Virtual Skipper

[najevi]

I've been poking around looking for ways to illustrate various rules and definitions at vsk.wikia.com

in my search i came across Tactical Sailing Situations shareware for the PC. It's most recent update was 28-May-2009 so it is certainly not an abandoned project.

Has anyone used this software to create animated GIF ?

Is there a better alternative available ?

sample:

[Camster]

I find that TSS is fine just used as a .jpeg without the need to make an animation. The boat positions are numbered and everying just stays put with a single image file, and I find that more convenient for study.

Eg: this example where blue tacks under yellow and immediately calls for room - the issue being whether the manoevre was made too close to the obsruction to be legal..


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Sandy

[najevi]

That's a good point. Animation can be distracting for some readers so the numbered approach looks good and should mean smaller, faster loading files.

[kiwi_bardy]

Animation can also be really good, both for some readers, and in some situations. Personally I really like the animations at http://game.finckh.net/index.htm

Perhaps it's worth considering presenting both an animated and still shot view of situations and letting the reader decide which they prefer to look at?

[maitai]

It's also pretty easy to do with VSK. Edit a replay, put a free, static camera above the incident. Then specify a time (say 10 sec before the pen), press <tab> then f10 to take a screen-shot, and do this every n seconds (2 or 3) until the pen. Then you can go in your favorite picture editor and merge all this in an animated gif. It's much simpler to do that compared to shooting a video.


Here is an example:


By the way the pen has been judged incorrect, the way I engaged the row boat was not good, so my apologies to xavex again;)
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www.virtual-winds.com

[andynz]

Except your picture editor seems to have added 2 additional hulls to your ACC !!! Must be a bug

[maitai]

Don't tell me you are sailing on one hull only. You swim if you loose one? This is not safe
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www.virtual-winds.com