Pivot Animator

Version 4.1.10

11 / 9 / 2013

Created By: Peter Bone
Company: Motus Software Ltd
email: support@pivotanimator.net
Pivot website : http://www.pivotanimation.net
Pivot Facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/pivotanimatorofficial


Pivot makes it quick and easy to make simple animations. The animation can be saved as an AVI video, animated gif, sequence of images or a native file so that they can be edited later. You can also build your own stick figures, save them and include them in your animation.


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Changes in Pivot 4.1:

- Everything in Pivot 2 and Pivot 3 beta plus bug fixes
- Transparency / opacity
- All handles drawn on top of figures so you can move them easier
- Edit area surrounding the animation area to make it easier to move objects off screen
- Duplicate figure button
- Multi-figure select
- Change the length of segments in the animation by holding Ctrl while dragging
- Change scale and rotate whole figure by holding Alt while dragging
- Pan and zoom and rotate all (by selecting all figures)
- Improved figure selector and background selector (shows images in a list)
- Split segment button in figure builder
- Delete a segment even if it has segments joined to it's end or delete a whole branch
- Copy and paste multiple frames
- In figure builder, set circle to filled or not filled or white filled
- Change where the orange handle is in the figure builder
- Improved gif options (dithering)
- Avi video export support
- Join figures together (for creating multi-coloured figures or for holding weapons, etc)
- PNG support for backgrounds and sprites and export as images
- Press delete key for deleting figure or segment in figure builder - plus other shortcuts
- Figure order buttons; hold ctrl key to send 1 back or 1 front
- Improved Gif export quality
- Multiple languages
- Multiple-onion skins
- Undo / redo button with multiple levels of undo
- Improved handle sizes
- Save figures in the Pivot 2 format
- < and > step through frames
- Change the background or repeat frame number in multiple frames
- Preview of STK files when loading


Bug Fixes in 4.1.2

DONE  Playing animation with loop unchecked. DDp1
DONE  Right click deleting last frame. Range check error after clicking another frame. DDp1
DONE  Click stop button when not playing. Error sometimes and redraws onion skin from current positions. DDp1
DONE  Delete multiple selected figures. Range check error. DDp2
DONE  Join button enabled with only one figure after clicking stop button. Causes error. DDp2
COULDN'T REPLICATE. MAYBE RELATED TO 2  Editing first frame when only one frame. StoreEditedFrame. DDp3
DONE SHOW MESSAGE  Disable background button when no backgrounds loaded
TRIED NO DOUBLE BUFFERING APART FROM SELECT BOX DRAG  Lag when moving figues. Double buffering? DDp4
DONE 0.4 TO 0.7  Adjust handle size (slightly larger based on length)
DONE  Change dimensions in options. Confirm message - yes/no reversed
DONE  Scale Edit box change doesn't commit on exit if handle dragged, until after handle drag. DDp6
DONE  Clicking frame when playing animation doesn't stop animation. Same with <> keys. DDp6
TRIED RELATIVE SIZING  Gif options window bottom cut off with some themes/windows settings. DDp6
FIXED SETTING SCALE EDIT TO ZERO AND THEN INCREASING  Alt dragging scale to zero with multi-select. Divide by zero. DDp7
DONE CURSOR  Notify after Ctrl+S save. Cursor change? DDp9
DONE  Default export size 100% instead of 50%
COULDN'T REPLICATE  FormResize access violation sometimes. PAp2
DONE  ReduceBitmapDepth Range check error when loading background sometimes. E Jan2 7:46pm
CAN'T REPLICATE  Pivot won't run after installing on some Windows 8 machines.

