THE NEW FANTAVISION GS V2.1 DOCUMENTATION To draw using Fantavision GS you plot a series of points which the computer connects together to form objects-something like the way that "connect the dots" works. Then you and Fantavision GS manipulate those objects to create animation and special effects. "Tweening"-short for "in between" frames-is the animation technique that makes the objects that you create "flow". Frames are the building blocks for Fantavision GS. Each frame contains a still picture that you create on the screen. (Frames are indicated on the screen by the film strip in the right.) If, for example, you draw a stick figure standing straight up in frame 1, and then draw the same figure touching its toes in frame 2, Fantavision will run the sequence of frame 1 and frame 2-with as many as 64 intermediate positions-so that the figure will appear to bend over slowly and touch its toes. Transformation is another useful technique. If you were to add, say, a frog as ÿframe 3, the stick figure, after touching its toes, would turn smoothly into a frog. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each of the functions below is discussed in the sequence with which it appears on the Fantavision GS screen. To draw you plot a series of points which the computer connects together to form objects. You plot points by pressing the mouse, joystick or pad button when the cursor is in the desired position. You tell the computer that you are finished drawing an object either by connecting the last point plotted to the first, or by changing the object number or frame number. If you accidently close off an object pressing the cursor or joystick button twice will re-open it. You can then continue working from the last point you plotted. There is a limit of 32 points per object. The object status box will tell you how many points you have plotted. If you try to plot a 33rd point, you will be told the object is full. Fantavision allows þyou to animate 8 objects in each frame. THE OBJECT COUNTER The object counter tells you the number of the object you are currently working on by highlighting that number in black. When you are finished working on an object, you can use the counter to move on to the next simply by clicking the cursor on the new object number. You do not need to work on objects in numerical order, however, the higher the object number, the greater the priority of the object. In other words ,if you draw two objects in exactly the same place, only the second object will be visible. By using the Capture Box, it is possible to work on more than one object at once. In this case all objects being manipulated will be highlighted in black in the object counter. You can use the counter to insert or delete objects from the capture box by pressing the appropriate object number. You can introduce a new object or delete an existing object at any point. To delete an object do not use that object number for at least one frame. To introduce a new object, just make sure that the object number that you want to use was not used in a previous frame. The "French Window" to the right of the number 8 in the object counter is used for two purposes. Normally, you will select this window when you are working on a background color. In this case the OBJECT STATUS BOX will show the background color and the total number of points in the frame. The French Window also gives you access to two special functions called "Looping" and "Clipping Window" which will be discussed later. THE FILM STRIP At the right of your screen is The Film Strip. There are sixteen squares with sprocket holes visible in the strip. Each one of these squares represents eight frames of your movie. To tell what frame you ar working on look at the frame counter at the top right corner of your screen. To move to a different frame, press the UP arrow which takes you up to the beginning to the mýovie, or the DOWN arrow which takes you towards the end of the movie. You may move to any frame at any time. However, whenever you "look" at a frame you "expose" it. That doesn't mean that you can't use it, but it does mean that a blank frame will be added to your movie. Blank frames can be deleted using the CUT and EDIT MENU commands. If you are working on a long movie and want to move around quickly, rather than one frame at a time, touching one of the s{symbolic frames in the strip will put you at the beginning of that block of eight actual frames. You may also move quickly through the film strip by holding the cursor button down on one of the arrows. The film strip shows you which blocks of film are exposed by turning them a different color. The block in which you are working at the moment will be black. You may "drag" this black block to any exposed frame in the movie. In addition, you can get to the last frame in the movie by clicking the cursor in the unexposed area of the film strip.