Topic: Please help me, I do not understand.

Hi,
I just found out about Dimp, and I am totally clueless as to how to use it. I saw the post on the keyframe system, and I understand that, but I don't understand how to use the app itself. Which buttons do I press? When? Thank you very much, you guys. big_smile

Re: Please help me, I do not understand.

Hi Sohrob, and welcome to Dimpleton!

There is a built-in tutorial, you can find it in the Help menu, “Getting Started”. It introduces the basics concepts of Dimp and how it works.

Also, here’s a reference to pretty much everything Dimp does right now:

Basic navigation and manipulation

  • Drag a limb by the handle (the circle) to say: this is where this should be at this time.

  • Click in the timeline at the top to change the time. Every line is a second.

  • Click the rewind button (|<) to go tot the start of the animation.

  • Click the play or pause buttons (> and ||) to play or pause.

  • Click the fast forward button (>|) to go to the last keyframe in the animation.

  • Hover over the timeline to see a ghostly image of the scene at that time.

  • Select a keyframe (a handle turned yellow) by clicking it.

  • With a handle selected, press Backspace to delete the keyframe.

Advanced editing

  • With a handle selected, press Command+Backspace to delete the entire figure.

  • Drag a Pivot (.stk) or Dimp file into the canvas (the big white area) to add the figures in that file to the animation.

Advanced navigation

  • Drag with the right mouse button to scroll around the canvas.

  • If you have a two-way scroll wheel/ball (like the Mighty Mouse), you can also use that to scroll.

  • If you have a Magic Mouse, you can scroll both ways using one finger.

  • If you have a multi-touch trackpad, use two fingers to scroll.

  • Scroll with Option (Alt) pressed to zoom in and out.

  • If you have a multi-touch trackpad or mouse, pinch with two fingers to zoom.

Advanced timeline usage

  • Press Command + 1 or choose Thumbnails from the View menu to switch to thumbnail mode (default).

  • When in thumbnail mode, you’ll see a snapshot of your animation for every second.

  • Press Command + 2 or choose Animation Graph from the View menu to see a detailed graph of all movement in your scene.

  • Resize the timeline by dragging the divider line.

  • Scroll the timeline left or right using the scrollbar, the scroll ball on your mouse if you have one, or using multi-touch.

  • In Animation Graph mode, you can also scroll the timeline up or down using the scroll wheel or using multi-touch.

Helper guidelines

  • Click the leftmost button (the two intersecting lines) at the bottom of the Dimp window to open the guidelines overlay.

  • Hover over the newly appeared gutter to choose a place to place the guideline.

  • Click to place the guideline.

  • Drag a guideline while inside the gutter to move it.

  • Click a guideline outside the gutter to delete it.

  • Click the guideline toggle button again to return to the normal canvas.

  • You can also return to the normal canvas by double-clicking anywhere in the canvas.

QuickTime (video) export

  • Click the button with the little QuickTime window (second from the right) or choose Export to QuickTime from the Share menu to show the QuickTime export panel.

  • When “Current canvas size” is selected as resolution, the movie will export the animation with the same size as the window is right now.

  • Choose a file name and click Save to export the video. This can take a little while, depending on the duration and complexity of your animation and also the speed of your computer.

  • These QuickTime videos are perfect for uploading to YouTube.

Built-in sharing

  • Click the sharing button (rightmost) or choose Upload & Link… from the Share menu to bring up the sharing panel.

  • The image shows the thumbnail that will be used. The gray bars are cropped (cut off).

  • Tick “Make private” to make the animation invisible in the Dimp Theater. Otherwise, it will show up there.

  • Click the “Sign up” button to create an account if you don’t already have one.

  • Click the Forgot button if you forgot your password.

  • If you want to save your username and password, tick “Store in my keychain”.

  • Click Upload to upload the animation.

  • In the post-upload screen, you’ll see Dimpleton BBCode. Use this to show your Dimp animation in a Dimpleton post.

  • Click “Upload Again…” if you revised your animation and want to upload it again.

  • Click “Open Site” to go straight to the Dimp Theater.

Other Dimp features

  • Choose Check For Updates… from the Dimp preview menu to check for new updates. This also happens automatically every now and then.

  • Choose Getting Started from the Help menu to view the tutorial.

  • Choose Visit Dimpleton Forum from the Help menu to go here.

Using the Dimp Theater

  • Click the “save” link beneath the thumbnail to save the animation as a Dimp file, for watching or editing later.

  • Click any thumbnail to see the animation in Dimp.

  • Dimp looks a bit different in playback mode. Move the mouse over the animation to see scroll knob appear. Drag it to scrub through the animation.

  • Click the edit button (rightmost) to go to regular edit mode.

  • In the theater, log in using the log in box at the top right.

  • When logged in, click “channel” in the log in box to go to your channel.

  • You can delete an animation using the Delete button. Be careful, as you can’t restore them without uploading again.

  • Click “edit profile” in the log in box to go to your profile.

  • Change “Displayed name” to change your nickname in the theater.

  • Change “channel name” to change the URL of your channel. The link is shown right below the text box.

  • Enter your Dimpleton username and password and click Couple to show a Dimpleton profile link on your channel.

If I forgot anything, let me know. I’ll include this list (and more, better documentation) in a future Dimp release.

Re: Please help me, I do not understand.

Thank you so much! I totally get it now. It's a ton of fun smile

Re: Please help me, I do not understand.

Is there any way for me to change the playback speed of the animation?

Re: Please help me, I do not understand.

Sohrob wrote:

Is there any way for me to change the playback speed of the animation?

Not yet. In the future you’ll be able to select a part of the animation in the timeline and then stretch it.

For now, there’s not really any solution other than post-editing using iMovie or the likes.

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Re: Please help me, I do not understand.

how to make new figure??
Please help me

Re: Please help me, I do not understand.

mi wrote:

how to make new figure??
Please help me

It's actually not yet possible to create new figures using Dimp.

You can add existing figures in the STK format to a Dimp animation though, by dragging them onto the canvas. There's lots of good figures over at http://droidz.org and similar sites.

Support for creating and changing figures will be in a future version.

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