Bug Fixes in 4.1.3

DONE  Initialise/uninitialise OLE for check install?
FIXED. NO FLASHING  Scroll bar error in time-line. flashing part doesn't resize.
FIXED  Integer overflow in TFigure.RotateSegment. When Ctrl dragging any segment in figure builder for 12.7 seconds.
FIXED  Sprite extent not correct after resize. Leaves trail after rotate.
FIXED  Sprites sometimes displayed with yellow backgrounds. 8 bit sprites in Pivot 3 beta animations.
DONE  Set animations folder from previous folder opened.
FIXED  Error after trying to load stk file that doesn't exist. Maybe other open dialogs too.
DONE  Handle size. choose largest of thickness based and length based.
DONE  No link to help file.
DONE. STOPS PLAYING  Disable load figure, etc while playing animation.
FIXED  Problem repainting screen sometimes when no onion skins.

Bug Fixes in 4.1.4

FIXED  Click orange handle. Access violation in mousedown sometimes.
DONE  Option to Cancel closing pivot in save warning.
FIXED. END DRAG  Drag handle while using shortcuts such as pressing 'A' or Ctrl+Z or Del causes errors. 
FIXED  Can't add frame. Range check error in NextFrameButtonClick. With onion skins and no figures in last frame.
FIXED  Split sprite many times in figure builder. Scanline out of range in rotatebitmap.
FIXED  Check overlapping handles. Is the one on top selected when clicking overlapping region?
DONE. AUTOSIZE  Add option for handle size 'Shrink when close'.
DONE XP THEME AWARE  Theme. XP manifest. Check on Windows 7 themes. Nicer looking buttons and other controls.
DONE  Delete frame while playing animation error. Disable popup.
DONE  Transparency of onion skins for figures with transparency.
DONE  Mouse wheel while editing. Flickers editing frame. Disable.
DONE. DEFAULT OS LANGUAGE  MessageDlg messages in other languages. Yes, No, Cancel.
DONE. DISABLED  Click Add Figure button when animation playing enables join button.
DONE. WON'T ADD FIGURE  Figure builder add to animation. Added anyway if X clicked in Name window.
FIXED  Frame caption shown in English always when clicking a frame.
DONE  Change cross cursor in figure builder. Too big.
DONE  Czech and Norwegian languages added.

Bug Fixes in 4.1.5

FIXED  Range check error in select frame. Delete last frame and Shift select last frame.
FIXED  Parts of figure not erased sometimes. Figure extent.
DONE  Add asterix in caption for saved / unsaved.
DONE  Canvas refresh rate when moving figures. Smoother dragging.
DONE  Finnish langauge added.
DONE  Use small cross cursor in figure builder for adding and duplicating segment

Bug Fixes in 4.1.6

NEW FEATURE  Preview STK files when opening. Main window and figure builder.
FIXED  Figure selector overlapping figures. After deleting a figure. Resolves after closing and reopening.
DONE  Figure name window. Edit box has focus when shown.
DONE  Figure builder cross cursor. Inverts colour behind.
FIXED  Circle segments and sprites with zero thickness but filled are not shown.
DONE  Figure builder. Duplicating, draw handles over segment.
FIXED. DISABLED SEGMENT DRAGGING IF SCALE=0  divide by zero in TFigure.RotateSegment. Alt drag to zero then ctrl drag.
FIXED  Negative value in frame repeat. Click any frame.
DONE  Google+ link in about box.
FIXED. ROUND BEFORE SCALE  Jitter caused by supersampling / resizing. Round vertex coordinates before scaling up so that result looks like in Pivot.
FIXED  Range check error in SelectFrame if select a frame, load another animation and select frame.
FIXED  Copy and paste frames. Problem with paste insert. Correct list of selected frames and frame being edited.
FIXED  Delete all frames. Onion skin still shown. Redraw background onion if last frame deleted.
FIXED  Frame buttons always enabled after clicking stop.
FIXED  doesn't ask to save after pasting frames and closing.
FIXED  Range check error with more than 256 figure types. Also slow to delete figure type when many figures.
FIXED. CHECK FOR SMALL IMAGE  Load empty bitmap as background or 1x1 bitmap
FIXED  Figure builder. Duplicated segments ends up at the back instead of the front.
FIXED  Scale value not always shown correctly in edit box.
FIXED  Figure builder enables circle fill button when clicking no handle.
DONE  Don't make cursor invisible when adding new segment in builder.
DONE  Don't start new figure when click 'Create Figure Type'.
DONE  Space bar adds new frame.

