During the demonstration of the presentation, it may be necessary to highlight any element not only with frames or size. PowerPoint has its own editor that allows you to add additional animation to different components. This move not only gives the presentation an interesting look and uniqueness, but also increases its functionality.

Animation types

Immediately it is worth considering all the available categories of effects with which to work. They are divided according to the area of ​​​​use and the nature of the action performed. In total, they are divided into 4 main categories.

Entrance

An action group that plays the appearance of an element in one of the following ways. The most common types of animation in presentations, serving to improve the start of each new slide. Marked in green.

Exit

As you might guess, this group of actions serves, on the contrary, to make the element disappear from the screen. Most often, it is used in conjunction and sequentially with the animation of the entry of the same components so that they are removed before the slide is rewound to the next one. Marked in red.

Selection

An animation that somehow indicates the selected element, drawing attention to it. Most often, this is applied to important aspects of the slide, drawing attention to it or distracting from everything else. Marked in yellow.

Travel paths

Additional actions that serve to change the location of slide elements in space. Usually, this way animation is used extremely rarely and for additional visualization especially important points combined with other effects.

Now you can start considering the procedure for setting the animation.

Animation creation

In various versions Microsoft office There are different ways to create these effects. In most older versions, to configure elements of this type, you need to select the desired slide component, click on it right click mouse and select Animation Options or something similar.

AT Microsoft versions Office 2016 uses a slightly different algorithm. There are two main ways in total.

Method 1: Quick

The simplest option, which is designed to assign one action to a specific object.

1. Effect settings are located in the program header, in the corresponding Animation tab. To get started, you should enter this tab.
2. In order to apply a special effect to an element, you first need to select a specific slide component (text, image, etc.) to which it will be applied. Just enough to highlight.
3. After that, it remains to select the desired option in the list in the "Animation" area. This effect will be used for the selected component.
4. Options are scrollable with control arrows, and can also be expanded full list standard types.

This method produces a quick addition of effects. If the user clicks on another option, the old action will be replaced by the selected one.

Method 2: Basic

You can also choose required component, and then click on the "Add animation" button in the header in the "Animation" section, then select the desired type of effect.

This method is much better in that it allows different animation scripts to be layered on top of each other to create something more complex. Also, it does not replace the old attached item action settings.

Additional types of animation

The list in the header contains only the most popular animation options. A complete list can be obtained if you expand this list and select the option "Additional effects ..." at the very bottom. A window will open with a full list of available effect options.

Skeleton change

Animations of the three main types - entry, selection and exit - do not have the so-called "animation skeleton", as they simply display an effect.

But the “Paths of movement”, when superimposed on the elements, depict this very “skeleton” on the slide - a drawing of the route that the elements will pass through.

To change it, you need to left-click on the drawn movement route and then change it by dragging the end or beginning in the desired direction.

To do this, you need to grab the circles in the corners and midpoints of the faces of the animation selection area, and then stretch them to the sides. You can also "grab" the line itself and pull it in any direction you want.

To create a travel path that does not have a template, you will need the Custom travel path option. It is usually the last one on the list.

This will allow you to independently draw absolutely any trajectory of movement of any element. Of course, you will need the most accurate and even drawing to depict good movement. After the route is drawn, the skeleton of the resulting animation can also be changed as you like.

Effect settings

In many cases, just adding animation is not enough, you also need to customize it. For this, all the elements located in the header in this section are used.

• The Animation item adds an effect to the selected element. Here is a simple convenient list, if necessary, it can be expanded.
• The "Effect Options" button allows you to customize this selected action more specifically. Each type of animation has its own settings.
• The "Slide Show Time" section allows you to adjust the duration of the effects. That is, you can choose when a particular animation will start playing, how long it will last, at what speed to go, and so on. For each action there is a corresponding item.
• The "Advanced Animation" section allows you to set up more complex types of actions.

  For example, the Add Animation button allows you to apply multiple effects to a single element.

  "Animation area" will allow you to call a separate menu on the side to view the sequence of configured actions on one element.

  The "Animation by Sample" item is designed to distribute the same type of special effects settings to the same elements on different slides.

  The Trigger button allows you to assign more difficult conditions to start actions. This is especially useful for elements that have multiple effects applied to them.

• The Preview button allows you to see how the final slide will look when viewed.

There are certain standard criteria for using animation in a presentation at a professional or competitive level:

• In total, the duration of playing all animation elements on a slide should take no more than 10 seconds. There are two most popular formats - either 5 seconds to enter and exit, or 2 seconds to enter and exit, and 6 to highlight important points in the process.
• Some types of presentations have their own type of time-sharing of animation elements, where they can take up almost the full duration of each slide. But such a construction must justify itself in one way or another. For example, if the whole essence of the visualization of the slide and the information on it is based on this approach, and not just used for decoration.
• Similar effects also load the system. This may not be noticeable in small examples, since modern devices boast good performance. However, serious projects that include a huge package of media files may experience difficulties in working.
• When using movement paths, you should carefully ensure that the mobile element does not go beyond the screen borders, even for a split second. This demonstrates the unprofessionalism of the presentation creator.
• It is strongly discouraged to apply animation to video files and GIF images. Firstly, it is not uncommon for the media file to become corrupted after the trigger has fired. Secondly, even with a high-quality setting, a failure may occur and the file will start playing even during the action. Roughly speaking, it is better not to experiment.
• You can not make the animation too fast in order to save time. If there is a strict regulation, it is better to completely abandon this mechanic. Effects are primarily a visual addition, so they should at least not irritate a person. Excessively fast and not smooth movements do not cause pleasure from viewing.