ú THE GRAB POINT This command allows you to "grab" and move any point in any object in the current frame. Lines which act like rubber bands will show you the points which connect to the one you're moving. The object counter will highlight in black the object number you have grabbed. Where many points are close together it may be difficult to grab the one you want. You may have to move the other points out of the way and then put them back after you've grabbed and moved the point you want. INSERT POINT To insert points into a completed object select the Insert Point function (the pointing finger). By placing the cursor between two adjacent points (positioning it as close to the middle as possible),and then pressing the cursor button, you can "rubber band" around your new line until you reach the desired location. Release the button and the new point is set. You cannot insert a point into the middle of a solid object without starting at the edge. DELETE POINT You can delete points from an object with the Delete Point knife. Place the cursor button over the point to be deleted and press. If you wish to delete an entire object point by point you must delete every point in it. The object will become a line, then a point, and then disappear. There are easier ways to delete objects by using the Capture Box. MAKE CIRCLE The Make Circle command places the center of a circle at the spot where the cursor is located when you press the button. The perimeter of the circle will be placed at the point where you release the button. The circle is made up of 16 points. Point 1 is located at the place where you released the cursor buttton. If you don't like the way the circle looks as you are trying to set it up, move the cursor off to the side of the screen and release the button. Now you can start a new circle. Very small circles will not look püerfectly round when you blow them up with the ZOOM command. Circles are not "clipped" by the edges of the screen. Rather, they are flattened against the edge and won't look circular if moved to the center at a later time. You can't use Make Circle when there are any points already plotted in that object number. To make elipses with MAKE CIRCLE you can squash or stretch your circle using the SQUASH command in the Goodies Menu. MAKE RECTANGLE Use the Make Rectangle (box within a box) function to quickly make rectangles and squares using a rubber band box, rather than drawing them point by point. You can't use this function if there are any points already plotted in the current object number you are using. TEXT Fantavision allows you to place text on the screen in two ways. The easiest and most flexible way is to use the TEXT mode, which you select with the "A" icon. This method allows you to type in the letteÿrs you want to appear on the screen. The second method, which is more difficult to use, allows you to load in very complicated characters. This method with be covered later in "Using From The Demo Disk". Once you have selected text mode place the cursor where you want to start typing and press the button. Wait until you see a square cursor, then start typing. If you accidently start typing before pressing the button, you will wind up entering keyboard commands, not typing. The text mode characters are always from the same font, but you can manipulate them using the Goodies Menu to simulate a variety of typestyles. Once you start typing you can put four letters into each available object number. As one number is filled, the text will automatically start to fill the next available number so that you don't have to stop typing. To delete, use the left arrow key. To end a line, use the RETURN key. To end an object number, use the right arrow key. This feature is useful for manipulating leýtters or words separately. For example, if your name is Bob, you may wish to press the right arrow after typing "Bob", even though you could enter one more letter into that object number. Keeping the word "Bob" as a separate object number enables you to ZOOM, TURN, LEAN, etc. "Bob" without including the letter which follows. You may go back and re-open an object number with text in it if it is not yet made up of four letters. At this point the software will once again automatically move to the next available object number so that you can keep typing without stopping to choose new numbers. An object number needn't be empty of text before more text is added. This means that manipulating a single object number may affect letters sitting in words quite far apart from each other. Likewise, the left arrow key will delete down through the object numbers in sequence, not back through the letters in sequence. The letters created in text mode are actually lines made up of seven segments. Therefore, they arýe difficult to manipulate point by point. Study Line mode in the Dimension Box to gain a clearer understanding of the problem. CAPTURE BOX The Capture Box (broken box within a box) function allows you to select which objects in a frame you wish to manipulate using the commands in the Goodies Menu, and COPY,PASTE and ZAP in the Edit Menu. When the capture box is not selected the Goodies affect all objects in the frame. There are two ways to capture objects with the box. The first way is to surround the objects with the box. Do this by holding the cursor button down and maneuvering the box around the objects until they are enclosed then release the button. The box will shrink to tightly surround the objects within it. The object counter will highlight in black those objects included in the box. The second way to capture objects is to select the capture box option, then go straight to the object counter and select the objects you want in the box. The box will expand to include those objects. With either method of capturing objects you may delete objects from the influence of the box by de-selecting their object numbers in the object counter. To move objects in the capture box place the cursor within the box and drag it to the desired location. To create a new capture box place the cursor on the outside of the current box and start from scratch. THE COLOR PALETTE Fantavision GS comes with Palettes of 16 colors or patterns. You can cycle through the different palettes with the UP and DOWN arrows in the lower left corner. The number between the arrows gives you the number of the palette you're using. The colors and palettes are created in such a way that you needn't worry about mixing colors as long as you stay within a single palette. Mixing colors from different palettes in a single frame puts