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Porting
Animations - Intro 2 |
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Animation Software and Supported Features
and Formats
This tutorial details some of the features and file
formats supported by Apple® QuickTime™ Pro
4.0, Adobe® ImageReady™ 2.0, Jasc® Animation
Shop™ 2.0 and Macromedia® Fireworks® 3.0.
I have prepared a table (below) which you can print
out and use as a guide for planning your porting strategy:
How To Interpret the Table Data
There are two main groups of columns with headings
at the top of the table: "Image Sequence"
and "Movie". Programs which support the import
and export of an image sequence in a single step will
have a checkmark in the columns under the "Image
Sequence" heading. Programs which support the import
and export of movie formats will have a checkmark in
the columns under the "Movie" heading. An
animated GIF file is considered to be a "movie".
If a feature or format is supported, there will be a
checkmark in the column, otherwise there will be a "NO"
in the column.
File Formats
The following image formats for stills (single frames)
are considered in this table for importing and exporting
an image sequence:
| Extension |
File Format |
| PCT |
Macintosh®
PICT |
| BMP |
Windows®
Bitmap |
| GIF |
CompuServe®
GIF89a |
The following animation formats are considered in this
table for importing and exporting a movie:
| Extension |
File Format |
| MOV |
Apple® QuickTime™ |
| AVI |
Microsoft®
AVI |
| GIF |
CompuServe®
GIF89a |
Note that the GIF format supports
both single images as well as movies.
Notes on Fireworks and Animation Shop
Jasc Animation Shop is available for Windows only.
The remaining programs are available for both Macintosh
and Windows. Although Macromedia Fireworks 3.0 does
not support much in the way of importing and exporting
as it is being shipped at the present, the program has
support for extensibility as well as scripting. Although
I have not found any extensions or scripts for file
import or export at the Macromedia web site, that's
not to say that they are not available. So these features
are not etched in stone for Fireworks.
One means of porting an animation from ImageReady to
Fireworks which is not mentioned in the table is that
once an animation has been setup in ImageReady with
each frame on its own layer, you can save the file as
a Photoshop PSD file, then import the animation into
Fireworks. When opening the PSD file in Fireworks it
will give you the option to import the layers as animation
frames. This is very handy and very fast and is one
way to port an animation other than what is described
in the above table.
The following tutorials will demonstrate actual examples
of porting animations.
Click
Here To Continue...
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