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The MashCast Desktop Application is a fantastic tool for creating animations quickly and easily. This section explores the basics of creating and working with shows, manipulating objects on the stage, and adding motion.

In This Section:

  • Create, Save, Merge, Lengthen & Trim Shows
  • Copy, Paste, Flip, Scale, & Rotate Objects on the Stage.
  • Learn the basics of Keyframe Animation
  • Create Tweens
  • Work with Layers
  • Group Objects

Working with Shows

Whenever you create content on the MashCast stage, you will place it in a Show. A Show is an animation, still, or slideshow that is created within MashCast. The show file itself is essentially a project file that references all of the objects that you place in it. Because it does not technically contain the objects that you use in your show, you can create many shows without duplicating the objects in any one show.

MashCast allows you to create shows quickly and easily. Moreover, once you’ve assembled your show, you can post it with a single keystroke. This is the power of MashCast as a communication device… animation and portal publishing in a single, easy-to-use application!

Creating A Show

Here is an overview of the steps involved in creating a simple Show.

  • Drag a background image onto the Stage.
  • Drag a foreground image on top of it.
  • Create a Talking Picture. (See Talking Picture.)
  • Bring in other elements as desired.
  • Record a voice over for your Talking Picture. (See Recording Audio.)
  • Add audio processing to your voice over. (See Audio Effects.)
  • Add placement, movement, timing, duration, and/or tweening to desired characters and/or props, accordingly. (See Keyframe Animation.)
  • When satisfied with the outcome of your creation, open the Main Menu drop down list.
  • Select “Save As.”
  • Your Show will appear in the Media Manager.
    • If your Show does not appear in the search results, check to make sure the Show filter at the top of the Media Manager is open (green).

Saving

Save Show... is available via either the main menu or the context menu. The first time you save a show, MashCast will prompt you for a title and keyword. You can search against the title and keyword later in order to retrieve your show.

MashCast autosaves idle shows every 5 minutes. You can turn this feature off or modify the time between saves by going to Settings/General and toggling the checkbox or adjusting the period in the "minutes" field.

Saving a Show as an Object

You can save a show as a .SWF object by choosing "Save Show As Object" in the main menu or stage context menu. The new show will appear in the media manager as type "Animation".

Combining Shows

There are several ways that shows can be combined inside the application:

  • Insert
  • Merge
  • Show On Show (Using Save a Show as an Object)

Insert

To insert a show within the timeline of a show that is already on the stage, move the scrubber to the point on the timeline where you want the new show to be inserted. Drag the show to be inserted onto the Stage. The show will automatically be inserted at the point you have designated.

Merge

To merge a show with a show that is already on the Stage, position the Scrubber at 00:00:00, and drag the show you wish to merge with your current show onto the stage. The following dialog will appear:

Click "Yes" to Insert, or "No" to Merge. The merged show will be overlaid on top of the current show.

Show on Show - Saving a Show as an Object

You can animate an entire Show as if it were a single asset by saving the Show as an Object. Select "Save Show as an Object". The entire show will be saved as a .SWF (Flash) file. You can then pick it up in your Media window and drag it back to the Stage for use in other Shows. When a SWF object is dragged onto the stage, it behaves just like any other asset. You can move, resize, or group it, copy and paste it, etc. If the object reaches the end of its timeline before the show is over, it will repeat automatically. This technique can be used effectively to create walk cycles, spinning wheels, and any other kind of cyclical motion.

Adding Time

You can lengthen the duration of your show in one of two ways:

  • You can record an audio track until it extends beyond the end of the show. Remember, when the record button is pressed, recorded audio will be saved on the armed track, which appears in red in the track area. To record to a different track, simply press on a different track button.
  • You can use the Show Duration command, accessible from the Stage context menu.

In either case, the last frame of the show will be held until the new end time of the show.

