Cloak amp; Dagger

Is it possible to create an interface that has two different animations on it?

The problem is one of them works on a three frame loop. The other I thought I would create a continuous scrolling effect like you find on those Matrix Effect animation tutorials.

However, I don't know anything about animation and I don't know the limits of ImageReady. [confused]

Let me rephrase that. I know a little about animation, just not enough to answer my own question.

John1

Yes, you can always combine animations. The whole principle of Imagaready is that for every frame you have to turn on/off certain layers. Every frame is a shot of a moment in time and I don't see any immediate restriction, since you can have quite some layers in Photoshop. Is Imageready a great tool for several animations at once? Absolutely not and people who use Flash can tell you why.

Cloak amp; Dagger

I can understand why Flash would be the better program for animation.

However, why is ImageReady not a good tool for this assignment? What are the problems that will arise for trying this experiment in ImageReady? [confused]

John1

I didn't say that Imageready is not a good tool for this assignment, since the task is not too complicated.
I was just talking in general when I said that Imageready is not great tool for animations, especially if you have to animate more than 1 object.

Like I told earlier, Imageready is focused on frames, frames that are directly connected to layers, layers that you can turn on/off for that particular frame. A lot of stuff has to to be done by hand.

I give you an example. Let's say that you want to create a planet with a moon circling around it. In Imageready you need to move the moon in a new location for every frame. You all have to do that by hand. That means that you need to have a layer for every location of the moon.
It's quite obvious that it will be hard to get the timing right and to make the moon follow a smooth elliptical path. It can be done, but it's cumbersome.

Now take a program like Lightwave. Something like this can be done in 1-2 min if you know its basics of animation. You just tell the moon to follow an elliptical path and your done and the animation, when you're using the right settings, is very smooth.

Play a bit with Imageready to understand what I mean with its layer based animation and you'll soon discover all the limitations with that approach.

Imageready is good for some simple web animations, but for the more complicated stuff you need something better.
But it shouldn't be much of a problem to do what you have in mind with this particular animation.

Cloak amp; Dagger

OK. What is the best way to do this? Create the main image, and the animations separately? Then drag and drop the animations into the main image, or does this have to be done a different way? [confused]

John1

I think it goes beyong the goal of this board to teach you in great detail how animation in Imageready works, that would take me more than just a few min, time I don't have

I told you that it can be done in Imageready and that for every frame you need to turn the appropriate layers on or off. It's that simple!

One example; a ball moving from left to right, 3 frames.

You need a layer with a background, a layer with the ball on the left, a layer with the ball in the middle, a layer with a ball on the right.

Frame 1: Layer with background on
Layer with ball on the left turned on
Other layers turned off

Frame 2: Layer with background on
Layer with ball in the middle turned on
Other layers turned off

Frame 3: Layer with background on
Layer with ball on the right turned on
Other layers turned off

Press play and you have your first simple animation

In this case you have an animated object, but you can also use the same technique for your matrix background.