Animated Dancing Bear

Copyright Arizona Kate 2001 All rights reserved.
All tutorials, including images, remain the property of Arizona Kate and
may not be sold or distributed in any format without purchasing a license from Arizona Kate.

With this tutorial you'll learn a quick and easy way to animate some clip art to look like it's doing a little happy dance. You'll also learn how to import Paint Shop Pro layers as animation frames.

This tutorial is probably suitable for any version of Paint Shop Pro/Animation Shop, however, it was written for Paint Shop Pro version 7 and the version of Animation Shop that is bundled with PSP7.


The only other thing you need is a tube or some clip art of a character to animate! Download the teddy bear .tub file below or use your own clip art.

DancingBear.tub

(Bear is made from dingbat font "Teddies" created by www.fontfreak.com)

The first step involved in creating this animation is to make a layered image in Paint Shop Pro, saved in psp format without merging layers. Then we'll import it into Animation Shop. Each layer will be imported as a separate animation frame.

Your Animation Shop preferences must be set to "keep layers as separate frames".
To check your settings, select:
file>preferences>general program preferences.
Under the layered files tab....keep layers as separate frames should be checked, as shown below.

OK, let's get started! In Paint Shop Pro, open your image (DancingBear.tub). Duplicate the image and work with the copy in PSP format. Use a transparent background or a color that matches your webpage. Bear should be on first layer....do not use separate background layer for this image or there will be an extra frame when you import it into Animation Shop.

We need to have 3 copies of the bear, one for each of the 3 frames of the animation.
On the layer palette, right click and duplicate the first layer.
On layer 2, reverse the position of the bear using image>mirror.
Right click the layer palette and duplicate the second layer.
You should now have 3 layers, 1 bear facing one way and 2 facing the other. SAVE image in PSP format.

To keep the animated dance from being too jerky, check to see if your bear is aligned with the bear on the other layers. To check the alignment of layer 2 with layer 1, hide visibility for layer 3 and reduce opacity of layer 2 to about 30%. Zoom in very close to see better. The shoulders on layer 2 should be close to the shoulders on layer 1 as shown in the screenshot below (red arrow). For my dancing bear, the noses are also fairly close (yellow arrow). If you use a different image, your alignment will be different.

   

Now hide the visibility for layer 2 and check layer 3 to see if shoulders align.

To add a little interest in the animation, let's add a little "hop" to the dance by moving the bear on the middle layer UP...just a little bit.

Animating the image:

Launch the Animation Shop program:  file>jasc software products>launch animation shop



Select the Animation Wizard button or select from the menu.
file>animation wizard

Answer questions in dialog box as follows:
pg 1: Same size as the first image frame
pg 2: Transparent (or opaque if you prefer to use your webpage color)
pg 3: Upper left corner of the frame
With the canvas color
pg 4: Yes, repeat the animation indefinitely
Display time: 30
pg 5: Add image....browse to find the psp file with the 3 layer bear image, then select NEXT
pg 6: Finish

All 3 frames of the animation should be visible in your workspace. I think the animation would look better if we speed up the movement a in the middle frame (the one with the little hop)....but just a little! If we lower the display time to 20, it will speed up the movement. To adjust display time, first select the frame ... a blue border indicates it is selected ... and then, on the menu, select animation>frame properties. Enter 20 for the display time.




Now select the view animation button to preview how your animation will look! (or use menu view>animation)

If the dancing looks a little jerky, close the animation preview and enable the onionskin preview so you can make adjustments to the bear's position. Onionskin preview places a transparent overlay of frame 1 in frame 2, and frame 2 overlays frame 3, etc, for all frames.

Use the mover tool to reposition and realign the bear in each frame as needed, using the onionskin overlay as a guide.

Enable the view animation button and preview again. Look OK to you? Good! But, wait! Before we save the animation, let's crop it to make the canvas size and the file as small as possible.

Enable the crop tool. When you do this in Animation Shop, three new buttons appear on the menu bar above the crop tool ....options...crop....clear

Select the options button. In the crop options dialog box, select surround the animated area, then select OK.
A box, or lines, now appear in each frame to indicate crop size. Select the crop button (next to options) and your canvas size will be reduced to minimum.

SAVE your animation in transparent GIF format. Select SAVE and a dialog box will appear to give your file a name. Next the gif optimizer will appear......

Move slider to top for "better image quality".
On this same page of the dialog box, select customize. Under that tab the following should be selected:
256 colors (actually 255)
Optimized Octree
Select OK, then next, then next again.
A preview of the optimized file will display.

Select next again, and your final file size and approximate load time will be displayed. Then finish.

Hope you enjoyed making this dancing bear! Now that you've learned this easy mirroring technique, why don't you try making another animation using a different image! When selecting an image to use, the position of the feet is important. One foot upraised seems to work the best....like this jolly lamb!

Most of all.....have fun with the animations!!