mlandis@NMSU.EDU (02/28/89)
Joe Smith (jms@antares.UUCP) asked about the newest version of Movie and some of the problems with Movie. Then Kevin Clague (kevin@uts.amdahl.com) asked about a program that would take a list of IFF files and create an anim format that could be used with Director. Since I have had some experience with both of these problems, maybe I can help. The newest version of Movie is version 1.3 (if I remember correctly, if not it is something like 1.03 or 1.13, at least it has a 3 in it :-). You can tell it is the newest version because the screen of text that appears before the animation is run has a place where the animator's name can appear. But the problems that you describe with Movie 1.01 have not been fixed with the newer version. The new Movie still refuses to work with MoreRows, and the stack size must still be set for Movie to work correctly from the CLI. The only things the new version provides is the ability to display the animator's name as described above, and the ability to synchronize IFF audio sound to the animation. So, I went in search of a utility that would allow me to create anim files compatible with the Director. I found 2 public domain programs that will do this. ShowAnim (which I believe was written by Gary Bonham) will allow the user to create an anim file by displaying the IFF pictures on the screen, then using the mouse, joystick, or keyboard to capture the picture and add it to the end of the animation. All of the deltas are calculated automatically and compressed into the resulting anim file. MakeAnim, written by Keith Doyle, will read a list of IFF files created with your favorite text editor, and then proceed unattended to create the final anim file. I found both of these programs on PeopleLink. Keith Doyle has also released The Director ToolKit (I got mine for $24.95 from Creative Computers) which includes an improved version of MakeAnim, as well as other utilities to aid in making Director animations. There is a palette optimizer, a blit utility, a text viewer, a file requestor command, an IFF save command, and many more things to aid with Director animations. Definitely worth the price if you use Director to create animations. So now there is a version of BoingThrows that will run even though you might be using MoreRows. I have converted BoingThrows to run under the Director by using the MakeAnim utility described above, and Director animations don't have a problem running with MoreRows. Of course another benefit to using Director is that I have the ability to control the anim in ways I never had with Movie. The Director version of BoingThrows has actually made Amiguy a worse free throw shooter :-). He now randomly dribbles the ball 2 - 6 times before he shoots, and he misses 20% of the time. This random capability was impossible with Movie, but fairly simple to do with The Director. I really enjoy the ability The Director gives me to play back anim files. If you would like to see the new version of BoingThrows, it is on one of the disks that I sent Joe Larson for the animation/graphics disks he is redistributing. Also the 2 disk set (Pict9a and Pict9b) Joe is distributing contains another example of using the Director to control anim files. It is called "WaveSailing with AmiVision" and allows the user to interactively control the animation. The scripts for both these animations are included on the appropriate disk, so if you are looking for examples on how to use anim files with The Director, check these 2 animations out. Hope this helps, Marvin Landis mcsmal@nmusvm1.bitnet mlandis@nmsu.edu