you at risk of getting "jaggies" in your movie. You get these jagged diagonal lines on the Apple when you mix certain colors due to the limitations of the hardware. OBJECT STATUS BOX This displays the color and the number of points in the current active object. If you have selected a group of active objects with the capture box, the object status box will display information about the lowest numbered object in the group. GO Selecting GO will run the current movie. To stop the current movie press the cursor button and the movie will revert to the last frame you were working on. WHILE RUNNING KEYBOARD COMMANDS: 1-7 Set Speed Space Bar Stop Motion Esc Escape: If you press ESC when the animation is running, or when you are stepping through the animation using the Space Bar, you can copy the image to the clipboard, so that it can be inserted with PASTE as a new frame Returns you to current work frame. Return Same as ESC. Returns you to last viewed frame. Left Arrow Backward Animation Right Arrow Forward Animation GLOBAL Selecting the Global (globe inside a box) command means that changes to an object using the color palette, animation box or dimension box, will be made to that object automatically in all frames in which it appears. The global command looks for all frames in which the object to be changed has the same color (or animation type, or dimension) as in the current frame and changes those frames at the same time. In other words, if you have a blue fish as object #1 in frame 1 which you want to change to green, selecting global and then changing object #1 from blue to green will change all frames in which object #1 was blue to green. If object #1 was yellow in frame 3, it won't change to green because the command was blue to green. þ OVERLAY Activating the Overlay (two boxes connected within a box) command allows you to preserve everything which appears on the screen at any time during the editing process. This enables you to keep your animation in register,to keep your background visible as you make your movie, to study several frames at once, or to save multiple screens as a single backdrop. ANIMATION BOX There are four animation modes available to you. These are: Normal Mode Background Mode Lightning Mode Trace Mode NORMAL MODE An object animated in normal mode will change from the object drawn in the current frame to the object drawn in the subsequent frame with whatever number of intermediate frames you set when you establish the film speed. BACKGROUND MODE  Whenever you want an object you draw to become a part of the background you use the background mode. You may use this mode to create a background at the beginning of your movie, or you may drop objects into the background temporarily in order to use their object numbers for new objects. NOTE: WHENEVER BACKGROUND MODE IS USED, THAT OBJECT NUMBER MUST BE LEFT BLANK IN BOTH ADJACENT FRAME! If you don't leave them blank then your background will animate. LIGHTNING MODE Lightning mode has two main uses. The first is for creating special effects such as the spider movie demo. Best results are achieved by using a solid object with a line around it. The effects tend to look better at slower speeds. You can also use this mode to speed up an animation. This rather complex function will be described later. TRACE MODE In trace mode an object will leave its image behind without erasing it. Trace mode is useful for a variety of special effects. THE DIMENSION BOX Although all the objects are drawn by plotting points, the objects themselves may be solid shapes, lines, or dots. The default value for each new object is solid shapes. With each "dimension" are a variety of modes which give you added options. These are: SOLID SHAPES ------------ 0. No outline 1. Black outline 2. White outline 3. Black outline with last segment open 4. White outline with last segment open LINES ----- 0. Outline with last segment open C. Connect last segment to close shape 9. Leave a blank segment after 9 are drawn 8. Leave a blank segment after 8 are drawn 7. Leave a blÿank segment after 7 are drawn 6. Leave a blank segment after 6 are drawn 5. Leave a blank segment after 5 are drawn 4. Leave a blank segment after 4 are drawn 3. Leave a blank segment after 3 are drawn 2. Leave a blank segment after 2 are drawn 1. Leave every other segment blank DOTS ---- 1. Smaller Size 2-8. Progressively larger 9. Largest dot size SOLID SHAPES The default value for solid shapes is No Outline mode. The DOWN arrow cycles through the other modes. Using either of the two outline modes gives the object a clean, distinct look. NOTE: USING THE OUTLINE MODE WILL SLOW DOWN THE ANIMATION BY HALF! The purpose of the two modes that leave the last segment open is to allow you to add segments to a solid object without intervening lines. LINES Line mode is normally set to "Open". This means that a line is drawnconnecting the points you plot but no further. The "DOWN" arrow puts you in "Closed" mode which will connect the last point you plot with the first one in order to form a solid outline. The numbered Line modes are reached by pressing the UP arrow. The purpose of the numbered modes is to allow you to draw a variety of seemingly distinct objects which nevertheless all use the same object number. DOTS The default value for the dot size is 5. The down arrow makes the dots bigger while the up arrow makes them smaller. The smaller dots are simply the exact points you plot on the screen. The largest dot is still made up of only a single point, which is in the center of a dot. This means that you can't edit the edge of the dot in any way since there are no points plotted there. THE PULL DOWN MENUS: -------------------- THE GOODIES MENU The Goodies Menu consists of: