalaible (ie. disk not inserted for example) it will also look for that file in the directory the script was loaded from. This is easy if you, for example, want to play your animation from anywhere you like. Simply copying all the files, needed by your script, to the same directory where your scriptfile was loaded from will guarantee that your animation is played correctly. Even simpler; also copy AnimatEDPlay to that same directory and now a double mouseclick on the script-icon will run your animation automatically. If a file can't be found a requester will pop up, asking you to insert the volume where that file can be found. Press Ok if the volume is inserted, press cancel to quit. If you have selected an ASCII-textfile to be displayed as an intro-requester this will be displayed of the specified text-file is found. If not, nothing will happen and the animation will start playing anyway. If you have saved your script with a not registered version of AnimatED a requester will be shown before the animation starts. Please read the section about @{"registering" link "Registratie" 0} for more information. If you have set the value of 'Playing x times' in the Prefs-menu of AnimatED greater than 0, you're animation will be played as many times specified and AnimatEDPlay will quit itself. Otherwise you're animation will be played infinitive. If you have selected the option 'Can't quit animation' in the Prefs-menu of AnimatED you're animation can't be quitted. Otherwise a press of the right-mousebutton will quit your animation and AnimatEDPlay. If you are making your own bootable disk, be sure you have copied the 'mathtrans.library' and the 'asl.library' to the LIBS-drawer of your disk. Because both these libraries are needed by AnimatEDPlay. @endnode @node "QenA" "Questions+Answers " @{b}Questions & Answers@{ub} Here are some solutions for problems you may encounter. Q: When my animation has reached the end it loops back to frame 1 but it makes a mess of the display. A: Your animation doesn't contain looping frames, please read the @{"Prefs" link "Options" 0} section for more information. Q: My animation contains 2 frames more than AnimatED counts. A: This means you're animation don't contain looping frames, please read the @{"Prefs" link "Options" 0} section for more information. Q: When I want to loop a sound it doesn't loop but makes some strange noises instead. A: Use an IFF-sample which actually contains looping-data. You can add looping using any IFF-compatible musicprogram (Soundtracker, Protracker, Med etc.) See also @{"Load Sound" link "Soundsamples" 0}. Q: AnimatEDPlay won't run. A: Be sure the 'asl.library' and 'mathtrans.library' are present in the LIBS-drawer of your boot-disk. Q: The animation isn't displayed in the correct screenmode. A: Disable any screenpromoters. For example the one in IPrefs, which is in your Prefs-drawer, promotes screens while it shouldn't. Especially overscan screenmodes seem to suffer. Ofcourse you can always select a different screenmode for the animation in the Prefs window. Q: The screen isn't positioned correctly. A: This happens a lot with overscan screenmodes. First try disabling any screenpromoters and if needed adjust the screenposition by altering the X Pos and Y Pos values in the @{"Prefs" link "Options" 0} window. Q: I have plenty free memory left, but I still get an 'Out of Memory' error when I want to load something. A: Soundsamples and tracker/medmodules can only be played from Chip memory, therefore you may have enough free Fast memory to load the file, but soundsamples and trackermodules do need Chip memory. The animation itself can be loaded in both Chip or Fast memory, this must however be one block of contiguous memory. So it's always important to have a big 'largest free memory block'. Q: When there is a Tracker-/Medmodule playing than if I want to play a soundsample I can't hear it or get some afwul noises instead. A: In the @{"Channel Mask event" link "Channel Mask" 0} window you can specify which channels should not be used by the module and therefore will be available for soundsamples. Q: I have changed some filenames and now my script won't load. A: It wouldn't be too bad if it was just the directorypath that had been chanhged and not the filename. As both AnimatED and AnimatEDPlay will also look for a file in the directory the script is loaded from. See @{"AnimatEDPlay" link "CartoonPlayer" 0} for more information about this. But if the script needs a file which doesn't exist then it's a different story. You could try to load the scriptfile into a text-editor and change the incorrect filename to one which does exist. Q: I have saved my script password protected, but now I can't remember the password anymore. A: Too bad, there is nothing you can do about it. Q: AnimatED crashes at start-up. A: Try deleting the prefs-file, if it exists. Maybe AnimatED tries to open a screen which isn't available on you system (anymore). Q: AnimatED crashes a lot. A: Try starting Workbench without executing the 'startup-sequence'. Do this by disabling the 'startup-sequence' in your early boot-up control menu (hold both mousebuttons during a reset). If you now boot your Workbench-(hard)disk you'll get straight in the CLI, start AnimatED from here. Starting AnimatED this way means there won't be any other programs in the background which could cause troubles with AnimatED. Q: Fading a HAM animation looks afwul. A: Have you ever seen a program which fades a HAM screen? Q: My animation is loaded Ok, but all I see is a black screen or wrong colours. A: I don't know what is causing this. Try to save your animation from different packages to see it if it solves the problem. If not use the Single Palette option from the Prefs-window. This should solve your problem, but unfortunately you won't be able to use animations with a different palette per frame. Anyway, please let me know if you have this problem and tell me what your config is. Q: When I play a soundsample it is actually played twice. A: This probably means you are trying to play a stereo soundsample. These are not supported at the moment, but ofcourse you can create stereo soundsamples easily yourself by making 2 mono soundsamples and play these both at the same time using the Sound I and Sound II events. Q: Medmodules play to fast or to slow. A: At the moment the Medmodule event isn't very good. It's best to convert the Medmodule to a Trackermodule and use this instead. Q: My animation plays to slow or not at a constant speed. A: This means your Amiga isn't capable of updating the screen in time. The bigger the screensize of the screen the animation is displayed in and the more colours an animation use the more CPU time is needed to update the screen. Try saving the animation in the Anim7 format which uses more memory but has much better playback speeds. Q: My animation isn't recognised. A: Try loading and saving it from a different animationpackage. Q: AnimatEDPlay crashes when loading a new script whilst showing the last shown frame. A: Be sure the new animation has the same width, height and depth as the one currently shown. Q: Any hints or tips? A: Yes, a very important one! Always make some sort of storyboard for your animation before you are going to use AnimatED. Write down framenumbers to which you want to attach a particular event. @endnode @node "Future" "Future " @{b}Future@{ub} Well there are some things I want to add to AnimatED, for example: - Support for OctaMed modules. - Effects to display/remove a frame. But it all really depends on how much feedback I get from you! It isn't worth it further developing AnimatED if only a few people are interested. Also as soon as I find out there is a cracked copy of AnimatED or AnimatED-keyfile then AnimatED will NOT be further developed. @endnode @node "History" "History " @{b}History@{ub} * v1.00 - Internal test version. * v1.10 - Public release 22 february 1997. * v1.20 - AnimatED now supports animations with a different palette per frame (as supported by DPaint and PPaint). - Added support for Med-modules. - Added the Load Script event. - Combined the 'Attach Event' and 'Events' window. - Renamed the events. - Animations can now be played in a selectable display mode. - Seperated the Tracker-Mask options from the Sound-event, which now has become an event on it's own. - AnimatED now uses it's own special font, based on Thinpaz/XEN. - Changed the arrowbuttons into sliders for the Timing and Freeze Frame events. - Completely changed the Prefs window, splitting it into 3 different pages. - Added the Auto-save Prefs option to the Prefs window. - Added the Refresh rate option to the Prefs window. - Added the Single palette option to the Prefs window. - Added the Add icon to script option to the Prefs window. - Added File-requester buttons to the filepaths in the Prefs window. - Added a palette editor for the GUI screen in the Prefs window - AnimatED now remembers where the script was loaded from and gives this directorypath + filename as default when saving the script. - AnimatED and AnimatEDPlay will now, when a soundsample, trackermodule or medmodule can't be loaded, try to play the animation anyway. - Completely changed the format in which AnimatED saves it's scripts. This makes it easier for me to keep old scripts compatible with new versions of AnimatED. - Coded the ScriptConverter utility to convert AnimatED 1.1 scripts to the new format. - Optimised the existing code a bit and removed some bugs. - Added a nice background window...for which I borrowed the idea from MainActor. ;) - Created an Installer script using the standard Installer program. - Public release 26 april 1997. * v1.21 - Fixed a bug which locked AnimatED if it couldn't save the prefs on exit. - The Installer script now automatically installs a keyfile (if available). - Public release 30 april 1997. * v1.22 - Internal test version. * v1.30 - Windowtitle and buttontext can now be specified for the (AnimatEDPlay) intro-requester using the and text formatting commands. - Added the Fade frame event. - AnimatED now allows you to assign 2 soundsamples to a single frame. - Double-clicking a frame in the frames listviewer will now fetch and show that frame. - Fixed a bug which made Trackermodules play to fast on NTSC Amiga's. - Fixed a bug which caused some trackermodules to start from position 2 instead of the beginning. - Fixed a bug which caused Software Failures on some Amiga's if the animationdisplay was removed from memory. - Redesigned the way in which the Mask event works. - Changing the volume now immediatly affects the currently playing Mod/Med/Soundsample in their particular event windows. - Optimised (and thus speed up) the code which shows a frame and continues the animation from the current frame. - Now proper titles are displayed in the title bar of the asl-filerequesters. - Changed