Bug Fixes in 4.1.7

FIXED. LIMITED ALT DRAG  Large thickness in builder. 135552992 line disappears. 2152387840 range check error.
FIXED  Centre button doesn't always centre multi-selected figures. Same error as flip?
FIXED  Pasting between pivot apps doesn't always work. Stop animation by clicking frame. Paste button not re-enabled.
DONE  Store FPS in Config file. Persist FPS when re-opening program.
DONE  Indonesian + Turkish languages.
FIXED  Can move static segments when joining figures to them. Don't start drag if joining.
FIXED  Options. Leave width blank and click ok. error message.
FIXED  Width = 10, height = 800. Divide by zero in shrinkFast. < 1 pixel in timeline.

Bug Fixes in 4.1.8

DONE  Ini file/error_log save location. Problems for non-admins. Store in AllUsers/AppData.
FIXED  10x801 dimensions. Range check error in SetAnimationDimensions. Number of frames in timeline > 255.
FIXED  Open sprite in builder, set sprite segment to line or circle, add to animation, save. Results in corrupted PIV.
FIXED  Error when loading Pivot 2 file with figure type with no name.
FIXED  Horizontal line figure types not visible in figure selector.
DONE  Alt scale to zero in figure builder. No way back. Limit Alt dragging to 1 pixel size.
FIXED  Limit Alt scaling for figures with zero width segments. Limit scale to 100000%
DONE  Small figures with 1 static segment (particles) always have large handle. Make small.
FIXED  Figures/backgrounds lose capitalisation when loaded.
FIXED  Frames copied in order selected rather than frame order.
IMPROVED  Large PIV files can take a long time to load. Decompression.
FIXED PROBABLY  error after 520000 frames. Range check in UpdateTLScrollBar.
DONE  Addition of new example animations and STK file.
DONE  Italian language added.

Bug Fixes in 4.1.9

DONE  3000000 frames - error. Limit number of frames to 1000000.
DONE  If error while saving (run out of memory) then don't save (exception handling).
DONE  figure builder disable hotkeys while adding segments.
FIXED  Ctrl Alt to create long segment will very low scale. Origin resizes.
FIXED  Builder. Split segment and delete new unselected.
DONE  German language added.
DONE  Russian language improved.

Bug Fixes in 4.1.10

FIXED  Figure builder window won't open / freezes on some computers. Text box at bottom of window is 1 pixel off screen.
FIXED  Change background from one that is no longer used to one that comes after it. Changes to wrong background.
FIXED  Can open wrong file types if search in file name bar. Check extension.
DONE  Change dimensions in options while playing. Mucks up if objects outside animation area. 
DONE  Moved Load sprite in File menu, so that the 3 load items are together.
DONE  Help link to html Help files.
DONE  Figure preview not working sometimes. Abort load for corrupted files or stk files made with future versions.
DONE  Show Russian Help in browser if language set to Russian.
DONE  Store PIV and STK save file folders in config file. Now goes to previous folder used after closing pivot.
DONE  Options for max and min size handles. Config file only. For the partially sited.
DONE  Check sensible values when loaded from config file. Prevent manual modification to invalid values.
DONE  Spanish latin replaces Spanish Mexicano.
DONE  Croatian language added.
FIXED  Incorrect transparency when loading a sprite with 1 or 2 colours.
FIXED  Sprites leave behind trails sometimes. Not being erased properly.
FIXED  Set transparency to 2 and then add frame and select the figure again. Transparency gets set back to 0.
FIXED  PNG library bug with some PNG files.
FIXED. STOP ANIMATION  Can sometimes freeze if exporting while animation is playing.
DONE  New program icon
DONE  Removed requirement to run program on the computer it was installed on. Portable for non-beta