having another problem with animation - RealWorld forums

After successfully loading a series of images for an animation, I decided that I wanted to edit it. I opened it in RWC using the "recent" button, and then I opened the cursor file that I had saved. I added more frames – that went OK – and then I realized that the cursor was no longer showing as animated in the preview box, but just as one frame.

When I go to save it, nothing in particular seems to be happening, which I guess is normal, because I've already saved it and named it. I saved it after I modified it, and I also saved it as a file with another name. Neither of these displays animation. What is going on?

Thanks,
Ellen

Few questions: Can you still see the frames near the lower part of the window? Are the frame delays reasonable (~20)? Is the preview window switched to "animation" mode? What format did you save the cursor in (.ani, .rcu)?

>Few questions: Can you still see the frames near the lower part of the window? Are the frame delays reasonable (~20)? Is the preview window switched to "animation" mode? What format did you save the cursor in (.ani, .rcu)?<

Yes, I can see all the frames at the bottom. The frame delay is actually on the slow side. I think the preview window is set to animation mode (how can I know for sure?), because originally it was showing animation. Until I added more frames.

I saved the cursor both times as .ani file.

If the cursor has multiple frames, there is a single button in the upper left corner of the preview window. If it is a red square (stop), the picture should be animated, if it is a green triangle (play), the currently selected frame is shown.

Then there is the test area. Is the cursor animating when over the test area?

If the preview is in animation mode and all frames have reasonable delays and the animation is still not shown, it could be an until now unknown error.

>If it is a red square (stop), the picture should be animated, if it is a green triangle (play), the currently selected frame is shown.<

It is red and has been from the beginning.

>Then there is the test area. Is the cursor animating when over the test area?<

No.

Slowly running out of ideas... Can you send me the problematic file to info@rw-designer.com ?

I will send you the files, but first this. I just did a test: I started from scratch with the original frames and added in the frames before I saved the cursor and closed it. This time it worked as an animation albeit with a problem that I will describe below. So the first problem I described seems to have something to do with editing a previously saved and closed animation.

Here are the new problems: I didn't realize that adjusting the cursor hotspot on one of the frames would cause that frame to be out of sync and out of adjustment with the other frames. There seems to be no way to toggle off the hotspot to get to the original alignment?

You should be able to set the hot spot on a single frame via the Hot Spot tool or, if animation is turned off in the preview window, you can drag the preview to change the hot spot of the selected frame. (If animation is running, hot spots of all frames are changing.)

What I'm saying is I adjusted the hot spot on one of the frames thinking it would affect all the frames, but it only affected just that one. And then there was no way manually to get it aligned to be exactly where it was before I changed it.

But I did find a solution, which was to undo a whole series of changes and that got it back to where it was.

But there is another problem: the last frame of the animation has a longer pause then all the other frames, so it doesn't have a smooth flow.

If you want to adjust the hot spot of all frames, you can drag the animated preview. In other cases, only the hot spot on the selected frame is changed.

To change the delay of the last frame, simply select it in the list of frames and start typing a new number and then press Enter. The units are 1/60 of a second. So, if you type in 60, the frame will be visible for 1 second.

Thanks. I was again thinking that that window applied to all the frames.

Well, at least now I have gotten that animation to where I wanted it to be. There is still the issue of whether there is a problem editing the frames after saving and closing the file. I think I will play around with that little bit more before sending the other one to you, because it might have to do with something I was doing.

Knowing what I know now, I took a look at all the frames again and I saw that somehow the ones that I added had negative times assigned to them. After I fixed that, it worked fine again. I have no idea how that happened.

I'm accustomed to working with an animation program that by default makes all the frames the same duration. It's only by very deliberately accessing the setting per frame that you can change the frame duration; it's harder to do it by accident, I think.

OK, thanks for info. It is not out of question that the negative number was caused by an error in the application. If something like that happens in the future and if you find a way how to replicate the behavior, I'd love to know about it and possibly fix it.

To change duration of all frames, you can use the "Change animation speed" command in the "Cursor" menu. You can also select multiple (or all) frames and type a new number in the Frame properties panel.