In the end, I would like to note that at the dawn of the existence of PowerPoint, animation was an additional decorating element. Today, not a single professional presentation can do without these effects. It's essential to practice creating effective and functional animations to get the best out of each slide.

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Animation is a technology that uses stationary objects to create the illusion of movement in order to attract and hold the attention of the audience. Capture the attention of the audience - almost the main objective any presentation, which means it's worth learning how to make animation in PowerPoint.

The use of animation makes it easier to perceive the presentation, highlight important thoughts and increase interest in the information presented. To achieve these goals, PowerPoint provides almost limitless possibilities. The program quickly copes with the animation of text, photos, graphic images, charts, SmartArt, tables, and other kinds of objects.

How to make animation in PowerPoint 2013/2016?

The latest versions of PowerPoint animate almost any object. This gives a wide scope for creativity. But first you need to master the basic skills.

Adding an animation effect

Animating any stationary object, including text, involves 4 steps.

1. Select the object you want to animate (you should have resize handles around it).
2. On the tab "Animation" click "Add Animation".
3. Select the desired effect.
4. Define the effect parameters.

When choosing effects, keep in mind that some of them are available exclusively as text animations in PowerPoint. This applies to effects such as "Whip", "Wave", "Fall" and a number of others.

To add an additional effect to an existing animation, you will need to perform 3 consecutive steps.

1. Click Add Animation.
2. Check the desired effect.
3. Click "With Previous" in the "Animation Area" section.

Advice! Make sure the slideshow settings are not set to No Animation. If it is set, the animation will not play during the slideshow, but only during the preview. So, all efforts will go down the drain.

Running Effects

PowerPoint offers 3 options for launching effects:

• "on click"(the effect is activated after clicking on the slide);
• "with previous"(launch occurs at the same time as the previous effect);
• "after previous"(the effect will play when the previous animation ends, without the need to click anything).

If all the animation effects are enough, then it is better to refuse the “on click” option. Its use requires more time, which increases the risk of dispersion of the speaker's attention.

Let's take a look at how to animate a picture in PowerPoint using one of the above launch options.

1. Select the effect you want to edit.
2. In the tab "Animation" click "Start".
3. Select the desired metric.

Determining the order in which effects are shown

The following instructions will help determine the order in which the effects will be shown.

1. Click Animation > Animation Area.
2. Select an effect that is not in its place in the animation order.
3. In step "Change Animation Order" select "Move Forward" or "Move back".

The above commands can be used multiple times in a row.

Effect display speed

In this case, you need the parameter "Duration". It is very easy to use it.

1. Select the effect to be edited.
2. In field "Duration" enter the desired number using the keyboard.

The minimum display duration is 0.01 s and the maximum is 59 s.

It is worth mentioning the parameter "Delay", which defines the length of time before turning on a particular effect. This time period starts after the end of the previous effect or after an additional click.

How to remove animation in PowerPoint?

When an animation effect is assigned to an object, a small numeric tick appears next to it. It confirms the presence of the effect and indicates its position in the animation order on a particular slide. This notation can be used to remove animation. How?

1. Select the number next to the unwanted animation.
2. Click "DELETE".

Animation in PowerPoint 2010

The general scheme for introducing animation in the 2010 version largely follows the instructions for the 2013-2016 programs described above. Since there is no point in repeating them, we will consider only some specific nuances.

How to insert animation into a PowerPoint 2010 presentation?

The instructions below will allow you to provide one object with several effects.

1. Open "Animation".
2. Select the required object.
3. Choose one of the effects offered in the group "Animation".
4. Go to section "Extended Animation" by pressing "Add Animation". If the required effects are not in the main list, select the option "Additional Effects...".
5. Choose one of the available effects.
6. On the left side of the ribbon, click "View".

Using the Trigger button (Advanced Animation group), you can define additional terms to switch animation effects. This tool will help create hot key”, which starts playback of a variety of effects.

Note. Numeric labels representing objects with animation can only be seen when open tab "Animation" or in the Animation Area field.

Viewing the list of effects

The list of effects used can be found in paragraph "Area of ​​Animation"(Group "Extended Animation"). It displays a number of important data about each animation effect.

Advice! Give each object a unique name to make it easier to work with.

Let's take a closer look at the characteristics of the effects presented in the animation area.

• Numeric labels show the order in which the effects are played. They can also be seen on the slide next to the animated objects.
• The icons indicate the types of animation used.
• Timelines serve the duration of effects. To view the start time of all effects, click on the menu icon next to one of the effects and select "Hide extended timeline".

Animation effects in PowerPoint: general characteristics

AT this moment animation in PowerPoint presentations involves the use of 4 groups of effects.

