In this tutorial, I will show you how to animate painting or coloring using my animated path stroke script, which can be found here>>>>>>: Fencepost's Path Suite.

Here's what I'll show you how to do in this tutorial:



In a later lesson, I'll describe how to select portions of contiguous areas so that they can be colored separately.

This tutorial requires a general understanding of basic GIMP concepts: adding layers, text, selecting brushes, creating paths, etc. I provide lots of details/screenshots, but won't be covering every little specific. GIMP version 2.6.6 is being used for this tutorial.

Let's begin!

Step 1

Create or open a new image with the desired background. Duplicate the background and add some text or an object you'd like to paint. Here's what my image looks like:



and my layers:



Step 2

With one of your selection tools (i.e. magic wand, path tool, select by color, etc.), select the area you wish to paint. Since I will be painting some text, and the area around my text is transparent, I can simply right-click on the text layer and choose Alpha to Selection:



and all of my text is now selected. I've highlighted the selected area in red in the screenshot below. Yours won't be red.



Keep the selection active until told to deactivate.

Step 3

Next, we need to create a path to paint across. Select your Path Tool Button and begin adding points until your selected area is covered by a path. You don't have to make the spacing between the lines too close as you can choose a larger brush. Additionally, don't make your path too long as it could cause the script to not work (more about that in a moment). Here's what my path looks like. I started at the green dot and ended at the red dot (you won't have a green or red dot - if you wonder why I explain that....I've been asked on numerous occasions in other tutorials where the dots are!!!)

The order you place your points is the direction a path moves.



Step 4

A moment ago I stated that you don't want your path to be too long or the script won't work. I intentionally designed the script like that because of speed issues. However, for most smaller images, we don't have anything to worry about. But, I've added a script to help you know whether you've passed that point. In the paths dialog right-click on the path you just created and choose Path Details...



A dialog will appear requesting which "stroke" to get information about:



Since you've probably only created one individual path segment, you'll only have 1 stroke. (If you run into problems here, post a comment and I'll provide assistance.) A message window will pop up and provide you some basic information about the path. If highlighted statement below matches yours, no worries. Proceed. If the message says your path is too long, you'll either need to shorten your path or split it into segments. I won't be covering the details of splitting up paths nor will I be explaining how to paint more than one path. I have other path stroking tutorials that cover those details.



Step 5

With our selection still active and the path drawn & path length verified, it's time to begin painting. There's really no need for our text/object layer at this point. You can delete it or drag it to the bottom of the layer stack where's it out of the way and make the duplicate of the background layer active. Here's what my layer dialog now looks like:



Step 6

Let's pick a brush to paint with. Pick one that's wide enough to fill in the spaces, but don't pick a great big brush (that will really slow the script down). I'm using Galaxy (AP). Experiment.



Also, I'm setting my brush spacing (the slider at the bottom of the brush dialog to 1). Set yours to whatever you want. You can always undo/redo if you don't like it. Try experimenting with setting the brush mode/opacity as well.



Step 7

Now, with your selection still active (your selection is still active, right?!), go back to the paths dialog and right-click on your path. This time, choose Animated Path Stroking...



In the dialog that appears, the following highlighted parameters are the ones we're most interested in:



* As we previously discussed, you probably only have 1 stroke, so leave the top parameter at 1. (If you get an error and can't figure it out, post a comment and I'll walk you through it).
* Choose the number of frames you want to paint in. For this exercise, I picked 15. It's your animation, you choose!
* Unless you're planning on doing some additional work with the individual path segments that are created by the script, choose Paint Paths - Don't add path segments to image.
* Under Color Method choose Solid Color or Gradient (If you want to use a gradient, make sure you set a gradient length below. For this exercise, I'm painting with a solid color.)
* Set the foreground color
* If painting with a gradient, pick the desired gradient. If your gradient choice is one of the FG-BG options, make sure you pick the background color in the color swatch above this option.
* Set the gradient length (only necessary if painting with a gradient).

Click OK and the script will do the rest. After the script is finished running, go to Filters > Animation > Playback to see your animation in action. If you don't like what you see, go to Edit > Undo (Ctrl+Z) and fix what you don't like and try again. If you like what you see, deactivate your selection (Select > None) and save as an animated gif (File > Save or File > Save As...)

Here's my result again, with the animation timing of the first and last frames adjusted to a 1 second (1000 ms) delay.



and here's one I painted with a gradient:



Well, I hope this tutorial has been informative and you learned about some new tools. In a later lesson, I'll describe how to select portions of contiguous areas so that they can be colored separately. Make sure you show me your results.

Cheers!

Art

Great instructions, I actually managed this on the first try!
I do need to work on how to get the speed right, brush size right, path sized right, etc. Also, what would be the way to do the painting, followed by erasing, painting, erasing, etc.?
This is a bit rough, but hopefully practice will bring improvement. Urm, and I forgot how to make the first and last frames a different speed


*figured out how to do two colors one after the other, but can't do an erase because I was using a transparent background...I assume you can do an erase if you use an opaque background.

That's fun!

Thanks. Glad they were easy to understand.


Yeah, that all takes practice.


