Help
Getting Started.
1. You will need to create a new folder for your work. The reason for this is because you will soon have many frames, in this
lesson you will have 40 video frames! I'll call my folder Animationlesson and I keep it handy.
2. Create your background, meaning create what you want the animation to move over! I'll use a background of 150x420, Remember this can be anything, even photos! Once you are happy with your image go on to the next step.
3. Ok now you need to save this in a file Format that the GAP can work with. (GAP only works with certain file types.) Here is the way to save: Name__000001.xcf. Change the part that says "Name" to whatever you want and leave the rest exactly the way it is! I.e. - "_000001.xcf" I'll save mine as "Animationtut_000001.xcf". Remember that folder we made? ... It needs to be saved there so we can keep track of it!
4. New image! I made mine the same size as the background filled with transparency. What do you want to move? Text maybe? Perhaps a picture? Both? Whatever you decide, they need to be on different layers if you want them to move independently. I've shown my example below. Don't get confused, the layers shown are just a Copy and Paste of the layers window to show how I set the different items for animation.
Do you have your choices for background and the thing you want to move? Ok, then you need to save them as an .XCF file, I saved mine as AnimationItems.xcf in the same folder
5. Before continuing, please confirm that you have both A BACKGROUND and an .XCF of ANIMATION Items.
6. This is where it gets fun! LOL Open both Images...With the "Animationtut_000001.xcf" selected select Video/Duplicate Frames... you get a window like this:
Insert these values for this Lesson! Click ok, and then go to that file we've been working on and you'll see a whole lot of frames! Now you know why the special folder. Remember the more frames, the smoother the animation will be! Yea! Now we get to animate our project!
Making our Animation Animate!
7. From background image select Video/Move Path... and you get a window like this...
**WAIT**
Study this and its parts. I will refer to them later and their corresponding Letters as shown.
8. As you can tell, my settings are different than yours, you'll need to change a few to match mine! First change "B" to "none", "G" needs a check mark, "C" is up to you, it determines how to hold your source image, "A" to the first Item you want to move.
[You need to keep in mind that this plug-in acts like a 'plotter' The first point is the beginning and the ending point is the end, What it does is calculate the difference and adds the value along the time line! "AKA FRAMES"]
Ready?
9. Lets make our first (Beginning) point which will be our current settings in "D" and "E", mine are based on center handle "C"...
10. When you have you first point (Beginning) click "F" Add Point, Now we determine where this image will go to point 2...
*DO NOT YET CLICK "F" AGAIN!*
11. At this point I want you to click "J". A window like this will pop up and I want you to add the values I have and click "OK".
12. Now two new windows will pop up. These are only for preview: Do not save them! If you don't like the way it looks you can close these BOTH without saving and edit the current point and preview again! I want you to take notice that the movement takes place through all 40 frames. If you do like the preview, close the windows without saving anyway!
13. Click "F" one more time and don't change any settings If you want you can preview again and you will notice that the movement now goes to frame 20 and then stays in place the remander to frame 40. DO NOT SAVE PREVIEW!
14. Click "L" and your path will be recorded by GAP, You will not see it but trust me it is, and you will see it in a few steps.
15. From background image select Video/Move Path again and you will get the MOVE PATH Plug-in again. First change "B" to "none", "G" needs a check mark, "C" is up to you it determines how to hold your source image, "A" to the Second Item you want to move, in my example it's a text layer that says, "(GAP)Animation Lesson".
16. Plot the first point, I used a new setting, "K", on this image to make the text lean and I hope for you to experiment with these for a few minutes to see the effects they have. Below is the First point, and I set the "I" From Frame number to 10 to make a delay effect. You can see how it applies to each line of text in my example.
*Note, for alignment reasons you can now use "H" so long as you have a check mark in box "G" in my example I went to preview frame 21 where the Wilber was in its resting place. This setting does not affect the work, it is a tool used to quickly preview where stuff is! Try it out!*
17. Plot the Second point of the text, above^ (Ending). I decided for all the text to come together in frame 40 so when I have my second point plotted I can click "L" and move on to the next Animation of Text. I'll leave the rest to you, now that your getting the hang of it! :h: When you're done follow on to step 18.
You can also preview with "J" but, as I said before, don't save the previews!
18. So now that you have two images on your animation. If you think you might be done in this step, I'll show you another tool! It's cool! From the Background image Select Video/Playback... and you get another tool. Play a little bit if you wish! After all your almost done, right!?! :h:
19. From the Background image Select Video/VCR Navigator... and you get this:
With this tool you get to specify the frame rate in frames per second, "FPS", I believe I ended up choosing 10fps When you're done, close this tool and then from BackGroundImage select Video/Frames to Image... You'll get something close to this, maybe the Layer Basename will be different but you shouldn't worry, simply click "ok". and you'll get an image with 40 animated frames!
20. You have a frame by frame animation now, which is great! However, the data size if saved in this condition would be huge! You want to have a smaller file size, right?...especially for use on the web! So from your new image, select Filters/Animation/Optimize (For GIF). After a few moments you will get a new image that may look like it's missing stuff but it isn't, it is only combining frames to cut down on data size! You can preview by selecting, from new image, Filters/Animation/Playback... and you get a preview.
21. If you want to change specific frame rate times like I did with the example this is a good time to do it. Here is my example:
22. Save your image as .gif and enjoy! :w:
