ò Making Animations

Making animations in ImageReady is very simple to do.

The key behind making animations lies in the placement and visability of layers.

The best way to make your layers is to first do it in Photoshop then jump to ImageReady (Ctrl+Shift+M) or you can simply open any .psd file in ImageReady.

Once you have done your layers, open the file in ImageReady. Then make sure you have the LAYERS and ANIMATION palettes open to do so goto WINDOW|LAYERS (SHOW LAYERS) and WINDOW|ANIMATION (SHOW ANIMATION). Then look at the animation palette for a second so as to get familiar with the features. You will see thumbnail boxes with numbers those are the animation frames. Immediately below each frame is a number followed by "SEC". You can click on the number and a popup will appear and you can change the number. That number is the delay between that frame and next frame in the annimation. Below frame 1 there is another drop down that says FOREVER. You can specify if you want your animation to be re-occuring or only show once. Then beside that there are buttons that look like buttons you would see on your CD player. The first button selects the first frame, then next goes back one frame, the next is the PLAY/STOP button to view your animation and the last goes forward one frame. The next button looks like 4 circles fading away and that is used to tween frames. Then there is the duplicate layer button and the delete frame button. The last thing to know is the way to create new frames. In the upper right hand corner of the animation palette there is a button with a triangle in it (right below the "X" to close the palette). Click on that and goto new frame to create new frames and there are a bunch of other features there too.

Now that you have a feel for the animation palette you can start to make your animation.

Once you have opened your layered .psd file click on layer 1 and then add however many frames you want. If you simply want to cycle through your layers then make the same number of frames as you have layers. Lets just use the number 4 for this example. Once you have 4 frames, click on the first frame and then on the LAYERS palette hide all layers except the one you want to show. Then click on frame 2 and hide all layers except the one you want shown then do that to frame 3 and 4 too. Once you have got only one layer showing per frame press the PLAY button to view your animation then press STOP so you can specify your delay between frames.

[color red]*CAUTION*[/color] If you plan to make an animation that calls the same layer in more than 1 frame, then remember that what you do to the layer in one frame will also happen in the other frame(s). The best thing to do is to duplicate the layer then call the duplicate from the other frame unless of course you aren't making any modifications to the layer.

Now lets say you have 2 layers that have a distinct difference but you need an animation that has a smooth transition. You will need to use the TWEEN button. Click on the first of the 2 frames that need to be tweened then click on the TWEEN button then a dialog box will appear and you can choose which frame you wish to tween with. Select next frame then you can tell ImageReady how many frames you would like to add to complete the tween. The more frames you add the slower it will go, and the fewer frames the faster it will go, but it will become choppy. Then press PLAY to view your animation. If you have an animation that has alot of frames then sometimes when you preview your animation it looks choopy because the frames have to scroll in the palette. To overcome this goto FILE|PREVIEW IN|then select your browser.

That's it. There really is nothing to it. Experimentation will help you make any kind of animation you desire.

Good Luck and have fun!


NATE

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