Topic awaiting preservation: Dissolve Help (Page 1 of 1)

i've had adobe for quite awile now but i just got into "trying" to learn how to animate them and have been quite unsuccessful. I'll just make this post before i specify further details on what i need help on just to make sure i can actually get help. Thanks in advance.

-St

I'm not sure if you want us to respond to your post but, I gather you're asking for help, so dont be afraid....the water's great! c'mmon...step right in...in this forum we always try to help out where we can.

Btw welcome to the looney bin

OKay. I'm assuming you're using imageready for your animations (and if you're not, I'd definately recommend it) and yes, it's a bit of a tricky program at first. Some things that confuse most people at first:

The frames palette is to add/insert/and manage the frames of an animation. For every frame, Imageready remembers only:
1) the position of each layer
2) the blending mode and layer effects of each layer
3) it's visibility and it's opacity

So, if you have an animation of a layer going up and down all the time, and you change that layer (for example, you paint on it, change it's color), the changes will be visible in each frame of the animation, since imageready remembered the position of that layer. If you need to change a layer in the next frame, make a duplicate of that layer, and then change it. In the first frame, turn the 'normal' layer visible and the 'changed' layer invisible, and in the second you turn the 'normal' layer invisible and the 'changed' layer visible.

If you want to export your animation in Imageready, be sure to read This :FAQ: on Imageready transparency first.

Oh, and for you making a post just to see if you can get help; You can. That's why we're here. Welcome to this nuthouse, you'll find that most of us got here the same way as you did, with a question on something. We're no official deal, just a bunch of loonies with more talent and less common sense found anywhere else. I think.

Well thanks for replying, here is what i am having problems on. First of all should i start the graphic on Image ready or photoshop? I've started the first one on photoshop and got stumped when i found that you couldnt add noise therefore i couldnt even get close to starting to build up a sig. Yesturday i started using Imageready and got to this step.

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Now move to the layer with your picture on it, and select one of the selection tools in the toolbar. right-click, somewhere in the middle of your picture, and a menu should come up. (you might lose your selection. if that happens, click [select>reselect], it gets back the last selection you had.) when you get the menu, click [layer via cut]. now, everything that was selected is cut away to a new layer.
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Was i supposed to put a picture on the first transparent backround? If so could it just be regular text (to get started with). This is where i am lost maybe a little explanation can help a n00b like me thanks in advance.

-St

Most of the signature work I do in Photoshop... guess I'm a little bit more used to that. I only switch to imageready for animation.

Okay, the whole big deal is: You start off, with one layer, that has the text you want to ´decay´. One layer.

After that, the whole big deal is to imitate each pixel that 'falls' from the image. Since having a layer for each pixel that 'falls' is a little too much work to animate, we split the layer 1 you started off with, into two layers. The selection tools (the rectangular selection, the circle selection, and so on) have an option, when you rightclick on a layer and a menu pops up, that is called 'layer via cut'. What this does is that it cuts away everything that is selected, and puts that in a new layer.

Now, as I said, we don't want layers for each and every pixel, so we're going to make 8 layers, each with 1/8th of all pixels. What I start off with, is to 'split' the first layer into two layers, each with 50% of the pixels.
That's where Quick mask comes in. Quick mask is a way to create and change selections. If you make a circular selection and press Q, you'll see that the part you selected is see-through, while the unselected part is a faintly visible red color. In Quick mask mode, you can change this selection with, for example, the drawing tools.
You can use the airbrush, fil tools and so on to change it. If you draw with Black, you'll remove from the selection, if you draw with white, you'll create selected parts. If you draw with Black and white, and press Q again to leave quickmask mode, you'll see that the original selection has changed.

Okay, now we know how we can use quickmask to make selections (which we will use to make two layers out of the original text layer) there's another problem: how do we make a selection which has 50% of the pixels selected, and 50% of them unselected? To get this, there's the [filter>noise>noise] filter. Noise makes every pixel a random color, and when it's set to 'monochrome' every pixel gets a random color that's white, black or gray. When we're in Quickmask mode to make the selection, we want the pixels to be either 100% white, or 100% black. To get that result, there's the command Treshold [image>adjust>treshold], which separates pixels in either 100% black or 100% white. If you leave ths lider in the middle, pixels darker than 50% gray will become black, the rest will become white.

So, there's the basic background info on what you're supposed to do. I doubt that I can explain it anymore basic than I did here.

Now I need something to get this Bob Ross taste out of my mouth.

Ok, i got most of it and am having trouble with the last thing(animation). Once i open up the sig in Imageready and get the easy stuff done it says to create a new frame and then click the move, and push down(to lower the pixels). How do i create a new frame? and how many should i create? until the picture is completely transparent?

*and where can i host my sigs progress? to show you guys?

-St

to creat new frame you need to click on the button on the frame pallete its a small square looking thingy...as for how many frames depends how smooth animation you want to have...more frames smoother animation.

In the 'layers palette there's an icon to make a new layer. The 'new frame' icon looks exactly the same, but this one's in the animation window.

Thanks! is there anyplace i can host this sig to show you guys? Im leaving today for basic training so if i dont make it in time ill show you in 9 weeks

-St

:FAQ: Where can I get free sig hosting?