Paint Animation

How would I create animation with: an array, or Microsoft Paint?
Thanks,
Siopses

You mean an anim strip?

Well I use ProMotion from cosmigo. It allows you to build animationbs which you can then export as an animstrip loadable with Blitz's loadanimimage.

http://cosmigo.com/promotion/index.php

There's also GraphicsGale which is a cheap alternative to ProMotion. There's even a free version of GraphicsGale.

I do believe that it is possible to do with Microsoft Paint
and an array... I don't want to spend any money on it.

Well, I can't find any links on google linking array animation and MS Paint.

Go here: http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/download.html

Look at the differences between GraphicsGale(Paid for) and GraphicsGale(Free). Pick which one you want.

I would really recommend GraphicsGale over MS Paint any day.

:)

Short version:

Draw all your frames in MS Paint (if you insist).
Join them all together into an animstrip using GlueIt (freeware)
Load them into Blitz with LoadAnimImage (or equivalent).

UnFREEz might be helpful.

Or (similar to LineOf7s)

Draww all your frames in MS Paint
Join them together with a simple program written in blitzplus/3d/max (you'd have to write it yourself)

-if you are using blitz3d/blitzplus/blitzbasic then look at the following commands in the manual/help/documentation:

grabimage
copyrect
saveimage




Load them with LoadAnimImage

Sweet, thanks for the help guys; I like Matty's idea the best so I'll try to make my own program.

OR



O_o

Fair enough. Enjoy the learning experience. :o)

GlueIt - Definately recommended!

IPete2.

Create the frames with MS Paint and save them all in a folder and use AnimImage Creator by me to put them all into one animation sequence.

AnimImage Creator

Or, download GraphicsGale.

I'd say glueit BUT you could get/use MaxGui and follow
this tutorial.

I've already seen AnimImage Creator Ked, but I'd like to try
to make my own... learning experience, just one conflict I'll
probably run into- What would I save the Animated Image
as? and would blitz recognize the frames, or that the image
is animated?

Siopses - save the animated image under whatever name you want. It doesn't make sense to ask 'would blitz recognize the frames' as all the animated image is really is just a larger image containing all the other images laid out in a series. When you use loadanimimage the parameters specifying "width,height,first frame,frame count" are used to tell blitz which parts of the image go into each frame.

One important point, I feel, to remember with animstrips is there is usually a lot of wasted space 'transparent pixels' for certain types of animations/images like people/creatures for instance.

Try using this as a template for creating your own animation software.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/stickfigure.html

Easy to use, creates stick figure animations that can be saved as .GIF files.



Blitz is you the programmer. More properly stated, your efforts will determine whether the program is successful or not.

If you figure out how to store your images in an animation strip, and flip through the images every "X" milliseconds,
then Blitz will recognize the frames and animate the images

Here's some code I wrote earlier today for an RPG project. It might be of use to you. Basically its used to create an animated image from single frame image files.

Function CreateIconImage( width, height, num_icons, folderpath$ )
; Creates an image to add icons to.
; Use 'LoadIcon' to load the icons into this image.
; The image handle of the image will be returned.

	; Change to the specified folderpath that will be used by 'LoadIcon'.
	ChangeDir folderpath$
	
	; Create the image to add the icons to.
	Local image = CreateImage( width, height, num_icons )

	LoadIcon( image, frame, filename$ )
	
	Return image
End Function



Function LoadIcon( image, frame, filename$ )
; Loads an image file with the specified filename and adds it to the specified destination image (created using 'CreateIconImage') as the specified frame of that image.
; 'CreateIconImage' should have been called prior to this function to create the destination image and set the folderpath for the icons.

	Local icon = LoadImage( filename$ )
	If icon
		SetBuffer ImageBuffer( image, frame )
		DrawBlock icon, 0, 0
		FreeImage icon
	EndIf	
End Function

; EXAMPLE USAGE

; -- Load item icons.
Global G_num_item_icons = 6
Const C_ITEM_ICON_WIDTH = 32
Const C_ITEM_ICON_BUTTON_WIDTH = C_ITEM_ICON_WIDTH + 2
Global G_item_icon_image = CreateIconImage( C_ITEM_ICON_WIDTH, C_ITEM_ICON_WIDTH, G_num_item_icons, G_appdir$ + "MEDIA\ITEM ICONS" )
LoadIcon( G_item_icon_image, 0, "blank.png" )
LoadIcon( G_item_icon_image, 1, "Secret-icon.PNG" )
LoadIcon( G_item_icon_image, 2, "WoodContainer-icon.PNG" )
LoadIcon( G_item_icon_image, 3, "Skull-icon.PNG" )
LoadIcon( G_item_icon_image, 4, "Bblance-icon.PNG" )
LoadIcon( G_item_icon_image, 5, "Baraka-icon.PNG" )
;^^^^^^

Thanks, but for this Space Invader's clone I'm making I think
my best option is to use Ked's AnimImage thing... I'll make my own animation thing some other time. Screw it I couldn't
download Ked's thing, I'll be making my own If I like it or not.