• Entry effects (appearance of objects on the slide). We are talking about a gradual appearance on the slide, a sudden appearance or introduction from the side.
• Selection effects (animation of objects located on a slide). This group can include changing the color or size of an object.
• Exit effects (disappearance of objects from the slide). In this case, objects can disappear from view or move in different ways.
• Movement paths (moving objects on a slide). When using effects of this type objects are moved to different sides(down, up, right, left, or along a contour of a certain shape). It is also possible to create your own path of movement.

Each of the above effects can be used alone or in combination with others. For example, entry effects come in handy in the process of creating training presentations. When using them, the audience will not be distracted by text that has not yet been discussed.

Highlight effects are useful when you want to draw viewers to a particular part of a slide, such as a line in a drawing or an important design detail. And here is the option "Movement Paths" − best tool to show dynamics.

Note. After using the first effect, you can add additional animation only by clicking "Add Animation". Otherwise, you run the risk of simply replacing the current animation with a new one.

Combining animation with sound effects

This trick is usually used to give the animation more depth and draw extra attention to it. The following steps will help you voice the animation of an object.

1. In the tab "Animation" click "Area of ​​Animation". To the right of the area with the slide, a new window will open with the characteristics of the applied animation effects.
2. Determine the effect that requires voice acting.
3. Click the down arrow and select "Effect Options".
4. In the dialog box that appears, select the tab "Effect".
5. In step « Extra options» open the field "Sound" and choose one and options voice acting or add your own sound file(paragraph "Different Sound").
6. Click OK.

When you click OK, the animation should start playing with sound. To edit the sound volume, in the Effect tab (Effect Options dialog box), click the speaker icon and drag the slider in the appropriate direction.

Moderation and appropriateness are the main principles when working with animation effects

Animation, of course, adds dynamics to the presentation, emphasizes individual ideas and makes the information presented more memorable. But this does not mean that before you make an animation in PowerPoint, you can forget about moderation. An excess of animation effects can irritate viewers. “A little bit of a good thing” is the main principle that should be followed.

It's also worth considering the appropriateness of an animation, or a certain type of animation, for a particular effect. For example, flickering animation is recommended to be used only in extreme cases, since it puts a lot of strain on the eyes and nervous system. It's especially important to keep moderation and appropriateness in mind when you're thinking about how to animate text in PowerPoint. Some types of effects may distract the audience from the essence of the report or distort it.

In PowerPoint, it is possible to install animations in slides. By setting the animation, you can diversify your slides. Texts will automatically float from the right edge, and pages will switch in the form of a checkerboard, etc.

To make an animation in PowerPoint, follow these steps:

Open the program by clicking the button "Start" - "All Programs" - "Microsoft Office" - "PowerPoint".

After that, create the required number of slides, and write in them text.

Then go to the tab "Animation", point to desired page and choose how to change slides.

To automatically change pages, put a small checkmark next to the "Automatically after" item, and enter the time after which the slides will change. Also in the “Transition Sound” item, you can easily change the sound effects that will be played during the transition of the slides.

After you set up the slide transition, make the animation inside the text. To do this, click on the "animation settings" button, which is located in the left corner of the program.

After that, an additional settings window will appear in the right corner of the program.

To add animation, select the desired section of text in the slide, and click "add effect". Then select the desired animation for the entry and exit of the text. For example, to make the text fly out from above, press "input" - "departure". Then in the column "direction", select the item "from above".

The appearance of the necessary elements will occur in automatic mode, in the event that the item "after the previous" is selected.

After that, the animation is set up, and you can proceed to view the presentation. To do this, click the "slide show" - "from the beginning" tab.

To remove animation effects, select the desired object or text, and click "delete".

This concludes the article, good luck with your work.

HOW TO MAKE ANIMATED PICTURE IN PAINT.NET

This lesson is prepared on numerous questions of our visitors. In fact, there is nothing complicated in creating animated drawings. Moving pictures are supported, for example, by the most well-known GIF graphic file format. Please note that it is unlikely that it will be possible to make an animated JPG or BMP file, since these formats do not support frame interleaving.

An example of an animated GIF motion picture can be seen in the figure on the left. The standard file types in Paint.NET, while including the GIF format, do not yet support the ability to save animated GIF files. Therefore, directly to create a single animated GIF file from a series of frames, we use an additional special program UnFREEz utility. This program is also absolutely free, easy to use and does not require installation. With this program, you can combine a series of consecutive frames into one moving video. in Russian can be found on our website, there you can also find out .

How to create motion picture frames in Paint.NET

So, to create an animated video, we need to make a series of frames. Thanks to provides work with layers, making frames is not at all difficult. For example, let's use the image of a smiley made on published on our website.

To create multiple frames, let's take the 3D smiley image from this tutorial and make a copy of the smiley face layer as many frames of the movie as we need. To do this, you can use, for example, - "Make a copy of the layer" or copy the layer directly to .

You can copy layers not immediately, but for example, in order to make a second frame, copy the first layer, and then change the picture on the copied layer in accordance with the idea of ​​the video. For example, we squeezed the smiley and moved it up and down a little bit frame by frame. Example you can see in the figure on the left, of course, all the frames did not fit on it, but you can see the general idea.

How to Save Motion Picture Frames as Separate Files

To connect individual frames in right order into an animated movie using the UnFREEz program, you first need to save the frames as separate files. There is nothing difficult in this either. You can, for example, copy all the contents of the desired layer, create a new image, and paste the image copied from the layer into it. Then save as a separate GIF file. You can select the entire image on a layer, for example, by pressing the Ctrl+A key combination. It's in the instructions section of this site.