Trimming Your Shows

You can Trim or shorten a show by moving the scrubber to the desired endpoint of the show and selecting "Trim Show>To End" from the Stage context menu. You can also trim time from the beginning of a show by moving the scrubber to the desired start point and selecting "Trim Show>To Beginning" from the Stage context menu.

Manipulating Objects

Placing Objects on the Stage

From the Media Search Window

Dragging an image from from the Media Search window to the Stage will add the image to the stage. If the image is not already in the database, an "Add Title and Keyword" dialog will appear before the object is presented on the stage.

You can drop any asset on the stage at a particular point in time within a show by first moving the scrubber to the point in time where you want the first frame of the new asset to appear. Then drag the asset onto the stage and the asset will appear starting at the location you have specified with the scrubber.

Dragging a video onto the stage will open the SMV Converter. The SMV converter creates a series of still frames called an SMV (for Stop-Motion Video) from the video file.

Dragging an audio file onto the stage will place the file in the armed track.

From a Mash or Screen tab

You can send the contents of any Mash or Screen tab to the stage by clicking on the "Mash It!" button.

From the Talking Picture or Scissors Tools

Clicking on the "Mash It!" button from either of these tools will place the edited asset on the stage.

Moving, Scaling, and Rotating

To move an object once it is on the stage, simply click on it and drag it.

To scale an image proportionally once it is on the stage, click on any corner of the image and hold the Shift key down, and drag the corner towards or away from the center of the object. To scale an object from its center, click on any corner and hold down the Alt key while dragggin the corner towards or away from the center of the object. The Shift and the Alt key may be used together in order to scale an object proportionally from its center.

To rotate an object on the stage, select the object by clicking on it first. Then mouse over the corner of the object until the rotate arrow appears. Click on the corner and drag in the direction you wish to rotate the object.

Flipping

You can flip an object by dragging the lower right corner leftward past the left edge of the object, or upward past the top edge of the object. If you want to preserve the original size and orientation of the object, you can use the Flip>Horizontal or Flip>Vertical commands from within the Stage context menu.

Copy and Paste

You can copy and paste assets on the Stage using the Copy and Paste commands from the Stage context menu.

Deleting

You can delete an object on the stage using the Delete command from the Stage context menu. Deleting an object this way deletes it from the stage but not from the database. Deleting an object deletes it from the stage across the entire timeline. If you have multiple instances of an object on the stage and you delete one instance, other instances will not be affected.

Using the Favorites Bar

The Favorites Bar is a convenient way to manage your assets. To add assets to the Favorites bar, drag them from the Media Search windows. To access them, drag them to the Stage, or select "Preview..." from the Favorites Bar context menu. You can delete assets from the Favorites Bar by selecting "Delete" from the Favorites Bar context menu. As with "Delete" from the Stage, the object will remain in the database after it is removed from the Favorites Bar.

 

Adding Motion

An Overview Of Keyframe Animation

In order to take advantage of the powerful animation features in MashCast, it is useful to understand the basics of keyframing.

Keyframe animation is the process of animating a graphic object by defining the object’s position and orientation at a series of key intervals in time, and using an animation engine, such as MashCast, to create the frames in between.

In MashCast, as in many other animation tools, keyframes are grouped by layer. Each graphical object is automatically assigned a layer. When layers overlap, the topmost layer passes in front of the layer underneath.

Tweens are frames that MashCast places between the keyframes to effect smooth transitions. Tweens can be created or removed while leaving the keyframes intact.

Each keyframe also has a time associated with it. This time is usually defined by the location of the seek knob at the time the keyframe is created. (Some of the animation tools here can be used to create keyframes at other locations in time.)

MashCast creates a keyframe whenever an object is moved, if one hasn't already been created for that object on that frame. A gray bounding box indicates a held frame or a tween. A green bounding box indicates a keyframe.

