How to animate using layers and the timeline in DW 4 1

[emcinc]

Is anyone aware of a free tutourial on how to animate an image using layers and the timeline in DW 4? Specifically making an image spin around and across a page? Also the file extension to remove proprietary tags in "frontpage", does this mean we can build part of a page in "frontpage" then using this file extension, remove these tags so we can continue to build in DW 4 how does this work?

thanks,
EMCinc@bigfoot.com

 

[Guest_imported]

I also want to know how to rotate an object in dreamweaver using timeline. does this have any connection with layers? can we do it without using layers? Like Flash, is it possible to apply tweening to the object.

 

[emcinc]

What is "tweening"?

 

[TulsaJeff]

say you have a picture of a ball and you want to show it bouncing....you would draw an image of the ball in mid-air and then you would skip about 15 frames and then draw another image showing the ball on the ground. In flash you would click on the first frame and select motion tween and it would automatically draw all the in-between frame (2-14) of the ball at different stages in the bounce.

This is called tweening and can get much more complicated than this.

In the early days of tv cartoon making the artist would draw all th main frames and hire a group of other people to draw all the in-between frames. I think this is actually where the term got coined but it still pretty much works the same way as far as Flash goes. Ya' Gotta Love It!X-)

 

[TulsaJeff]

Emcinc...have you considered using Flash for the movements you want in your site? Flash and Dreamweaver work so well together and it is much easier and more efficient in Flash and then simply import into your page. I must admit that I played around a little with the timeline in Dreamweaver and quickly decided to use Flash files instead because of the ease of use and the versatility. Ya' Gotta Love It!X-)

 

[emcinc]

Tulsajeff, Very Good, Thank You! Your description made it seem much easier to comprehend and therfore do! I will take your word for it about the Flash.(and will probably try it sooner or later) However have you checked out the Project Seven Website and these extensions! They have one called ini magic layer animation or something like that and you download it to your extension manager and it makes animating graphics sooo easy! Well maybe it does if I could figure out how to even get it opened and going. Any Ideas? But check out that website and let me know what you think it all looks and sounds great but I can't get anything to work! However, I am waiting for a response from them regarding that same subject!

Later,
EMCinc@bigfoot.com
PS do you live in Tulsa OK.?

 

[TulsaJeff]

yes...I do live in Tulsa OK.s-) Ya' Gotta Love It!X-)

 

[Dipti]

what about rotating an object in dreamweaver? is it possible? i dont want to bring in a flash file into dreamweaver because my web page background has a fading effect. not one solid color back ground.

 

[TulsaJeff]

Dipti....it is possible I think...like I said earlier...I do all my movement and tweenings in Flash but I will find out how to do it in Dreamweaver for you and let you know...watch the posts in this thread. It will probably be later tonight or tomorrow before I get to it. Ya' Gotta Love It!X-)

 

[emcinc]

I would assume as jeff said earlier that you would insert the image into one keyframe then rotate the frame slightly and insert it into the next keyframe and then continue to do this until the image is back to the starting posistion then somehow loop this so it will continue to look like to it is spinning and then make another animation using the html from the looping image to move across the page! I am not exactly sure how to do it but I think that this is the basic technique! What do you think? Hopefully tjeff will come up with some more detailed insructions!

Talk at you Later,
EMCinc@bigfoot.com

 

[Dipti]

thank you all for your wonderful cooperation. i will wait for the reply from emcinc and then go ahead and try it out.

 

[TulsaJeff]

After reading about 200 articles on using timelines in Dreamweaver...(whew) the timelines are primarily for moving layers around the screen. You put objects on the layers which ride the layer at it moves around. You can set the visibility and the left right up down motion but I saw no good way to make an object rotate.

I guess if you wanted to creat an object in Fireworks and export it about 10 times in different stages of rotation...you could put each of the objects in a different frame and get your rotation. This would work but would not be very practical.

Other options would be to create an animated gif in Fireworks and put that on a moving layer in Dreamweaver. This would give you complete control of rotation and movement around the page.

gifs support transparency so this would not conflict with your background colors in Dreamweaver.

I am still looking but basically timelines in Dreamweaver are an easy way to create DHTML type animations that are compatible with all browsers and not so much a device to animate objects around a 360 degree rotation.



Ya' Gotta Love It!X-)