I have been able to do some animations within Web Engine.
I know it's beta and you are rewriting things and this is only testing,but I have a few questions about actons.

# In transform/rotation the setting is in seconds.But related to what? If I set it to 1,the object doesn't rotate one round per second as I expect, instead it's about 1 round in 6 seconds.

# What I would like is to be able to have the object reverse rotation after one or a certain number of rotations, or after turning a number of degrees.
I'm surprised that it's not possible. Or have I totally missed it?
It would be a very useful function.

# Other mysteries: "Paths/Timing", why is the speed constant set to -50 to +50?
It isn't going backwards is it?
The "Start delay" have I never seen making any difference whatever I set it to.
I suppose it's the program. And the same with "Start distance". No visible effect.
Also what is the STOP button for? When is it meant to be used?

# It doesn't seem to be possible to have one objekt perform more than one action or event.
For instance, I want to move an object to a certain position following a linear path.
After a pause I want it to move to another position following an object path (or another
linear path). As soon as I try to create a second action, the first one is disabled.
It stumbles on the fact that the object number is the same.
If it were possible to trigger a change of the object number, then it would be possible to have it perform several actions.
I thought a change of the object values could be used, but I don't understand how they work.

# I tried to create one object path and make the object stop and start again with the event editor, but I failed. I could stop it but not start it again. Is that possible to do?
(It may be related to the previous question).

# I've also been trying the "Joints" functions. It seems that those buttons work correctly only if you have objects that are an even 50, 100 pixels etc. and are regular shaped. It can't find the origin(centerpoint) of a triangle for instance.
And how do I find that by the way? I'm sure you know the mathematical formula for finding the middle point of a triangle with equal length sides? :-)
I could of course draw two lines from the midst of two sides to the opposite point and where they cross is the centerpoint, but is there another way of finding the distance from the side to the centerpoint?

I'M Sorry to waste your time with this. I am just curious about what can be done in the present WebEngine version.

Leif G.

Hi Leif G.

Not wasting our time at all. We're always happy to hear that people are using the animation features of Web Engine. As you know, Web Engine is technically in Beta - this is because of the usability issues of the interactive animation features. I'll try to answer what I can, Harpo will chime in to answer the rest no doubt.

1) The rotation does not work in DHTML output at the present time, though it does in SVG. As for what the timing is related to... over to Harpo

2) You should be able to do this. What you would do is use the 'timing' tab to set a 'repeat time' and 'reverse direction'. However, these features are still in development.

3) A negative value should produce make the object go in reverse.

4) If you notice things are not working correctly, by all means let us know. The 'stop' button under the Paths tab is used for defining a simple, linear motion path - object starts on-load, and stops at a certain point.

The remainder of your questions I'll have to defier to Harpo's higher powers

Thanks Derry
I am using SVG, and the rotation is working fine, and I can make an object reverse direction at the end of a path and also make it reverse rotation. But what I need is to have a fixed object to reverse rotation, wich so far doesn't seem to be possible. That would be even more useful, I think.

3) That answers my question, I hadn't noticed that the path-object reversed direction when
I set the timing to a negative value.

4) About the Stop button, I think I understand now that it's used if I want to move an object from one place to another without delay (the timing doesn't work).

The "Joints" feature is a nice one, and it works.
But the figures for the lower middle button (of the nine) seems to be wrong if you apply it to a rectangle or a triangle. And of course it can't find the real centerpoint of a triangle, you have to find that by yourself (if you want it to rotate for instance).
Incidentally, I found that in an regularly shaped triangle the centerpoint is located at 3/9 of the distance from the base to the top. You can see it if you use the grid.
(I also discovered how useful the Snap to grid feature is when using the Polygon tool to draw a triangle).

Leif G.