Tweening

The process of tweening involves four simple steps:

  1. Establish the initial frame (the frame you will be tweening "from") by selecting an asset and moving it to where you want it to begin animating from. The bounding box should be green before proceeding to the next step.
  2. Move the scrubber to the right on the timeline ("forward" in time) to the new point in time where you want the tween to end.
  3. Establish the second keyframe by scaling, rotating, and positioning the asset as you want it to appear at the end of the tween.
  4. Creating the tween frames by clicking on the Tween button while the second keyframe is still active.

When playing back the animation from the beginning, you should see that the tweened asset moves smoothly from the position and orientation you established in Step 1 to the the position and orientation you established in Step 3.

You can repeat this process, using the ending frame of one tween as the starting frame of the next, to create smooth and complex animations.

To quickly advance to the next keyframe in a show, you can click on the "Next Keyframe" button to the right of the scrubber. To rewind to the previous keyframe, click on the "Previous Keyframe" button to the left of the scrubber.

Layers

As we discussed in the overview of Keyframe Animation above, each asset in a show is stored in it's own layer. When layers overlap, the topmost layer covers the one beneath it. In a complex show, there may be more than one hundred layers. Inevitably, in such a situation, it will be neccessary to reorder the layers so that objects pass in front of and behind one another in a desirable way. Additionally, it may become neccessary to show a layer in part of an animation, and then make it disappear later. MashCast offers a number of features to assist you in working with Layers.

The Layer Tool

The Layer Tool allows you to easily select any layer on the stage, even if it is obscured. The layer tool can be accessed in one of two ways:

  • By clicking on the Layer Tool Button, located towards the left side of the Player Control surface
  • By choosing “Select Layer…” after right-clicking on a Character, Image, Text Object, or the Stage.

The Layer Tool presents a list of all of the layers on the stage. Each layer is named according to the asset that resides on that layer. To select an asset, click on the asset name and click “OK”.

By clicking the “Bring layer to front” checkbox and clicking “OK”, this layer will temporarily become the front-most layer. The layer button will turn green to indicate you are in Layer Editing Mode. Once you are satisfied with the changes you have made to this layer, click on the Layer Button again, or choose “Select Layer…” from the asset’s context menu, and uncheck the “Bring Layer to Front” checkbox in order to return the layer to its original position relative to the other layers.

Extending a Layer

You can extend a layer by choosing on "Extend to Start" or "Extend to End" from the Asset context menu. Extend to Start will take the frame closest to the beginning of the show and extend it all the way to the top of the show. Extend to End will hold the last visible frame in the selected layer all the way to the end of the show.

Clearing a Layer - Making Objects Appear and Disappear

You can make an object appear or disappear, even if it is already present in every frame of your show, by using the Clear Layer commands. To make an asset disappear at 30 seconds into the show, advance the scrubber to 30 seconds, select the asset you wish to affect, right-click on it, and select Clear>Layer to End. The asset will now be visible only after 30s. To make the same object appear at 10 seconds into the show, scrub to 10 seconds, select the object, right-click on it, and select "Clear>Layer to Start. The asset will now appear at 10 seconds and disappear at 30 seconds.

Arranging

To move an object that is obstructed by a another towards the top of the layer "stack", you can use the Arrange>Send Forward, or Arrange>Send to Front from the object's context menu. Similarly, you can send objects backward using the Arrange>Send Backward and Arrange>Send to Back commands.

Grouping

Sometimes it's useful to be able to move a bunch of objects along the same path at the same time. Perhaps you want to animate a woman driving a car across the screen. You could animate each element individually, but the more complex the animation, the more difficult it becomes to keep the woman in the car properly positioned behind the wheel.

To simplify the task, you can Group the car and the woman at the beginning of your animation, and then animate the group as if it were a single object.

To group objects together, select them one at a time and then choose Group Objects from the context menu. You will see a bounding box appear around the group. Now the group can be animated as if it were a single object.

Additionally, objects within the group can still be animated independently.

To ungroup objects, select Ungroup Objects from the context menu while the group is selected.

 

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