Animation Works is an 8-bit (256 colors) cel animation application for early 90's 68K Macintoshes. It feels complete with events, sounds, cel (sprite) bitmap editor, realtime playback preview, canvas scrolling, color palette swapping and cycling, path tools, etc...
It can export to a motion PICT file or a series of individual PICT files.
Animation Works is a suite of powerful, affordable tools that simplifies the creation of Mac-based animations. Designed for use in presentations. Animation Works' animations can incorporate sounds and special effects such as wipes, mattes, and color cycling.
Animation Works is similar in price and abilities to Motion Works' ADDmotion, a $295 HyperCard add-in that requires HyperCard for producing and viewing animations. Animation Works doesn't require HyperCard, however, and the animations you create can be distributed and played back with the package’s free Movie Player. You can also play Animation Works movies from within HyperCard, using an XCMD included with the package.
For broader distribution, you can output animations to videotape. To do so, however, you need to equip your Mac with additional hardware that converts Mac video into NTSC video and additional software to integrate the process.
Animation Works consists of three integrated working environments: The Background Editor is a 1-to-8-bit painting module for creating and editing backgrounds; the Cel Editor provides tools for creating foreground elements, called actors: and the Movie Editor is an environment for assembling animations from components and setting them in motion.
Background Editor tools comprise a basic selection of painting tools, including a brush, pencil, eraser, fill bucket, and definable airbrush. The module can also load and save PICT files.
The real power of the program, however. is in the Cel Editor's special tools and functions, which let you animate actors quickly and easily. Actors can consist of a single frame or a series of frames that make up a motion cycle — for example, one of the sample actors included with the package consists of 12 frames that comprise one full cycle of walking motion. You can play the actor at varying speeds, moving forward, backward, or in Ping-Pong motion.
Another useful Cel Editor option is the "onionskin" technique, which displays the current cel with a ghosted image of its previous or following cel.
Several tools automate entire motions such as zooming and rotating. For example. simply by setting a few options in two dialog boxes, you can create a block of text that zooms in. comes to a stop, and rotates. These complex motions are attributes of actors themselves, and you can create them without the Movie Editor.
Shortcuts
Several cleverly designed shortcuts and power tools within the Movie Editor further simplify the task of creating animated movies. To create animated text for a presentation, for example, you don't need to use the Background and Cel Editors. From within the Movie Editor, you can select a background item from the module’s Events menu, load a PICT file, or create solid or gradient backgrounds. You can also select font, size, style, and color, and then you can use the Movie Editor's text tool to create the text.
When you're ready to define the text's motion, you can use the Movie Editor's registered-motion and path tools. The registered-motion tool is intended for use with multiple-cel actors. The path tools include straight-line, curved, freehand, and polygon paths plus two powerful tools called auto-path and gravity path.
When you select an actor and one of the standard path tools, the actor attaches itself to the cursor and you simply draw the path. When the path is complete, you tell Animation Works how many frames to use for it and whether the actor should accelerate or decelerate over a particular number of frames. Animation Works then draws the path for you.
The auto-path tool offers a variety of preanimated motions such as scrolls, spirals, bounces, and rebounds. And Animation Works' gravity path lets you define a direction for a path and then affect it with g (gravity) force, speed, and damping (air resistance).
You can also set up complex paths hierarchically, with objects "magnetized" to other objects. One of the supplied examples shows a rotating moon orbiting a rotating earth while both objects orbit an animated sun. Although this appears to be a complex set of motions. Animation Works' automated tools go a long way toward simplifying its creation.
Animation Works also lets you enter pauses and loops at key frames to allow a basic level of interactive control.
Although it's an impressive first effort, Animation Works is not without shortcomings. We experienced several bugs and system crashes, and a few features didn't work properly. When we attempted to load a sound file, for example. Animation Works went into an endless loop that required us to reboot. As Gold Disk technical support suggested, we discovered that the conflict was with the Findswell INIT. a dialog-box extension. And although Animation Works functions with Adobe Type Manager, the letterspacing with large fonts needs improvement and kerning of text in presentation animations is decidedly odd.
The package does, however, come with an excellent manual that includes instructive tutorial sections, a well-written reference section, a complete index, and a quick-reference card. It also includes a videocassette that offers an introduction to the program's features and functions.
The Bottom Line
Given the breadth and depth of the Animation Works functions that worked flawlessly, we're confident that the few bugs we found in version 1.0 will be eliminated in subsequent releases. Overall we were impressed with the thought that went into its design. Although Animation Works lacks the power of the $895 MicroMind Director package, which provides such high-end features as a scripting language and interactive control over playback, it's much easier to learn and use. Moreover, Animation Works is not only a useful tool for education and business applications but it's also a lot of fun!
McQuillin, Lon. (November 1991). Animation Works. MacUser. (pgs. 72, 74, 77).
Animation Works
Allan Sedore & Mike Sedore
Applications
out of 10 (0 vote)
84 / 
2017-08-24 / 
4767bcef2bd85474200b67bb23395cf11d5c733b / 
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Animation_Works.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Basilisk II
