Page 470 - Xara Web Designer Premium

470 Animations

Opening an animation document
To create an animated GIF, you must first open an animation document. To do this
choose "FILE" > "NEW" > "ANIMATION". You will then have access to the FRAME GALLERY
(on page 462).

Creating the animation
To create an animated GIF:

1. Choose "UTILITIES" > "GALLERIES" > "FRAME GALLERY", or click the FRAME GALLERY
icon on the GALLERIES toolbar.
2. Draw what you want to appear in this first frame.
3. In the FRAME GALLERY, click NEW to create the next frame.
4. Set the background and overlay flags as required.
5. Create the objects you want to appear in this frame.
6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 until you have built up the sequence of frames.

Exporting the animation

To save the animation, choose "FILE" > "EXPORT ANIMATION".

Animation properties

To alter the animation's properties, right click on a frame in the FRAME GALLERY (on page
462) and select PROPERTIES. You can then change a number of options detailed below.
The Frame tab

In the FRAME tab you can set:
• NAME: The name of this frame. This is just as a reminder to you, and is not exported
with the animated GIF.
• BACKGROUND: If this is set, the frame covers all previous frames. This is useful if you
want to create a background and then build up an animation on top of this background.
Often the first frame in the animation is a background frame. If the first frame is not a
background frame, the animated GIF uses the page background as its background.
• OVERLAY: If this is set, then the frame overlays the previous frame.
• LOCAL DELAY: Set how long the frame is displayed for in the animation.
• SHOW FRAME: When checked, the frame will be shown in the animation.
• MOVING FRAME IN TIME LINE: This value determines the amount by which a frame time
is changed when the ‘MOVE FRAME FORWARDS/BACKWARDS' buttons are used in the
Frame Gallery.