To start things off, a screen resolution and size needs to be selected. Since the output will ultimately be used in a television broadcast, the screen needs to be interlaced and overscan. The resolution of TV is not that great (compared to computer output, this is); therefore, a 16-color low resolution screen should be sufficient. The lower resolution will also ensure that the animated screen will run smoothly with no jerkiness. A maximum overscan of 368x482 will be used to make sure there is no border around the screen.
Now the palette needs to be set. I used a blue background. There is a yellow for text and lightning, some greens for the grass, some blues for the sky, and so on. Figure 1 shows the palette I selected.
First, a basic screen design needs to be produced. Figure 2 shows the template I created. From the top down, it has the title, a blank area for inserting the text indicating the days, five boxes for inserting the AnimBrushes that will be created, and color rectangles for inserting the high and low temperature for each day. It is rather plain, but it gets the job done. You can be as artistic as you like putting this template together.
Now it is time to build the static graphic elements that will be used to produce the forecast. Figures 3 and 4 show the ones I created. The top row of Figure 3 shows the core graphics that will be used in each AnimBrush. Each has a dithered green ground and a solid blue sky. The graphic on the left has a light blue sky and will be used for sunny days. The middle graphic has a medium blue sky that will be used for partly cloudy days. The graphic on the right has a dark blue sky that will be used for overcast days. Each of these graphics is sized to fit inside the hollow rectangular boxes in Figure 2. The graphics themselves are each 50x183 pixels in size. The middle row of Figure 3 shows five singular elements (cloud, lightning bolt, sun, raindrop, and snowflake). The bottom row shows groupings of four of the elements. These groupings will be used to create the AnimBrushes. The three graphics at the top, the sun, and the four element groupings at the bottom of the figure should each be saved as separate brushes.
Figure 4 shows seven different brushes, each containing the names of five days of the week. Each brush starts with a different day. These brushes were designed to fit inside the blank area above the five empty boxes in Figure 1. Thus, for any given day, the days of the week can be added by simply loading the appropriate brush and pasting it in the appropriate location on the template.
Load the sun brush and paste it down on the first frame in the blank blue area away from the ground and sky graphic. Notice that the sun is not symmetric. By rotating the brush 90 degrees, a slightly different looking sun can be created for the next frame of the animation. Choose the menu item Brush/Rotate/90 degrees. This will create a short wide sun due to the odd aspect ratio of a 368x482 screen. To resize this alternate image of the sun to better match the original image, choose the menu item Brush/Size/Halve once and Brush/Size/Double Vert twice. Position the resized brush over top of the original sun in frame one, press the 2 key to jump to the second frame, and paste the altered sun brush to the screen. By alternately pressing the 1 (previous frame) and the 2 (next frame) keys, you can see how good the "blinking" sun looks. Redo these steps if necessary.
Now it is time to add the sun to the light blue sky. Go to frame one. Choose Anim/AnimBrush/Pick Up from the menu. Draw a box around the sun, and when asked how many cels, type in 2. This creates a two-frame AnimBrush of the sun. The frames are slightly different from each other so it gives a slight motion to the sun. To see how the blinking sun looks, hold down the 7 key. This will cycle the AnimBrush frames. Save the AnimBrush by selecting the Anim/AnimBrush/Save menu item. After saving, position the sun AnimBrush in the light blue sky of the graphic in the center of the screen on frame one. Paste the AnimBrush. Press the M key (must be capital) to bring up the Move requester. Make sure all of the settings are as shown in Figure 5 and press the Draw button. This will cause the two-frame AnimBrush to be pasted on each frame of the animation, alternating the two sun images for consecutive frames. The result is a ten-frame animation of a blinking sun in the light blue sky. To see how the animation looks, press the 4 key. Pressing the Esc key will stop the animation.
Make sure frame one is displayed and select the Anim/AnimBrush/Pick Up menu item. Draw a box around the ground and sky graphic and type in 10 when asked how many cels. Click on OK. A 10-frame AnimBrush containing the entire ground and sky graphic with a blinking sun will be created. It should be saved for later use.
Once a 10-frame animation of the ground and medium blue sky with a blinking sun is in place, the moving clouds need to be added. Load the five-cloud grouping brush. Notice that there are two cloud layers in the grouping. The top layer has three clouds and the bottom has two. The clouds in each layer are purposefully offset from each other by 55 pixels. If the brush is moved horizontally the 50 pixel width of the ground and sky graphic over 10 frames (five pixels per frame), then frame one, which will come after frame 10 (the animation loops), will look identical to how frame 11 would have looked if it existed. This allows the cloud movement to be smooth as the animation loops.
So, let's do it. Paste the cloud grouping on the screen such that the lower right-most cloud is centered horizontally in the sky. Press M to bring up the Move requester. Select a value of 50 for the X Distance and make sure the value of Count is 10. Click on the Draw button. The clouds will be pasted to each frame of the animation with a five-pixel offset between frames. Pick up an AnimBrush consisting of the ground and sky graphic area and save it. Now clear all frames of the animation and paste the AnimBrush on frame 1. Use the Move requester to add it to each frame in the same way the sun was added earlier (X Distance set to zero). Play the animation. The clouds will move across the sky. As the clouds disappear off to the right, new clouds will appear from the left.
Next, select the font and font size to use for the temperatures. Type the low and high temperatures for each day in the appropriate rectangles. Set the number of frames to 10; the filled in template will be copied to all frames.
Load the AnimBrush that represents the type of weather that will prevail on the first day of the forecast. Paste it inside the left-most box of frame one. Use the Move requester to paste it to each frame of the animation. Do the same for the second day, the third, and so on until all five days have AnimBrushes associated with them.
The animation is now complete. It can be saved as an Anim file for use in a presentation package. Figure 6 shows frame two of a sample I created. Figure 7 shows frame seven of the same sample. I wish I could put the animation in the magazine, but technology has not reached that point yet. You will just have to put one together yourself. Or, if you prefer, you can write me care of this magazine and I will send you a disk for a small fee.
If you put together something like this for a TV station, I would like to know about it. See you next time.