An animation can be created by creating a series of frames or key-frames, where each frame differs slightly from the previous.

 

  After moving and editing your figures from their previous positions, click the 'Add Frame' button to add it to the time-line. The 'A' or space bar keyboard keys can be used as a shortcut/hotkey.

 

 

 

The time-line shows all the frames in the animation at the top of the main window. The scroll bar underneath the frames can be used to view any part of the animation (if the number of frames exceeds the width of the window). The position of the time-line can be moved in one frame increments by clicking the arrows at either end of the time-line or using the keyboard arrow keys when the scroll bar has focus. Rotating the mouse wheel will also scroll though the frames.

 

The area to the left of the time-line key-frames shows the number of the frame being edited or added and the number of inbetween frames.

 

Hovering the cursor over the Frame number text will show the time of the current selected frame in the animation based on the current frame rate.

 

The value entered in the Inbetweens edit box determines how many frames should be automatically created between the selected key-frame and the following key-frame when the animation is played or exported. Any differences between the selected frame and the next will vary smoothly while playing. The smoothness, speed and duration of the inbetween sequence will depend on the chosen inbetweens value. The inbetweens value between each pair of key-frames is represented as a green bar in the timeline, which can also be dragged as a slider to change the value. Only the slider handle is shown when the inbetweens value is 0.

 

The inbetweens box replaces the Repeat box present in previous versions. To create a pause in the animation with no change simply create two identical frames (right click and select Insert) and then set the inbetweens value of the first frame based on how many times you'd like it to repeat. This is done automatically when loading animations created using previous versions that contain frame repeats.

 

See the Frame Inbetweening page for more information.

 

 

 

Frames in the time-line can be edited by clicking on them. The main editing area will then show the edited frame and the Add Frame button will change to 'Update Frame'. After editing the frame the changes can be stored by clicking the 'Update Frame' button or by selecting another frame in the time-line to edit. If you edit a frame and do not want to keep the changes, then you can discard the changes by clicking the same frame in the time-line that was being edited (this action cannot be undone but you will get a warning message).

 

  The < and > keyboard keys can be used to step the frame being edited left or right from the current frame being edited. This is equivalent to clicking a frame to the left or right of the current frame being edited and can therefore be combined with the Shift or Ctrl keys to select multiple frames, as described below. The keys can also be used while previewing a frame, which can be useful to see how the resulting animation will look one frame at a time. If the Loop play option is enabled while previewing then the selected frame will loop to the beginning or end of the animation when using the > or < keys are used respectively.

 

Note: On QWERTY keyboards the <> keys are on the comma and full stop keys. On other keyboards they made not be. If the <> keys don't work then try comma (,) and full stop (.) instead.

 

 

 

Frames can be selected by clicking on them in the same way as editing a frame. Selected frames are displayed with a blue border.

 

  Multiple frames can be selected by using the Ctrl or Shift keys in the same way as selecting multiple files in Windows Explorer. Click a frame while holding the Ctrl key to switch the frame between selected and unselected. Click a frame while holding the Shift key to select all frames between the clicked frame and the previous frame clicked. The Multi Select option in the timeline right click menu can also be used and behaves as if the Shift key was being held.

 

The background image or frame inbetweens value can be set for multiple frames by selecting the frames as described above, setting the background or inbetweens value for the last frame that was clicked and then storing the changes by clicking the 'Update Frame' button or by selecting another frame in the time-line to edit.

 

Other actions can also be performed on multiple frames to save time. This includes add figure, paste figures, paste camera, move figures, pose camera, reset camera, delete figures, set figure colour, set figure transparency, set figure scale, raise / lower figures, join / unjoin figures, flip figures, align camera with canvas, apply camera to figures and insert frames. If any of these actions are performed while multiple frames are selected then a message box will appear to ask if you would like to apply the change to the selected frames. Select Yes to complete the multi-frame action or No to only apply the action to the frame being edited. Figure based actions are applied only for figures with the matching ID (which is shown in the info bar at the bottom of the screen for the selected figure). When moving figures or the virtual camera, the new pose in the selected frames will be offset by the amount moved so that they keep their positions relative to each other. Note that multi-frame actions cannot be undone, so it's a good idea to save the animation beforehand just in case the result does not match expectations.

 

The three buttons to the left of the time-line frames allow you to delete or copy the selected frames or paste previously copied frames. The delete and copy buttons will only be enabled when at least one frame is selected.

 

 

Delete Selected Frames

Click the delete button to delete all selected frames. This action cannot be undone and so a warning message will appear to ask if you want to delete the selected frames or cancel.

 

 

Copy Selected Frames

Click the copy button to copy the selected frames. The frames can then be pasted to the end of the animation or inserted between frames in the time-line. Copied frames are independent of the OS clipboard and are stored even after the program is closed.

 

 

Paste Copied Frames

Click the paste button to paste previously copied frames to the end of the animation. The frames can have been copied from the current animation or from another animation. Frames can be pasted from an animation with different dimensions, but if background images are used they will either be cropped or padded out. Backgrounds and figure types from the pasted frames will be merged with those in the existing animation to avoid duplicates where possible.

 

 

 

Right clicking any frame in the time-line displays a pop-up menu, which provides operations that will be applied to the clicked frame.

 

 

Insert

Click the insert button to insert a new frame in-front of the frame that was clicked. The new frame will be an exact copy of the clicked frame. After inserting a frame, the new inserted frame will be selected for editing.

 

Frames can also be inserted for multiple selected frames using the right click popup menu option in the time-line. Each new frame will be inserted immediately in front of the original. All inserted frames will then be selected and so the process can be repeated if needed. This can be useful for creating low frame rate effects.

 

 

Paste Insert

Click the paste insert button to paste previously copied frames immediately before the clicked frame. In all other ways, this is the same as the 'Paste Copied Frames' button described above.

 

 

Delete

Click the delete button to delete the clicked frame. This action cannot be undone and so a warning message will appear to ask if you want to delete the frame or cancel.

 

Click the multi select button to select all frames between the last selected frame and the frame that was right clicked. This is equivalent to clicking the frame while holding the Shift key. This button will only be enabled if a frame was previously selected and is not the frame that was right clicked.

 

 

 

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Sometimes it can be useful to view the current frame without handles to see what it would look like, but without playing the animation so that you can inspect the frame carefully. This can be done by holding the Ctrl key while clicking the play button. Stop previewing by clicking the Stop button or by clicking anywhere on the editing canvas.