ZOOM FLIP TURN SQUASH LEAN plus the two indicators to the right of the word goodies, which look like this when you boot up: ---><--- <-----> All goodies commands act on all objects in the frame unless you specify which objects you want with the capture box. ZOOM When you enter the goodies menu for the first time the zoom command is already activated and will have a check mark next to it. Each time you select outward arrows the object or objects to be zoomed will be enlarged by 12%. Each time you select the inward arrows the selected objects will shrink by 12%. TURN When you select the turn command, two spiraling arrows þwill appear at the right of the goodies menu. One spirals clockwise and the other counter-clock-wise. Each time you select one of the spiraling arrows the object(s) to be turned will rotate 22.5 degrees in that direction. When you use turn without using the capture box all objects turn around a point in the center of the screen. When you capture an object and turn it, it turns around a point in the middle of the capture box. LEAN Selecting the lean command allows you to lean objects to the left or right by using the left or right arrows. FLIP The Flip command allows you to flip the desired object(s) horizontally with the left-right arrow or vertically with the up-down arrow. When you use Flip without the capture box, the center of the screen is the line over which the objects will flip. When you use the capture box, objects flip within it, and not throughout the frame. SQUASH  The Squash command is used to flatten objects or stretch them. Squash can be used to make elipses out of circles and is useful for creating shadows. THE EDIT MENU The Edit Menu consists of the following functions: UNDO PASTE CUT CLONE COPY ZAP UNDO and CLONE are the only functions which don't work differently on the frame level versus the object level. UNDO works exclusively on the commands indicated by the icons on the left hand side of the screen, plus the color palette, clone always means clone frame. UNDO 1. UNDO and DRAW. Using Undo with the Draw command will Undo the last point plotted unless that last point was used to close an object. 2. UNDO and GRAB POINT. Undo will return the previous point grabbed to its former position. 3. UNDO and INSERT POINT. Undo wiþll delete the last point inserted. 4. UNDO and DELETE POINT. Undo will restore the last point deleted. 5. UNDO and MAKE CIRCLE. The whole circle just disappears with a poof. 6. UNDO and MAKE SQUARE. That squares a goner! 7. UNDO and TEXT. Undo will remove the last object typed. Since an object may be made up of as many as four letters, up to four letters may be removed by the undo command. 8. UNDO and CAPTURE. Undo will restore an object moved with the capture box to its former position. It will not Undo Goodies functions. To Undo Goodies functions just do them in reverse. 9. UNDO and COLOR PALETTE. Undo will undo the last change of color. Colors changed with the Global command cannot be undone with Undo, you simply have to change them back with Global. 10. UNDO and GO, GLOBAL, OVERLAY, OBJECT COUNTER, BACKGROUND COLOR, FRAME COUNTER. þ Undo doesn't affect any of the above. 11. UNDO and ANIMATION TYPE, DIMENSION. Undo will change back to your last change of Animation Type or Dimension, though its just as easy to change it back manually. CUT COPY PASTE (Frame Level) Cut is one of the three functions that interact with the Clipboard. The other two are COPY and PASTE. When you Cut a frame, the whole frame goes to the Clipboard and replaces anything else that might have been on the clipboard. Likewise the frame that has been cut disappears from your movie. To get the frame back you must Paste it in front of the frame you want it to precede. COPY differs from CUT in that it copies a frame to the clipboard with-out cutting it out of the current movie. PASTE enables you to make a single copy of the frame you have Cut or Copied by selecting Paste while on the frame you wish it to precede. NOTE: If you press ESC when the animation is running, or when you are stepping through it with the space bar, you can Copy the image to the clipboard, so that it can be inserted with Paste as a new frame. CUT COPY PASTE (Object Level) You may also use these commands on the object level by using the capture box. In this case only the objects selected by the capture box are affected. If no objects are selected, the entire frame will be cut and copied. In addition, when you paste objects into a frame they will simply be added to the objects already in that frame, rather than creating an entirely new frame. If, however, the number of objects in the current frame plus the number of objects on the clipboard is more than eight, the extra objects will simply fail to Paste. Lower object numbers have precedance. You may Paste a single object in a frame multiple times by re-selecting Paste. CLONE Selecting Clone automatically copies the current frame to the end of the movie. Clone doesn't affect the contents on the clipboard. Clone is a bit deceiving because nothing seems to be happening when you use it. If you look at the frame counter however, you will see that you've jumped to the end of the movie. When you use Clone with the capture box it works exactly the same way without it, except that the capture box stays highlighted even in the newly cloned frame. This means that you can select Clone and then the goodies option without having to re-capture the object in every frame. Remember that even though you may clone with an object selected with the capture box, clone is still copying the entire frame. You cannot clone a selected object from one frame to another. ZAP Using Zap enables you to delete a frame or an object without affecting what's