The Xara Xone Tutorials Guest Tutorials  Page 6
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When you have exported all 24 frames, create a New Animation window in Xara X (File > New... Animation. Create 18 blank frames and import the still images into the appropriate frames. The 1 pixel corner registration dots will need to be cropped out of the images so the dots do not show. There are several ways to do this. One way is to create a rectangle in even pixel dimensions that includes the engine but not the dots. Copy the rectangle to the clipboard. Select the rectangle and the bitmap and Combine Shapes, Intersect Shapes. Go on to the next frame, paste the rectangle in place using Shift Ctrl v and repeat the combine shapes operation. Repeat this for every frame.

Another method involves making a white rectangle the same size as the bitmap with a hole in the center just big enough to show the engine, not the dots. Copy and paste using Shift Ctrl v the rectangle to each frame.

Experiment with different color depths to get the best combination of image quality and file size. 16 Colors with Error Diffusion dithering usually does a good job, especially with animations.

Amd here is the finished animation again so you can see how the steps come together.

If you have any comments or questions, please use the form on the next page to send them along to me.

Mike Sims

[EDITOR'S NOTE: As a footnote, Mike has come up with another method of exporting the animation frames for import into Xara 3D].

    Actually, with the last version of the tutorial the corner dots do not need to be used at all, as the engine block object enclosed all the other objects anyway, and each component was "Added (CTRL-1)" to the engine block object before exporting. This makes all the objects the same size, and the inner components stay the correct relative size, while the engine-block-only object is given the largest extrusion and bevel settings, so that the engine block parts of the other components don't show. There is a diagram showing this in the tutorial. The corner dots solution is more general, and will always work, but does mean cropping off afterwards.

    In the last version of the tutorial, since I dropped the need for dots, then there is no need for cropping, and so the importing of individual gifs into XaraX is merely to assemble the gifs into one file, and export as a single animated gif, with no other editing needed at all.

     

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