Express Animator
Express Animator is a software program for making animations, primarily Flash animations for websites. It is similar to Adobe's Flash MX software but has additional features such as skeletal animation and exporting to Silverlight format while lacking advanced features such as advanced scripting. It is of the genre of vector based graphics programs in that it stores the coordinates of the shapes vertices. The shapes are filled with either colours, gradients, or bitmaps.
Skeletal Animation
Express Animator features skeletal animation which is a way of linking together shapes such as arms or legs so that can be animated like a puppet. This allows the user to create moveable characters.
Tweening
The Primary method of animation is that of tweening. This means that the user specifies the position, orientation and colour of the first and last frames of an animation and the computer fills in all the intermediate positions.
Morphing
Express Animator features morphing (also called shape tweening) which allows the user to animate smooth transformations between two shapes.
Export Formats
Express Animator exports in several formats to various extents. The main ones are:
Format |
File Extension |
Extent |
|---|---|---|
Flash Animations |
SWF |
Import and export animations, Flash version 8.0, sound, FLV video, fully featured. |
Windows Video |
AVI |
Exports and renders animations to video with sound |
Silverlight |
XAML |
Export one frame only |
Scalar Vector Graphics |
SVG |
Export one frame, limited. |
Portable Document Format |
Export one frame, limited. |
|
Encapsulated Postscript |
EPS |
Export one frame, limited |
Bitmap formats |
BMP JPG GIF PNG TIFF |
Exports and renders single frames. Import images into the animation. |
Scripting
Express Animator has a point and click scripting environment which is limited to basic actions useful for simple animations such as hyperlinks, frame navigation and button events. As such Express Animator is useful for web animations and banners but can't be used for making complex Flash games.
See also
- Flash animation
- Silverlight
- Scalar Vector Graphics
- Skeletal Animation