In another way, you can, for example, simply turn off the visibility of layers that are not needed on the current frame, and then save the visible layers as a separate GIF image. You can do this in - "Save as". When saving as a GIF, Paint.NET will offer to merge all layers of the image, i.e. it turns out that temporarily disabled layers will disappear. But after saving the file with the frame, you can click the "Cancel" button and the last action to merge layers will be undone and all layers will be reverted back.

Once again, note that to merge later frames into one animated GIF file, it is necessary that all frames have the same image size. That is, for example, if the size of a picture of one frame is 20 by 30 pixels, then the rest of the frames should have the same size. The method of creating frames in Paint.NET described above ensures that this condition is met, since all frames are made from one main picture.

WikiHow is a wiki, which means that many of our articles are written by multiple authors. When creating this article, 28 people worked on editing and improving it, including anonymously.

Using simple software (such as Paint and movie maker), you can create your own animations for Youtube and other sites on the Internet. In addition, this article will introduce you to free (or very cheap) programs with which to make animation much easier than you thought without learning Flash and other complex programs.

Steps

Decide what you want to animate. Before you start drawing, you need to come up with a good (or better, great!) story. Wikihow has a couple of articles to help you: "how to write a short story" will be a good start for you. remember, that good story consists of an introduction, climax and conclusion.

Storyboard your script (translation into a series of drawn pictures). See Wikihow articles for storyboarding tips.

Let's start making animation! Open MS Paint (or any other imaging software such as JASC Paint Shop Pro). PSP is a fairly simple program, although there are some learning curves. Most importantly, the PSP allows you to add bits that will move in your animation as layers. Then, you'll move the layer to get the motion effect (vs. redrawing the entire frame, or "cel").

Draw the first frame (or import a photo). Make sure you do everything the way you wanted, otherwise, you will be very angry with the result and you will lose your time.

Save it to the Images of the program you were using (or better, copy it to the Animations of the program). GIF animations (GIF-A) are free and are recommended for your first animation. You can also look at the JASC animator program (the "trial" version never ends). Animation programs speed up the process, in many of the above ways.

Make the adjustments you want to make for the next frame. This is an animation, so you have to do everything step by step. Each frame is usually just a little different from the previous one. If you know about "layers" and are using a PSP, then you can achieve this with a mouse move.

It's important to save your photos (or preferably an animation file) in Windows Movie Maker (MM). Do this when you finish the scene. Drag them down to the storyboard panel. You will do this many times until you create your creation.

Add a title and special effects. Once all the pictures are the way you want them to be, it's time to add special effects, parts, titles, whatever you need.

Adding sound: it is necessary for a spectacular film. MM has a sound editor, but it is constantly buggy, difficult to change, and may reboot without warning (often requiring a hard reboot). You can edit the sound in any other program (such as CoolEdit, but it must have the right package), then drag and drop the finished file into MM. You can simply and free of charge download the sounds you need from the net.

Don't forget about external sounds. This is a random sound background, usually something like a dull murmur; if you don't have one, then the transition from "talking" to complete silence will be very noticeable. You can insert a soundtrack as background, but if that's not possible, you should never (almost never) have total absence sound. To do this, you once again need a program like Cooledit to process the sound: you paste the background (or music) soundtrack into one channel, and your speech and sound effects into another channel.

1. Look for animation examples using the programs mentioned in this article. Look at www.youtube.com (and search for "nzfilmprof" there). "Kiwi Kids" has many samples of young students using Paint; and other examples made with PSP.