on the clipboard, whereas cut replaces the contents of the clipboard with the cut material. THE FILE MENU LOAD MENU SAVE BACKDROP SAVE MOVIE CLEAR BACKDROP CLEAR MOVIE FORMAT DISK LOAD BACKDROP QUIT LOAD MOVIE Selecting the Load movie command will put the filenames of files currently on your disk onto your screen. Use the down arrow and Movies option to view all the filenames. Clear Movie and Save Movie commands are self explanatory. LOAD BACKDROP This command will load a backdrop off of the disk in the same manner as a file load. There is a separate backdrop file catalog on the disk. You may also use single hi-res PRODOS file screens from other programs if you wish. SAVE BACKDROP, CLEAR BACKDROP, FORMAT DISK, and QUIT are self explanatory. Here Are Some Special Functions ------------------------------- LOOPING ------- The Looping function is something you use only when you make a show disk. Begin by selecting the French Window in The Object Counter Box. The two boxes to the right disappear and are replaced by the word LOOP. Here's how it works. When you save a movie, the number to the right of the word Loop is saved within the file. It tells the computer how many times you want that movie to play until it goes to the next one. Loop is normally set to 1. The greatest number of loops is 9. If you want your movie to run forever just load the movie and select GO. USING FONTS FROM THE DEMO DISK ------------------------------ There are several files on the demo disk called "Something" font. These files can be copied into your movie. The complexity of the fonts causes trade-offs however. When a single character uses as many as three or four object numbers, you will not be þable to animate very much text at one time. You may wish to use a more complex character as the first letter in a word made with regular text mode, or you might put all your complex characters into the backdrop and animate on top of them. In either case, transferring characters from font files to your movie can cause you some headaches if you intend to do a lot of it. The basic maneuver involves copying the characters you wish onto the clipboard, then changing to the movie you are creating in order to paste them in. The main difficulty is that the characters are made up of several objects, and only eight objects will fit in a frame or onto the clipboard at one time. FRENCH WINDOW USES ------------------ The Clipping Window ------------------- Fantavision let's you make a clipping window which is much smaller than the entire screen. This enables you to do things like watching the stars shoot by a spaceship window. This is how you do it: 1. Select the French Window in the object counter. 2. Select the capture box. You will actually be handling the clipping window after this step. 3. The clipping window will behave exactly like the capture box, except it will not shrink to surround any objects that may be inside it. You can move the clipping window by putting the cursor inside of it. You can start a new one by putting the cursor outside of it etc.. 4. Any backdrop you have loaded will not be affected. Note: When you use the clipping window it should be the last thing you do after you have completed all of your other animation. USING LIGHTNING MODE -------------------- Lightning mode can cause a flickering effect on your screen which would be good for simulating earthquakes and explosions. It does this by not using the hidden second screen that does the erasing in between frames. This means that lightning mode will also make the movie go faster but not quite as clean. Also, it takes as much time to erase as it does to draw, so the more you can use lightning mode, the faster your movie will be. The New Fantavision GS V2.1 has these added features; Within the Apple Icon at the top left of the screen is a pull-down menu mode under the About, that runs all movies in sequence. You also have two apple Prodos programs in the CONVERT sub-directory that will allow you to convert old Apple II Fantavision movies into the New Fantavision GS V2.1 format & a program that is called FVGS CONVERT. This program can be launched at the start of the boot by selecting it from the boot launch through Prodos launcher. Select the CONVERT, then select-> FVGS CONVERT This system program will allow you to convert any graphic file for use with Fantavision GS Version 2.1. This can be done in a varity of ways. The Convert system program will load any graphic file and you must then convert & save it as an SHR 320 (Packed/byte) type file, for access as a screen. You can save it to a formatted data disk, then you can load it through Fantavision GS as a screen. An extensive collection of screen pictures are included in the sub-directory "CONVERT". This is the only type of SHR 320 picture screen file that Fantavision GS V2.1 will access. All older Fantavision movies made with the Apple II version and the Apple IIGS version 1.0 are convertable using the util'ity convert basic program. The addition of an improved Stereo sound (Stereo Card required), is also included for intergration of sound with the New Fantavision GS V2.1 movies. A special new feature is included in the New Fantavision GS V2.1. You can now overlay your movies on any screen that you load. First, load the movie, then move down one screen, with the arrow/mouse to frame #2 and load the screen you wish the movie to be super-imposed/overlayed onto. Next press go and watch the action begin. Try loading the movie titled "DEMON.SAMPLE", then load the screen, "DEMON.BREW". Then follow the directions listed above. This will give you an example of what can be done. The possibilities are endless. Animation with the Apple IIGS has never been more simple, using Fantavision GS V2.1.