Digital Workshop

Can anyone help me.

I am preparing some animations for a new project. I produced some simple test animated GIF's using XARA and then imported them onto paths in Opus 5.5. For some reason the images import upside down and back to front. To correct this I had to turn the animation upside down and back to front prior to import.

Can anyone tell me how to get the aniamtions to show the correct way up etc.?

If you go into object actions -- ie wukka 1 actions >> follow path and
select Orientation "fixed" instead of "aligned", your duck will do a 180 flip.

HTH
Paul

PS-- nearly didn't read this post -- with a thread heading "My Wukka Ducks are upside down!"
-- I was expecting to see a spam post

Hi Riftvalley,

You don't need to convert your animated gifs upside down & reversed...

When you use "aligned" on paths, the orientation is determined by the direction of the path. This is established by how it was first drawn/created in the editor. Paths direction are deemed by default as clockwise, or from left-to-right. Your path was drawn right-to-left, so that's why the ducks travel upside down.

You can change the direction of the animation path in the editor: -- right-click on it and "reverse direction".

As Paul suggested, you can also use "fixed" to quickly solve the problem if that is suitable!

If you want your ducks travelling right-to-left using "aligned" then:

- reverse direction of the paths.
- import the ducks normal (not upside down & reversed).
- then use Start Position 100% and End Position 0% on the path settings.

Hi Riftvalley
Just turn your monitor upside down
Problem fixed!
Hope this helps
Graham

It seems starange that images are imported correctly, and also animations. But when they are combined the image is upside down and back to front. The suggestion of reversing the path and then changing the start and finish %'s is OK but is the same number of keystrokes as changing the image. I think the way that the program handles the image is incorrect. I will try drawing the paths right to left and then reversing their direction.

Can't turn my monitor upside down so I dangled my son by his ankles infront of it to see if they look OK.

Riftvalley
I'm sorry as I have appeared to have upset you going by your emoticon and this was not my intention. By way of explanation, I thought your problem would have been solved based given the expert help you received.
I had a play with your publication and see what you mean.
I then added a train gif that comes with the Opus resource cd (old version) to see if I needed to rotate it to make it work as intended.
The train works fine and it is the right side up too.
Therefore I think your problem might be an XARA caused problem based on the assumption that if another animation works as intended in your Opus publication then it is likely that the duck animation is not what it seems to be in how it behaves in an Opus publication.
As long as the runtime animation is correct, the user would never know about the solution to your problem.
Once again please accept my apologies
Graham

Hi Graham,

No apology needed I thought it funny, my son didn't - he's 36, couldn't hold him anyway!

I think you are right and as long as the end result looks OK then that is the key thing.

I have since generated a more 'mature' animation for a new professional website and it looks great. The benefit is that I am now able to produce an animation inside an animation, export it as a flash item and provided I use XARA and Opus it produces exceptionally compact code that loads like lightning. It is so easy in Opus to adjust the file preload and the image resolution and size that it means complex Flash is a total breeze, efficient, flexible - and cheap (quack)!


PS don't let my customers know how easy it is!

Also did you notice that you can grab the little blighters and drag them across the screen - don't know yet if this comes out in Flash.