Variations on a Bouncing Ball in G Minor The animation on the left is the same one we created on the previous page. The animation on the right is new. It was exported with the Optimized palette option which picks the best 256 colors, rather than the standard 216 color palette. It displays sharper on Windows computers, and on monitors that can support 256 colors or better. A word of caution. Some of the Optimized colors may not map correctly on Macintosh computers resulting in a possibly very messy image. So, when in doubt, use the Browser palette option. The file size for the animation on the left is about 18K, while the file size for the animation on the right is considerably larger, 38K. What else is different here, and why aren't the balls bouncing at the same time? I made several changes to the file and repeated the entire animation saving process. I obviously changed the timings. And look at the shadows. I darkened the shadow color and applied an Elliptical Transparency to soften the shadow. I made the shadow wider and lighter when the ball is farthest away, and darker and sharper when the ball is closest to the shadow.

Here's another variation that makes good use of Xara's Animation editing features. I created the text in its entirety in the first frame and copied (Ctrl - C) it to the Clipboard. I deleted all but the first word. I clicked on the Select Next Frame button on the Property Bar, and Pasted the text on top, using Shift - Ctrl - V to paste the text in the exact same position. I deleted all but the first two words. I repeated this process for the last two frames, adding one more word per frame. I centered the text over the ball in each frame so that the text bounces along with the bouncing ball.

Happy Hour! This concludes this tutorial. The April tutorial in the Trompe L'Oeil Room, will give you additional help in using Xara's Animation features to further enhance your animations, what they call in Hollywood, Post Production. How'd I do? I like to hear your comments, and suggestions for future tutorials. If we get enough responses, maybe I can squeeze a few more Canadian dollars out of i/us and do another tutorial or two. Click Here to send me a message.

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©1998 Gary W. Priester
This lesson may not be copied, altered, republished or distributed in any type of media without the express written permission of the author.