How to make an animation
First you need some animation software - I have PSP and Animation Shop. You can download them for a 30 day free trial at Jasc Software There are other software packages that work as well, but I am only familiar with mine.
If you want to use other software, look here.
Start by finding something that is worth the time and effort of animating... (Ricky? ALWAYS!!!)
Here is a page with the RealPlayer link to Ricky in Denmark Well worth watching, even if you are not interested in animations.
Find or Capture some still images...
Line them up...
Make sure they are the same size...(not always necessary, but I think it makes the process easier)
Open the first one in your animation program...
Add the succeeding images one at a time to the infant animation. - when you put the images into an animation, each image is called a frame.
View the animation to see how smooth it is.
Adjust the display time for each frame, or select all the frames and adjust the display
time for every frame all at once. The time is given in hundredths of a second, so a half
second is expressed as 50. Many animations I see, especially ones with unrelated images,
do not allow enough viewing time for each image. I start with 65 hundredths display
time per image, and adjust from there.
If the images jump around too much, duplicate the animation and paste each frame from the duplicate into the original, moving it into the proper position to minimize jumpiness.
Repeat as needed.
Crop the animation to reduce unneeded background - animation files get very large, very quickly, so a small reduction here can help reduce the download time by a lot.
Add text effects if you wish.
Save.
and share with your friends.
Another useful tidbit
Often animation software will open AVI or MPEG files - so if you manage to download such a file to disk, you can choose frames from one of these, and save a step. Or several.
Do you remember when Ricky had an early morning interview on Y-100 Radio, with Footy and the Chicks at Six in their brand new building? Fans could call in and win tickets to this interview. The first fan to correctly identify all 7 disguised songs got to ask a question, and when Jade told Ricky that she was one of his best fans, he came down and gave her a hug.
The Y-100 clips on line could be downloaded, and taking a few frames from one of them, I animated the hug Ricky gave the lucky girl I just mentioned.
You can download this snippet of mpeg to play on Windows Media Player, or to play with...
Right Click, Save Target as... to download
some bits of information I found helpful with regards to animations
1) the DAT files on a VCD are mpeg files with extra information. If you copy one to your disk, and rename it to end in .mpeg, animation shop will open it.
2) the number of frames you can import into Animation Shop is directly related to the amount of installed memory you have free on your computer. With 384meg on this machine, and nothing else running, I can import more than 500 frames at one time.
3) mpeg files run 30 frames per second. when you are watching a video notice the number of seconds that are elapsed. if you see the bit you wish to animate between 1:47 and 2:00 into the video, a small calculation will help you get exactly the frames you want.
1 min = 60 sec so 1:47 = 107 sec, 2 min = 120 sec
107 x 30 = frame 3210 120 x 30 = frame 3600
import frames 3210 to 3600 into animation shop, and your bit should be right in the middle. (if you do this with the LLVL video you will get Ricky and the girl hugging on the street.)
4) once you have a series of frames you like, save it as an animation shop MNG file, then you can go back to it and make variations of your animations.
A bit about RealPlayer frames - the Ricky diving into the waves animation I have in my sig was made from a RealPlayer. I played it, paused it, and did a capture in PSP, until I had enough captures to make my animation. Same as Eliz' dancing Ricky in Denmark was done by captures from a RealPlayer. I go into the realplayer preferences and turn off "hardware acceleration" so I do not get just black screens when I do the captures.
Another sample of the art
I have no special skills with regard to making animations. I just assemble them, and either like them or not.
The hardest part for me, sometimes, is to delete enough frames (I dislike removing ANY lovely Ricky pictures) to reduce the size of an animation to something that will not tax the capacity of a slower internet connection; and yet leave enough to make it look good.
All I know, so far, is Paint Shop Pro and its companion, Animation Shop. I cannot call myself expert in their use, either, because there are many more features that I have not explored at all thus far.
Another valuable skill (the one Eliz already has) is the ability to look at a group of still pictures and know (or be able to choose) which ones will make up into a lifelike animation. SHE is the one I would ask for help - such as which images to use to make a nice animation.
If you are using non sequential pictures, like the young Ricky and the older Ricky photos in Simonale's signature animation, you have a choice of transition effects that the software will make up for you.
Click here to see some more image transitions
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You are the sun that lights my soul.
You make me feel like dancing.