![]() ![]() The method described here produces a larger working file, but is much more manageable.Īll that remained was the creation of the transition elements: Why not make one lamp and one semi-transparent lamp in a layer group and move them when you save the individual animation frames? Because it’s tedious to do it that way and tends to produce errors. Once these underlying lamps were created, I made the necessary semi-transparent overlays. I took care to make sure all thee were in perfect vertical alignment, because even the slightest horizontal aberration would be noticeable in the finished animation. Here is the result:Īs you can see in Figure 5, three copies of the lamp were created to effect the animation. In each affected frame one lamp is in a layer beneath the character, while the semi-transparent version is above. This was addressed by creating a semi-transparent layer for the two lower lamp positions. The lamp posed a special problem because the character heads had to appear to be inside the dome. I then created a vector layer composed of a line and five intersections to serve as a guide then placed the various element layers in their respective positions. Start at a 50% blur and increase or decrease the value as needed. Getting the right blur varies from animation to animation. I created a motion blur for each of the external elements. A cartoonish (but nonetheless effective) solution to this problem was to use motion blurs to keep size down. At roughly 26 frames per second, such fluidity might have required more than one hundred frames, and would have far exceeded the 512k file size limit. To achieve a cinematically fluid animation of the selected elements would have required many frames to move them incrementally from one side of the background to the other. The process for creating test animations is the same as that for creating the finished animation. This also provided a better idea of whether or not the animation would produce smooth movement. I imported two externals, each in its own layer:įigure 4: Add external moving elements in separate layers.Īt this point I created test frames to make sure the finished product would come in under the 512k file size limit. In this case, the entire background will be exposed at one point or another. If sections of the background will always be obscured by elements that move only slightly, don’t put work into those sections. The important point with all animation backgrounds is to do the best clean up needed for the story you are telling. Other background clean ups can be quite complex. The finished element was saved in its own layer. I began by isolating the source element I planned to put into motion:įigure 2: Isolate moving elements in separate layers.Ī bit of reconstruction was necessary here to get a complete “headpiece”. I began thinking about a static image with that idea in mind, but as I started to cut out one of the lamps I realized it was suitable for animation. The shape of the lamps suggested to me some sort of headpiece for an electrocution or scientific experiment from a 1950’s sci-fi movie. Some element in the source image may suggest the possibility of interesting movement. It shows, I think, that a great deal of “movement” can be accomplished with a handful of elements and fewer than ten frames. It is not a fine piece of animation, but it is adequate for the purpose of demonstration. So, there are fluid loops (without neutral, intervening frames) and loops with such frames. ![]() Such an animation should be presented with a title frame, followed by the animation, then a fade to black, or white, or some kind of neutral image. Animations that rely on a simple, dramatic effect don’t work well unless they have the context of a pause or some kind of intermediary frame. Animations that run their course once and revert to the static image of the final frame may get little attention because the viewer may miss the brief action that occurs early on and isn’t quite sure how to restart the animation. Even GIF’s that are intended to have a beginning and an end should loop, like a movie that runs its course and then runs again. The example that follows assumes a file size limit of 512k, but the principles described can be applied to any file size. For that reason, I’ll try to keep the discussion as generic as possible. The principles of animation are the same, I believe, no matter what software you happen to use. ![]() I use Paint Shop Pro 10 and Jasc Animation Shop to produce animated GIF’s. Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create GIF Animations ![]()
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