   • Perfect lip and speech sync is not required. when the character speaks is usually enough simple movement mouth and lips, but they don't have to match the speech exactly. If you add a few more movements in between (squint, look away, raise and lower your eyebrows like in an LBJ show) and tilt your head a little to the left or right, then the end result will be quite appropriate.
   • Think about integrity. For example, if a missile is fired from the left in a certain sequence, then it should be shown on the left if/when it hits something (as correctly shown in Stuff and Nonsense). However, this clip's intro is messed up as it transitions from the cacophony of a rock song to people sleeping on (and under!) beds.
   • Don't use too many different transition effects; you don't want to "take the viewer out of the story" (that is, distract them). MM offers 25 types of transitions, but 95% of the time, appear/disappear will be your best choice.
   • Move your eyes, do it. Cut out two eye holes on the face. Draw (or photograph) matching eyes. Now, using layers, place both eyes on one layer BEHIND the head layer. All that will be visible through the eye holes you cut out will be the eyes. With a mouse click, you can move your eyes back and forth at the same time. This method (appropriately adapted) also works well for animating the mouth when your character speaks.
   • The viewer's eyes and brain pick up a lot of action, as in the example where the news rep throws his hands in the air in a state of alarm. Only two positions (hands down and hands up) are needed to show this action (the viewer's brain will fill in the "missing" frames).
     • When using MM, wait until "all" of your pictures are in the order you want for the final movie. Then add any titles, captions, sound, etc. Otherwise, if you add a clip in the middle, EVERYTHING (audio, titles, etc.) after the dot will require changes.
   • Just as in the case above, two or three positions are required to show the turning of the mill; after the windmill has made one revolution, you can make it rotate indefinitely by repeating these three frames. Anything like this (for example, moving targets in a shooting range) can be done with a few repeating frames.
   • Frame size, depends on image quality and requirements software. Setting the image size above 1024x768 is good for smooth edges in your footage. However, if you're planning on uploading the clip to YouTube, it will still reduce the size of your images to 320 x 280. Also, the larger your images, the slower MM will run (and this will reduce the size of the animation). Also, if you're using GIF -A, choose one frame size and stick with it. If you use different sizes, the GIF won't do a good job.
   • Animation often relies on "gags". Knowing the "rule of three" is invaluable. Show action. Show it again (with a slight change). The third time you start showing the action, the viewer will think "I know what's going to happen!" HERE, the third time you will drastically CHANGE the action, surprising (and hopefully amusing the viewer). Check out the sequence of bees in "Kiwi Kids Stuff and Nonsense" on Youtube for an example (Stuff also has some examples of a fourteen year old animation in Paint).
   • Diversify plans: close-ups, medium, far, low angle, high angle, etc. Also, if two (or more) characters are talking, switch from a group shot to one face and back again for variety.
   • It will look more believable if you make a drawing, a statue, some fictional creature move than a face. Why? We all know how a face moves and it gets ridiculous if it doesn't move the way we expected. For fictional characters, you can deviate a little more from the norm.
   • The first thing you see on the screen, this is a setting frame that helps the viewer to understand where he is. This is an optional requirement, but the norm. The reverse strategy is when you start with a group shot and then pull the camera back to show that what you started with is part of something bigger. This technique is known as "revealing".
   • Once you've animated a short clip, you can use the JASC Animator to select parts of the scene (usually a close-up of a face) and create a second clip. This will give you two animations for one main one, and it helps you to diversify your shots.
   • Typically, for animation, only a few positions (sometimes as few as two or three) are needed to make the action realistic.
   • Some drawing skills can be useful for creating animation (if you're really going to draw your own frames). If your drawings or pictures don't look good enough, then your animation won't work very well... no matter how well it's done. However, if you're animating with photos as the main unit, even with a little drawing skill, you can achieve an acceptable result.
   • Here is the right software that can really help you:
     • GIF Animator , JASC Animator, or any equivalent. You may experience "GIF Advanced Animator" glitching and the seller refusing to respond to emails.
     • Abrosoft FantaMorph costs $100 but will rotate, pan and scan. It will generate approximately 100 of the inbetween frames, including intro and outro frames. It's not perfect, but his help desk will be responsive and will make changes if the product isn't good.
     • CoolEdit (or any other sound processing software packages).
     • Boilsoft (costs about $30) lets you put small animations together. This not only avoids the limitations of MovieMaker, but also makes editing easier (it's easier to edit a 2-minute clip than one 10-minute clip).
   • You can easily create transitions, using software morphing, which 20 years ago required a team of skilled technicians several months of work. One option is Abrosoft FantaMorph, but there are many more. Consider the following example: First, Big Jim looks at the crew of the Star Cafe on his porch (gaze frame), then his gaze slowly shifts to the Cafe. Finally, what Jim saw is now what the viewer sees.
   • Compose the background carefully. Think about combining elements from multiple photos and/or other illustrations to get "that effect." Then place your characters (yes, using layers!) on top of the background; with a mouse move, you can move them around effortlessly. On this example (heavily modified) old ovens, pots, frying pan and pancakes are glued on top of a tiled floor and in the background of a window.PSP's lighting function, gives an explosion effect.The oven (on its own layer) will be redone to look like it is dancing on the floor.

   Warnings

   • Do not use other people's drawings, photographs, or creative work without their permission, and be respectful when asking for permission. On the one hand, you will not have the right to make money on Youtube, but your video will be extremely popular.
   • Copyright protection for songs is a gray area: Youtube does have an algorithm that looks for songs that are copyrighted, however, as long as someone important (like Disney or Warners) doesn't complain, then your clip won't get banned.
   • When MovieMaker fails, it often produces error messages that make you nervous (to put it mildly). MM will complain about the lack of " virtual memory" or something like "failed to save the file in the specified location". These are meaningless messages. Basically, you could exceed the MM resources on your PC. You should reduce the file size, either split the animation in half, or reduce the frame sizes.
   • Be concise! For example, Youtube limits the download length to no more than 15 minutes. To be honest, it's rare that an animation can keep a viewer's interest for more than five minutes.
   • Movie Maker has its limits. You may not know that a clip is over two minutes long until it is live. Making a 4 minute animation usually requires you to paste two 2 minute files together (using a program like Boilsoft, but there are others).

Svetlana Shlyakhtina

Any web page is unthinkable without web animation, including animated gif "s. For a long time, web designers had to use a whole set of specialized programs from different developers to create them. However, with the advent of appropriate capabilities in popular 2D graphics packages oriented primarily to work with two-dimensional raster graphics and at the same time allowing you to create files in the Animation GIF format due to the corresponding utilities supplementing them, everything has become much easier. These packages include Jasc Paint Shop Pro, which includes the Animation Shop program, designed to create gif-animations: animated buttons, banners and other animated elements.

Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop work in close cooperation, are fully compatible and perfectly complement each other, which makes it possible to repeatedly switch from one program to another at the animation creation stage and edit image frames in Paint Shop Pro, which ensures that the corresponding frames are changed in Animation shop. In addition, you can export layers to frames and vice versa, as well as animation to a layered image. At the same time, each of these programs has its own specialization in terms of web graphics: as a rule, preparing and editing frames is best done in Paint Shop Pro, and applying dynamic effects, optimization and, of course, the animation itself - in Animation Shop.

Animation Shop features a user-friendly interface and a simple and convenient frame editing mode with the ability to rotate, mirror and crop frames, as well as a wide range of tools: brushes, shapes, erasing and cropping tools, text tools, etc. All this, combined with the ability to work with step-by-step wizards, allows even non-professionals to quickly create gif-animations. In addition, the Animation Shop provides a large set of professional effects and filters that you can use when creating animation. The program supports efficient and convenient optimization methods that allow you to quickly find the optimal solution based on the data displayed in its window regarding image quality, image size and download speed, and significantly reduce the size of the "live" image.

Theoretical aspects of creating animated gifs

As you know, animation is a sequence of frames, the source graphic material for which can be pre-prepared both in Animation Shop and in Paint Shop Pro, and the choice of application is determined by the features of a particular animation.

Gif animation in Animation Shop can be created in three ways. The first and most convenient of them is the preliminary preparation in Paint Shop Pro of a multilayer image saved in PspImage or PSD format and opened in Animation Shop - in this case, a separate frame is created for each individual layer of the image. Layers provide a convenient way to compose an animated image from various graphics and text elements and allow you to apply various filters to various elements of the image, change the degree of transparency and blending mode of the layer, adjust the brightness and apply other transformations available in Paint Shop Pro, thereby providing a variety of effects.

The second method is the traditional option for creating animations in independent gif animators and consists in sequentially connecting previously created single-layer images-frames using the wizard. In addition, it is theoretically possible to create a simple animated gif "from scratch directly in the Animation Shop environment.

There is also a fundamentally different possibility of creating frames - the automatic formation of intermediate frames, which significantly speeds up the production of smooth animations, since there is no need to manually create each frame. To do this, key frames are determined, and then the computer automatically generates everything that should be in the intervals between them, in accordance with the effect defined in the program (rotation, movement, change in color characteristics, etc.). However, this possibility is limited by the number of effects available in the Animation Shop (it is worth recognizing that in general there are quite a lot of effects, but not for all occasions), and if the intended principle of changing frames is not among the available effects, then all intermediate frames will have to be created manually in Paint Shop Pro.

Export and update animation

As already noted, at the stage of creating an animation, you can switch between Paint programs Shop Pro and Animation Shop, but only when the Export frames to Paint Shop Pro as layered images checkbox is enabled in the Animation Shop program. To do this, use the command File => Preferences => General Program Preferences => Layered Files (File => Settings => Basic program settings => Multilayer files) and enable the specified checkbox (Fig. 1). In this case, if you need to edit one or all animation frames, it will be enough to export the selected frames from Animation Shop to Paint Shop Pro in one of the following ways:
select the menu command File => Export Frames => To Paint Shop Pro (File => Export frames => In Paint Shop Pro);
click on the Export Frames to Paint Shop Pro button in the toolbar;
right-click on the selected frames and select the Export Frames to Paint Shop Pro command from the pop-up menu.

Rice. 1. Enabling Frame Export in Paint Shop Pro

Then you should make the necessary transformations in the Paint Shop Pro environment and close the file without saving - in this case, the program will ask a question regarding the need to update the corresponding frames in the Animation Shop. If the answer is yes, all changes made in Paint Shop Pro will be transferred to the animation open in Animation Shop, which can be viewed.

There is another option for updating animation from Paint Shop Pro: without closing the Paint Shop Pro file, use the command Edit=>Update Back to Animation Shop (Editing=>Update changes in Animation Shop). Then switch to the Animation Shop and break the link between the animation and the temporarily created layered image using the command File=>Export Frames=>Break Link With Exported Frames (File=>Export Frames=>Break Link with Exported Frames). The last action is necessary, because without breaking the connection further actions in Animation Shop will not be possible.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that both options are not very convenient, since it is impossible to create spectacular animation by once resorting to the frame editing procedure in Paint Shop Pro. Most often, you have to edit frames, update animation, view the result and re-edit it many times. And every time for this you need to export frames to Paint Shop Pro. Obviously, the second option is just designed for the possibility of multiple editing of a multi-layered image with regular updating of the animation, however, it is not fully implemented and therefore gives practically nothing, allowing you to update the animation and prohibiting any actions in the Animation Shop, and most importantly - viewing animations. I want to believe that in next versions Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop this unpleasant nuance will be eliminated.
Personnel management

The main one in the development of animation is the Frames window, in which the frames themselves are located (Fig. 2). To work with a specific frame, it is enough to select it in this window and subject it to the necessary transformations - edit, apply an effect, change properties, etc. Selecting several frames is carried out in the usual way with the Ctrl or Shift keys pressed, and all frames can be selected at once using the Edit=> command Select All (Editing => Select all).