Depends on what effect you're after, but you can use the paint tool and the eraser with the script. Do you have something specific in mind? Here's something that I did to using alternating eraser/painting....gives it a chase effet:





Looks good! To set the frame speed, double-click the layer name, change the ms to whatever you want, then make sure you click the Enter key to make the change "stick".

Anyone have thoughts on how I accomplished this (Click the thumbnail image below to see animation)? Could be done more than one way?

Nice work, O!

I was thinking of the same effect as the painting of the letters via the script, then erasing the letters in the same way, just like my second example but instead of the bright blue being painted, the color (gradient in this case) would be erased.
I have no idea how you can paint with desaturation effect, that is really cool.

The erase should have worked, but I'll experiment with that a bit and let you know.



When you go into your brush dialog, change the brush mode to Saturation (or whatever mode you want). You can also modify the opacity settings.

Thanks! Pondering how to do a kind of, "Beam me up, Scotty," thing with a flying saucer and astronaut. Still pondering.

Double clicked on layer name to change speed on a layer...no mms in the name. Now what? I know I've seen the speeds on my layers in the past, but don't remember under what circumstances. Do you have to save as animation first?

*nvr mnd...that would be a yes.

Do you have Filters > Animation > Settings? If you don't I recommend you get it. You can specify the speed and type (Replace for yours) on the visible layers. For yours you would want to change the speed of the top layer to something like 1500 for the ms. You can change the settings while Playback is running to get an instant update on the speed.

Right-click the link and save to your gimp/scripts folder. http://flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com/GIMP/Scripts/anim-settings.scm

I do have the settings...but it only shows the one choice for all frames. So I saved as animated gif, closed and reopened, and the layer names showed the speed settings.
******O, yeah, I see if you use the settings, then click ok, you get the speeds listed on the layers names. yay.

You need to manually change the setting. Double-click the layer so that the name is highlighted, click in the name so it's not highlighted, change the setting speed manually, press Enter to have it "take."

so...I have set the times in a couple places. But I would like to use something besides the galaxy brush. I tried both a hard and a soft brush, sized about the same as the galaxy one, but they don't work right...they leave grey areas. Do I just need to make them even larger? How large in proportion to the path?
ps...not erased, just repainted with background color.

What I suggest is that when you pick a brush, hover over the path in the image window with your mouse and you should be able to see the outline of the brush. If it looks like it will cover the path and the spaces in-between try it out. It's really about experimentation; no hard and fast rules. I suggest you create an editable brush that you can adjust the shape, hardness, size, spacing, etc. It won't be fancy, but you may not need anything fancy. That way, if it's not big enough, you can double-click on the brush and edit its parameters. Don't know if this helps.

I may get a similar effect but symmetric ?

as symmetrically fill (or erase) the FP you used in your example ,starting simultaneously from the upper left corner of "F" and from the bottom right of P ?

EDIT
(actually a letter as P has not a proper "right bottom corner" , with "R" would be more clear but i am sure you get it ! )

It is possible, but there's a "competing interest" taking place. Here's an example:



I added a simple pattern to the very bottom layer. Then I had my white layer above it with the "FP" selected. I drew one path and then used my "Reverse Path" script to make an exact duplicate, but it reverses the drawing order of the points. On the reversed path, I used the eraser (bottom corner by the "P") and erased the black showing the green behind it. Then, on the original path, beginning again on the white layer, I used the paintbrush with a gradient. What happens is that the paintbrush covers over what's been erased, because it was last operation I performed. I could have reversed what I did, starting with the paintbrush and following up a second time with the eraser and the eraser would have "won". I could have adjusted the opacity/blend mode of my brushes so that both showed through. That would work. Does that make sense?

yes perfectly , thank you

Thx for the Tutorial!

Nice work! Thanks for trying it out.

Art

I"m still having a time with brush size. I made a background 700 wide by 100 high. The path's anchor points were fairly close. I chose a hard round brush that was so big, the edges were off the background. I still ended up with unpainted streaks. The galaxy brush, even when smaller, works.

Can you post some screenshots for me? I'd like to see one of the brush dialog, one of the brush options dialog, and one of the animated path stroking dialog with all the settings you're using. Thanks, Art

deleted them, but I will redo and post tomorrow afternoon. Thanks.

*as I'm working on recreating the graphic, I think I may have found my error....I have been forgetting to set brush spacing to 1! Lets see if that is it...

I guess that wasn't it.
Here is a screen shot...in the enlarged version I hope you can see the white dotted path (selected to show it) and the green dotted brush size...I am sure it's large enough to overlap the path but you can see where the white is not painted in, as if I used a smaller brush. Any clue as to what I am missing?

another example, a screen shot showing the size of the brush...the path was just a two-anchor one, straight across the center of the text line.

oh, I just saw that you wanted specific dialogs...back to the drawing board.
*here are dialogs...hope they are large enough in the full pic

So far so good, 2-ton. But, I need a couple more things from you...not trying to be a pest, but the answer, which might be easy to resolve, isn't obvious. I see a screenshot of my animated path dialog in the background, but can you show me a screenshot of your settings. Also, in the first path (the zig-zag one) can you do a right-click on the path and run the Path Direction script and show me the resulting image? I'd also like to see what your brush spacing is. Your second example should have worked with no trouble. If you still have the xcf file, maybe you could post that so I can fiddle with it. Sorry for all the requests, but something's not working properly.

Art