Animation can be used to focus the attention of the audience on particular parts of an image. While animation can add a lot of polish to your slideshow – a word of caution – don’t over-do it. Too many (and too fast) animations can quickly become annoying!
Automatic Animations
Animations can be edited manually, but to create a great slideshow more quickly, you can also rely on automatic animations created by the Animation Assistant. This assistant can be used to apply automatic animations (based on a few rules) to the selected layers in the Storyboard.
In FotoMagico 6.6 and beyond automatic AI image analysis has been added to the Animation Assistant. The AI will determine the point of interest for each image and creates an animation focusing on the point of interest instead of just the middle of an image.
Manual Animations
Animations can also be edited manually. To animate a layer, animation must be enabled for a slide. Check the Animation checkbox in the Slide Options if it wasn’t enabled yet. Animation can also be enabled via menu command in the menu or a context menu.
The Stage will now display the same slide twice: on the left side for the start of the animation, and to the right for the finish of the animation.
Position, zoom, and rotate all layers on the left side for the start of the animation. Then repeat the same process on the right side for the finish of the animation. The slide duration (which can be set in the https://fotomagico.com/manual/6/en/topic/ref-slide-options) determines the animation speed. Click on the Play button in the toolbar (or press the spacebar key) to preview the animation.
Focus of Attention
Using a pan & zoom animation on an image layer can help to focus the attention of the audience on a particular part of an image, e.g. the face of one person in a larger group. Documentary film maker Ken Burns pioneered this effect, which is why it was named after him.
To help you with zooming to the exact location you want, FotoMagico displays a small white circle (the pan & zoom fix point indicator) for the selected layer. This indicator shows the spot of the layer that never moves during the animation, and thus becomes the focus of attention.
As you drag or zoom a layer, the location if this indicator is automatically updated.
If you don’t see the indicator circle this can have several reasons:
- The layer doesn’t use any zooming
- The pan & zoom fix point indicator was disabled in the Preferences
- The indicator lies outside the currently visible region
Animation Timing
The Animation Speed curve in the Image Options lets you fine tune for animation timing. Drag the points on the curve to set an initial delay, ease in, ease out, and final delay for the animation. The action popup to the right provides a few presets to get you started:
- Linear
- Ease In
- Ease Out
- Ease In/Out
By default the image is animated at constant speed:
The bar represents the total time for which a layer is visible. The shaded yellow area on the left represents the incoming transition, i.e. the length of time for which the transition from the previous slide is still happening. The shaded yellow area on the right represents the outgoing transition or time the transition to the next slide is going on. It is important to keep in mind that while a transition is in progress, a layer may only be partially visible. For this reason you may want to restrict your animation to the section between transitions. Let’s look at an example to make this concept more obvious:
The screenshot above shows a scenario where animation starts right after the incoming transition has ended. It then eases in, i.e. gradually picks up speed and proceeds at constant speed. After a while, it eases out again and finishes right before the outgoing transition starts.
To control the exact timing of the animation, simply drag the curve points to the desired location. They automatically snap to transition boundaries. Press the control key to temporarily disable snapping.
More Examples
Example 1: The slide will pause briefly at the start position before a slowly easing in the animation. Animation will continue at constant speed until the end of the slide duration.
Example 2: The animation will start immediately. The motion will ease out towards the finish position and briefly pause before advancing to the next slide.
Example 3: The animation will pause for a while in the middle before continuing to the finish.