Rice. 2. Frames window: with the abbreviation F, the frame number is indicated, and with the abbreviation D, its duration in hundredths of a second

With regard to frames, you can perform the simplest transformations: rotations and mirror reflections(menu Animation - Animation), as well as to perform a reversion by changing the direction of the frames to the opposite using the command Animation => Reverse Frames (Animation => Reverse Frames).

The most interesting thing when working with frames is the imposition of effects on them, which allow you to link frames to each other using a wide variety of transformations (Fig. 3). All effects are located in the menu Effects (Effects) and are divided into three groups: image movement effects (Insert Image Transition command), image effects (Insert Image Effect and Apply Image Effect commands) and text effects (Insert Text Effect and Apply Text Effect commands) . It is worth noting that the use of some of these commands (they begin with the word Insert ...) automatically leads to the generation of a whole series of intermediate frames that provide smooth transition between manually created source frames. In turn, the Apply Image Effect and Apply Text Effect commands apply the effect to the selected frames without forming intermediate frames.

Rice. 3. Overlay effect Dissolve (Dissolution)

Viewing and Changing Animation Properties

In the Animation Shop window, you can immediately view the result by clicking on the View Animation button, and, if necessary, make the required changes, for example, adjust the duration of the delay of one or several frames, etc. By default, the display delay for all frames is one hundredth of a second, and in In this case, frames replace each other almost instantly. However, the playback time for each frame can be easily changed using the Animation => Frame Properties => Display Time command (Animation => Frame Properties => Display Time).

In addition, it is not difficult to adjust the background color of the animation using the Animation => Animation Properties => Canvas Color command (Animation => Animation Properties => Canvas Color), as well as change the frame size using the Animation => Resize Animation (Animation => Resize animation) (Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Resizing Animation Frames

Saving and Optimizing Animations

At the end of the work, the program allows you to save the animation file with optimization, that is, with a reduction in volume, reducing the number of colors, excluding information from it about static areas of the image, etc. (Fig. 5) using the File=>Save command (File=>Save) (only when saving for the first time) or by calling the optimization wizard with the File=>Optimization Wizard command (File=>Optimization Wizard). It is worth noting that, firstly, the program shows the optimization result at the optimization stage in the window preview, and secondly, at the finish line, it reports the size of the compressed file in comparison with the original and the time it took to download it for various connection options (Fig. 6). All this together helps to choose the final version of the optimized file, finding a reasonable compromise between image quality and its size.

Rice. 5. Determination of optimization parameters

Rice. 6. The result of compression of the animation file during optimization

As a result, a compressed file in Animation GIF format will be created, which, if necessary, can be loaded at any time with the File=>Open command (File=>Open) and converted as necessary.

Gif animation in practice

There are incredibly many different animation options that are traditionally used in web design and have already become classic. These are the most different options for moving both the text as a whole or its individual characters, and other objects; various options for transforming objects and various twists. In addition, objects can blink and shimmer literally in every way, change their color, dissolve, erase and slowly appear, decrease and increase, etc. Due to the immensity of the topic, we do not set ourselves the task of covering everything and everything and will focus only on a few examples that can demonstrate the possibilities of effectively combining the functionality of the Paint Shop Pro package with the Animation Shop utility.
Zoom Animation

This effect is often almost equally applied to both text and other objects and is implemented using the programs in question is extremely simple.

To get the scaling animation, open Paint Shop Pro and create a new drawing (Fig. 7 and 8) - in this case, this is some vector image on a white background. Convert the vector layer to a raster layer by right-clicking on it and selecting the command Convert To Raster Layer (Convert to raster layer). Then merge both layers by right-clicking on one of them and choosing the command Merge => Merge All (Merge => Merge All).

Rice. 7. Original image

Rice. 8. Layer Palette

Save the created single-layer image in the native format of Paint Shop Pro and open it in the Animation Shop, which will result in the formation of a single frame (Fig. 9). Apply the Zoom effect using the Effects=>Insert Image Transition command with the settings shown in Fig. 10. As a result, a whole series of frames will be formed - approximately as in fig. 11. View the created animation by clicking on the View Animation button and save it using the File=>Save command (File => Save) in Animation GIF format with the desired optimization options. As a result, approximately the same animation will be obtained, as shown in Fig. 12.

Rice. 9. Initial State of the Frames Window

Rice. 10. Selecting and adjusting the Zoom effect

Rice. 11. Frames window after applying the Zoom effect

Rice. 12. Finished animation

Animation with blinking effect

Let's try to create a blinking text traditionally used in web design. Open Paint Shop Pro, create a new drawing, and type some text on a white background, such as in fig. 13. At the same time, open the help file with which you are going to implement the flashing effect (Fig. 14).

Rice. 13. Source text

Rice. 14. Helper Image

Using the Selection tool, select an arbitrary rectangular area on the auxiliary image, copy it to the clipboard and paste it as a new layer onto the source text using the Edit => Paste => Paste As New Layer command (Editing => Paste => Paste as a new layer) over the vector text layer. Then temporarily make the new bitmap layer invisible, go to the text layer, select the area outside the text with the Magic Wand tool. Return to the bitmap layer with the embedded image and press the Del key to clear the selection outside of the letters. As a result, the text will look something like in Fig. 15, and the layers window will look like in fig. 16.

