New Active Objects
Active objects can be made up of many animation sequences, from Walking to Jumping to Disappearing. Objects can range in their animation possibilities - it really depends how they were originally designed.
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To make changes to an object’s animation you have to call up the very powerful animation editor. Just click on your object with the right mouse button and select "Edit Animations...". |
The Animation Editor
Klik & Play allows you to assign up to sixteen named animation sequences to each of your objects.
The Animation area
This is a small panel divided into rectangular "frames". Each frame holds a single picture which will be shown in the animation.
Images can be copied by dragging them to a new location with the left mouse button. After you release the button, your chosen image will be duplicated at the new position, inserting itself and shifting all the frames to the right by one frame.
As with objects, each frame has a pop-up menu which can be selected with the right mouse button
Edit Frame - Calls the Picture Editor to edit the image
Insert - Inserts an exact copy of the current frame at this position and shifts all the frames to the right by one frame.
Resize Zoom - Changes the size of your object using a smooth animation sequence.
Delete - Erases the current image completely. Any frames to the right of this image will automatically be moved one place to the left.
Number of directions
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If the directions panel shows hollow dots like these, it means that the
animations have not been created for these directions. If you click on one
of the dots, you can see there are no animations. So whichever way you move your character, it will always face the same way.
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You can fix this problem by clicking on the 'Create other directions by
rotating this one' button. Check each direction. You may need to make adjustments to one or more directions by clicking
the reverse horizontally or vertically buttons.
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Now your character should face the correct way as it moves.
It's a good idea to look at the animations of all the supplied objects, you’ll learn how best to set-up objects depending on their required purpose.
Repeat
Repeat enters the number of times your animation will be displayed on the screen.
You can adjust it using a simple slider, or by typing in a new value from the keyboard. If the repeat count is set to zero, the animation will loop continuously. The value will be changed to "looping" to reflect this.
Loop back to frame: chooses the frame number to return to after the animation reaches the end of the sequence. It’s normally set to the first frame, but you can change it to create an "intro sequence" which will be displayed once at the start of your animation.
Hot Spots and Action Points
Hot Spot
The Hot Spot is an invisible handle used to drag your images around on the screen.
It’s used as a reference point for the X,Y co-ordinates of your object. Each image can
have its own separate hot-spot. As a default, when you create a new active object the
hot spot is automatically positioned at the top left corner of each image. However, you
can actually move it anywhere you like. So a character in a platform game might have
the hot spot near its feet, and an attacking alien might have a hot spot at its centre.
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Action Points
This is the point on the image where an action will occur. It’s typically used for things
like bullets, which need to be released from a specific part of the object, such as a
gun. Each frame of an animation can have a different action point. So as the gun
moves, the firing point can change as well.
When you select this option, a cross-hair will appear in the image window indicating
the current position of the action point. You can use it to drag the action point to a
new position.
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