the default (viewing) tool for the Guide to Multiview instead of C:AmigaGuide. - Public release 19 may 1997. * v1.31 - Internal test version. * v1.40 - AnimatED (and AnimatEDPlay) now use a much more efficient way to store it's variables. This can result in upto 700 Kb more of free memory then in previous versions of AnimatED. IMPORTANT: It's wise to save scripts created with a previous version of AnimatED with this new version! - AnimatED finally supports HAM animations! Added the HAM screen option to the @{"Prefs" link "Options" 0} window. (Read this if you're into HAM animations) - Added the clone button to all events, which will copy the same values to the selected event as added last time to another frame. - Added the 'Execute event at loop' option to every event, which allows you to specify at which loop the event should be executed. A 0 means the event will be executed everytime the animation loops around. - Added a new Search event window to make selecting an event to search for easier. - Added the CycleGadget search option in the Prefs window if you want to use the old method of searching for an event. - Added a scrollbar to the Information window, which is now called Text Buffer. - Changed and added text messages which are displayed in the Text Buffer. - Added the 'Current frame' text to the frames window. - Added the Comment button to the frames window, which allows you to add a comment (max. 20 chars) to the selected frame. - If AnimatED is quited or if a project is unloaded then if the script isn't saved AnimatED will let you know and offer a save script option. - The refreshrate will now use 60 as a default on NTSC Amiga's. - All sound events will now be executed before a Fade event. - The 'Play animation x times' will now also work if the animation is played with AnimatED. - Now if an event window or the options window is open all other windows will be locked (ie. when activated will display the busy pointer). - The file-requester now adjusts itself to the size of the screen. - AnimatED and AnimatEDPlay will now return a version string when searched for with Workbench's Version command. - NOTE: From now on AnimatED requires the 'reqtools.library' in LIBS: !! - Public release 22 june 1997. * v1.41 - Fixed a bug in AnimatEDPlay which caused the 'click on a script icon to execute it if AnimatEDPlay is in the same drawer'-method not to work. - Public release 26 june 1997. * v1.42 - Now upto 20 Trackermodules and 20 Medmodules can be loaded into AnimatED. - AnimatED and AnimatEDPlay no longer execute a play trackermodule event only once, now use the 'Execute event at loop' option instead if you want a trackermodule to be started only once. - Fixed a bug which made AnimatED crash if the animationscreen couldn't be opened (ie. screenmode not available). - Fixed a bug which displayed a soundsample in the listviewer when it couldn't be loaded with Load Script (ie. file not found). - Fixed a bug which caused AnimatED to crash with some eventwindows when these were opened. - Directory paths for loading scripts, animations, soundsamples etc. are now remembered by AnimatED and will be used as default when loading one of these objects next time. All these paths are saved in the AnimatED.prefs file. - A new icon is attached to saved scripts (thanks go to Brian Jones for making the new AnimatED icon set). - Public release 19 july 1997. * v1.43 - Fixed a bug which caused displaying a wrong number in the current frame window when the current frame was 128 or higher. - Public release 20 july 1997. * v1.44 - Added the 'Whilst loading show' option to the Load Script event, which makes it possible to display the last shown frame or a blank screen whilst the new animation loads. - The listviewer now centres around the framenumber which was last shown or found after doing a search event. - Added a 'Default' button right next to the pitch slider in the Sound event window. When pressed this will set the pitch slider to the default pitch of the currently selected soundsample. - Renamed the Fade frame event to Fade event which now also allows to fade soundsample, tracker- and medmodule volumes. - Added the 'Close Workbench' option to Prefs which allows you to close the Workbench screen giving you more free Chip memory. - Removed the ugly looking screenbar which showed up when animations smaller than 320 pixels wide were displayed. - HAM animations are now automatically recognised by AnimatED. - Public release 14 september 1997. * v1.45 - Fixed a bug in AnimatEDPlay which caused the 'click on a script icon to execute it if AnimatEDPlay is in the same drawer'-method not to work. - Public release 21 september 1997. @endnode @node "Adres" "Address" @{b}Credits@{ub} AnimatED is written by Marco Vigelius using Blitz Basic 2. For suggestions and the lot please write me at: Kromme Zandweg 52 3319 GH DORDRECHT THE NETHERLANDS Email : vigi@cybercomm.nl Homepage : http://www.cybercomm.nl/~vigi (Visit the official AnimatED homepage for the latest news, updates and examples of projects created with AnimatED!) @{b}I would like to thank the following people:@{ub} Dale Hemenway, for beta-testing AnimatED, giving some good advice and making the excellent Talking Dog animation. Brian Jones, for beta-testing AnimatED, giving some great suggestions and making the nice AnimatED icons. Jan Vloemans, because he otherwise weer zit te mieren that I haven't mentioned him. :) @endnode