Rice. 15. Text after removing unnecessary fragments of the image

Rice. 16. The state of the Layer palette as a result of adjusting the raster layer

Delete the Background layer and the vector text layer that are unnecessary for future animation. Duplicate the remaining raster layer and, on the resulting copy, reduce the layer's opacity appropriately, for example, to 80% (Fig. 17 and 18).

Rice. 17. The final look of the text

Rice. 18. The final look of the Layer palette

Save the created two-layer image in Paint Shop Pro's own format - PspImage or in PSD format(in both cases the layers will be preserved) and open it in the Animation Shop. When opening a multi-layered image, the layers will be automatically converted to frames (Fig. 19). View the created animation by clicking on the View Animation button - the result will not be very good: the letters do not look very impressive on the default black background and the blinking is too fast. To change the background of the animation, use the command Animation=>Animation Properties=>Canvas Color (Animation=>Animation Properties=>Canvas Color) and set the color to white (Fig. 20 and 21). To slow down the frame rate, select both frames in the Frames window, open the Frame Properties => Display Time command from the Animation menu and change the duration of the frame delay, for example, as in Fig. 22. View the animation again, and if the result satisfies you, then save it using the File=>Save command (File => Save) in Animation GIF format with the necessary optimization parameters. As a result, approximately the same animation will be obtained, as shown in Fig. 23.

Rice. 19. Initial State of the Frames Window

Rice. 20. Changing the background color in the Animation Properties window

Rice. 21. Frames after canvas color change

Rice. 22. Changing Frame Scroll Speed ​​in the Frame Properties Window

Rice. 23. Finished animation

Change color in animation

Animation color can be changed different ways, at the very least simple creation frames in which objects will be repainted manually. But there is a more convenient way: by adjusting the parameters Hue (Hue) and Saturation (Saturation) - we will consider it.

Open in Paint Shop Pro original image, for which it is necessary to introduce an animated color change (Fig. 24). Use the Magic Wand tool to select the background, then invert (Fig. 25), copy the selected area to the clipboard and paste it onto a new image with the command Edit => Paste => Paste As New Image (Editing => Paste => Paste as a new image) (Fig. 26).

Rice. 24. Original image

Rice. 25. Selecting a fragment of an image

Rice. 26. The result of pasting the selected fragment into a new image

Duplicate the original Raster 1 layer many times by clicking on the Duplicate Layer button on the Layer palette. To consistently change the color shades of such layers, you will need to create quite a lot; for convenience, rename them as shown in fig. 27. After that, temporarily make all layers, with the exception of the Raster 1 and Raster 2 layers, invisible, activate the Raster 2 layer and use the command Adjust=>Hue and Saturation=>Hue / Saturation / Lightness (Adjust => Hue and Saturation => Hue / Saturation / Brightness) change the color, for example, as in fig. 28. Make the Raster 3 layer visible and change the color of the image on it in the same way. Do exactly the same operations for all remaining layers.

Rice. 27. State of the Layer palette after duplicating layers

Rice. 28. Image Color Correction

Save the created layered image in Paint Shop Pro's own format - PspImage - or in PSD format and open it in Animation Shop - in this case, the layers will be automatically converted to frames (Fig. 29). View the created animation by clicking on the View Animation button and save it using the File=>Save command (File => Save) in Animation GIF format with the desired optimization options. As a result, approximately the same animation will be obtained, as shown in Fig. thirty.

Rice. 29. Initial State of the Frames Window

Rice. 30. Finished animation

Let's try to slightly edit the created animation - so that the colors smoothly change each other not only in one direction, but also in the opposite direction. To do this, make one copy of each frame, except for the first, successively clicking on each frame with the right mouse button and choosing the Duplicate Selected command. Then drag the copies of the frames with the mouse so that the shades smoothly change each other, first in one direction and then in the other direction, as a result, the Frames window will look something like in Fig. 31. Dissonance will now cause only the first, brightest frame, which can be moved to the middle of the animation - there its hue will be closer to the hues of adjacent frames. To do this, select the tenth frame, right-click on it, select the command Insert Frames=>Empty (Insert Frames=>Empty) and press the Ok button - an empty frame will appear in the center. Then drag the brightest first frame onto it. View the resulting animation. It can be seen that the shade of the just moved frame is still quite different from all the other shades involved - when viewing the animation on this frame, the image changes color greatly, so it's better to delete this frame altogether by selecting it and pressing the Del key.

Rice. 31. Frames window after duplicating and moving frames

View the generated animation and save it as an Animation GIF with the desired optimization settings. The resulting animation is shown in fig. 32.

Rice. 32. Finished animation

Theoretically, you can create an animation with a color change directly in the Animation Shop - it will be much faster due to the presence of the corresponding Rotate Colors effect (Colors in a circle). However, the application of this effect is limited to the automatic selection of colors and shades, which cannot be changed when adjusting the effect. Let's try to apply the Rotate Colors effect to a single-layer image (Fig. 33). Open the image in the Animation Shop - at first, only one frame will appear in the Frames window, since the image only had one layer. Overlay the effect of changing colors with the command Effects => Insert Image Effect (Effects => Insert image effect) with the parameters indicated in fig. 34. The result will be the automatic generation of the 21st frame in the Frames palette (Fig. 35), saving which in the Animation GIF format, you will receive the animation shown in fig. 36.