Category: Animation

Tween engine Go – part 2

Post author By Matthijs Kamstra
Post date February 5, 2015

My last post was about my new WIP tween library Go.

I have been updating my little experiment and it’s getting better.
Looking into other libraries codes is very educational.

Does it perform as good as the default Haxe tween engine Actuate?
Yeah that would have been great, but nope… around 1300 object, Go will start dropping frame-rate in Flash.

My goal was to create a lightweight, simple, compact, chainable tween library for haxe/openfl.

Could I perform as good as Actuate?
I am not sure, Actuate is very well written and Joshua Granick has been working on it for a long time and tested it extensively.
But I probably could improve on my code and get a better performance in Flash (in which I did the stress-test). The downside is that my code will be full of condition compilation and that would mean the code would become more and more complex.

Why am I sure it will improve, well I cheated and did some flash specific code modifications.
Check the code in github
In my first draft it was just:

var range = _props.get(n);
Reflect.setProperty(_target, n, _easing.ease( time, range.from, (range.to-range.from), _duration ) );

and that performed very bad in Flash (if I remember correctly the framerate already dropped after 100 object)
And I updated it to this and that works better… for Flash

var range = _props.get(n);
#if flash
untyped _target[n] = _easing.ease( time, range.from, (range.to-range.from), _duration ) ;
#else
Reflect.setProperty(_target, n, _easing.ease( time, range.from, (range.to-range.from), _duration ) );
#end

So the question is more do I want to change the code for specific platforms?
For now I am not going to focus on Flash to enhance it’s performance… there is little chance that I will be animating 1000+ objects.

So I will be using it in my own projects and will run into problems that I will fix.
You are welcome to use it as well and report bugs or other improvements.

I’ve update the promotional website: check it here.
You can find the stress-test there, where I compare Go with Actuate.
If you want to add your tweening library, add it here in github.
Download/install instructions can be found here.

Happy tweening.

Tags Animation, Haxe, openfl, tween

Animation Haxe Open source / Freeware

Tween engine Go

I have been playing a lot with Haxe and Openfl in the past, but never for work. That changed this week!

Fun stuff!

A while back I noticed some new tweening engines for Haxe. That got me curious: can I build my own tweening engine?

Yes I can!

I named it Go, like “lets Go”.

(And like they say in a track from The Prodigy – Everybody In The Place, lets go )

You can check it out on github: https://github.com/MatthijsKamstra/go
There you can find more detailed explanation about how it works, so I only will show some basic code here:

Animate a sprite in 1.5 second to x and y position and call function when animation is done

Go.to(sprite, 1.5).x(100).y(200).onComplete(onCompleteHandler, ['hello']);

It was fun to write it, but I haven’t tested in all situations.
I have tested lets.Go on targets flash/cpp/html5/neko.
But I wouldn’t use it in a production situation. It needs more testing.

Let me know what you think!

Tags Animation, Haxe, Open Source, openfl, tween

Animation Flash Open source / Freeware Tools of the trade

Convert SWF to AVI – part2

How to convert a SWF to an AVI (without spending any cash)? I have written about this question before [Covert SWF to AVI (SWF2AVI or SWFtoAVI)] and my answer was back then: swf2avi, a freeware project by Mario Pizzinini.
SWF2AVI is not an active project (last update from 2002-08-27), but does the job very well.
I’ve used it a couple of times, and when you know who this program works, you get the result you need.

Back then I didn’t have an alternative, but I do now!

And the alternative, in my opinion, is better and more user friendly: http://www.avi-swf-convert.com/

SWF>>AVI

is a more recent project (the last update is from 2005-07-20), and does the same thing as swf2avi but has some extra very handy features:

Drag and drop files in the converter
Play the file in a small popup
Select an output folder
Set output frame rate
Batch Convert: convert more then one SWF to AVI
Profiles: you can create custom conversion profiles whereto the SWF can be exported (captures size, output size, frame rate and rotation)

But it doesn’t convert sound and interactive animations may not be properly converted

It’s an freeware program, which does what it says: it converts SWF to (uncompressed) AVI. So if you need a compressed version of your animation you need another program to do that (something to write about in another post). SWF>>AVI is a Windows program which needs Microsoft .Net Framework (it will be automatically downloaded and installed if required).

The same rules (code) apply to SWF>>AVI as it did with SWF2AVI
It’s smart to use frame based animation, although it seems that SWF>>AVI is faster in grabbing the images, so timebased animation is can be an option if you don’t care for an exact export.
Otherwise use the code posted here for you convenience:

Tags Animation, frame by frame, Freeware, SWF to AVI, swf2avi, Video

Animation

Tipografia

An intro for court-tv (I really can’t say if it’s the real stuff or an experiment)
Very impressive, I specially like the speed.

Tags Animation, Typography

Animation

Vídeo de tipografia

Type history, I wouldn’t choose some of the footage used but a impressive piece of history.

Tags Animation, Typography

Animation

Trainspotting in Typography

Post author By Matthijs Kamstra
Post date September 2, 2007
2 Comments on Trainspotting in Typography

Intro from the movie “Trainspotting”
(I haven’t seen the movie in a while, so I don’t know if it’s the original intro, or a school assignment)

Story:

Intro Trainspotting in Typography.
Motion design with after-effects.

Tags Animation, Typography

Animation

Ikea

Post author By Matthijs Kamstra
Post date September 1, 2007

A very little typography animation

Made for a typography course.
Music by Bay Tremore
Animation by Hannes Drexl

Sadly Hannes Drexl need 17 seconds for the credits, but other wise very nice.

Tags Animation, Typography

Animation

The Puzzle

Post author By Matthijs Kamstra
Post date August 31, 2007

From the movie Saw.
It’s refreshing to see different approach for typographic animation then the ‘standard’ After Effects solutions.

Story:

This is my first attempt at type animation. Was an assignment given to us at University, it was done in less than a week including choosing a topic, and story boards. there are a couple of shots where the camera isn’t quite right but ran out of time.. Hope you enjoy anyway..
And just a note, am looking for a job in the graffic design , animation field

Made by Mixednutsnz

Tags Animation, Typography

Animation

Monoculture

Post author By Matthijs Kamstra
Post date August 30, 2007

A monologue from the comic transmetropolitan form Warren Ellis.

Story:

Spider Jerusalem’s rant about Monoculture, from Warren Ellis’ comic Transmetropolitan. Voicing done by my housemate Colin Janke, music is ‘Medula Oblongata’ by The Dust Brothers, and the animation and putting it all together is by me, as am assignment for my graphic design course.

Made by fearmeforiampink.