Twinkling Lights PSP7 + AS3 [merging down, twinkling]
CHRISTMAS TREE BLINKING:
from a static image to a holiday twinkle using Paint Shop 7 and Animation Shop 3
Intermediate Level Skill - Remember, if you use the same base and this tutorial, you are just making a carbon copy of my icon and not actually making something original. If your goal is just to make an exact duplicate of my icon, then just use my icon. I offer it for use without credit. If you copy it and then ask people to credit you, I'll be very upset. The point is to take the skills and use them in a new icon/art project.
1) It all starts in PSP, so open just that right now. You'll start with your base and clean it up. I'm going to assume you know how to do this1, and skip the smaller steps of getting the base image to where you want it. The one I'm using comes from a holiday pack offered by twistedswanton here. Though you can probably use just about any Christmas image.
What you want to look for is the focus of the shot to be on an object in the foreground (up front), while the lit tree or object is slightly defocused (fuzzy) in the background. You do this because it gives the twinkling a romantic look to it, and the fuzziness is very forgiving to what we want to do. Also, the eye is only partly focused on the blinking drawn first to the package, so it's not as annoying as when the eye is singularly focused on the movement of the lights.
This is the base image:
and this is what I settle on after some fiddling:
2. One you're satisfied with your first image, you'll want to open your layer palette which is this button
on your tool bar. You should see just one layer. Right-click and make a duplicate so there is two, and then open a new empty raster layer. Take your eye dropper tool and pick out a color from inside one of the brighter lights in the background. Then open your paint brush to a round brush with the hardness lowered to about 95. You just want the brush edges to be a little soft, not too much. Then on the empty raster layer, dot a spot of color over each of the lights you clearly see. If it's ultra fuzzy, leave it. Just go for the bits of lights that are definitely lights. Once you're done, set that raster layer's blend mode to soft light.
You do this because you're preparing to make your second screen of the animation, and the third frame which is the twinkle. Dotting that extra bit of color and setting it to soft light brightens up the lights already there, and will help you make more lights. I'll show you how in the next step.
3. Duplicate the soft light layer twice more, and take a deep breath. This is where the intermediate stuff starts too really kick in.
a.) The first soft light layer is going to be used to brighten up the lights already there. You may want to lower the opacity a little to make it look natural.
b.) The second soft light layer is your dim twinkle. Under Image use Mirror to switch that layer over. Erase any of the lights that cover your foreground or do not look like they're part of the background. Then lower the opacity so they blend in naturally, and look like dim lights that are waiting to blink.
c.) Mirror this third soft light layer as well, but leave the opacity at 100%.
4. You're now going to selective merge down. In your layers palette you'll see on each layer a button that looks like a pair of glasses like this.
. If you click it so there's a red x through them, that particular layer is not visible for merging. Now pay attention because flattening and merging what's visible are very different things. Under Layers is Merge, and then there's two options available to you - merge all (flatten) and merge visible. Do not flatten. Got it? Okay.
a.) Turn off the glasses for the very first layer and the second mirrored soft light layer. This makes them invisible. You should have left the second duplicate base, the soft light layer used to brighten the image's lights, and the first mirrored soft light layer.
b.) Now is the time to muck with those light opacities until they look natural to you. Once they do, go to Layers>Merge>Merge visible. Merge those visible, and it should leave you with three layers. The original first image, the duplicate of that layer with brightened and extra lights, and the mirrored soft light layer.
If merge visible is grayed out, you're active layer in the palette is one of the invisible layers, and you simply have to switch to one of the visible ones.
5. You're almost to the end, I swear. Next we're going to make each piece needed for the animation.
a.) Now use the glasses button to make the first image and the mirrored soft light layer invisible. Under Edit you'll copy merge and paste the copy to the surrounding workspace.
b.) Tick off the glasses for the duplicate and the soft light layer. Make a copy of the first image and paste it to the workspace next to the previous one.
c.) Turn off the glasses on the duplicate, so the first image and soft light layer are visible. Copy merge and paste this to the workspace next to the previous one.
d.) Turn on all the glasses. Copy merge and paste that to the workspace.
6. Save the three layers unmerged in case you need to go back. You can save open layers by saving the file as a .psp or paintshoppro file. :) As to the other pieces, you can save them as png here still, which I recommend, as you'll be saving it as a gif later, and you don't want to lose too much quality this early in the process. From left to right name them, twinkle1.png, twinkle2.png, twinkle3.png, and twinkle4.png.
YOU'RE READY TO ANIMATE NOW! I swear, once you're familiar with making the pieces, it gets easier and goes faster. You won't be relying on a tutorial, but you're memory, and you'll have an eye for what works for you. My entire icon took me five minutes to make because I'm familiar with my program and what I like in my results. But when I first learned to make animations like this, I could spend an hour or more working on things. This next part is pretty quick, but can be frustrating. So you may want to pause to get up and walk around or get a drink.
Now it's time to animate your icon. Open Animation Shop. We'll be using the animation wizard
because it's super fast and super easy. Plus, I'm lazy and just spent a lot of time in PSP.
1) First screen - Check off same size as the first image frame, and go to the next screen.
2) Check off transparent and go to the next screen.
3) Check off centered in the frame and with the canvas color, and go to the next screen.
4) Check off that yes, you want it to repeat indefinitely. The scale after that determines how fast your lights will blink. Here's a tip though, no matter how subtle you make your twinkling lights if they blink at high speed, they'll become the focus of the eye and highly annoying. Slow it down a little. I started at 20.
5) Add your files in the order you made them, then reverse leaving the last one out. So with four images it would be: twinkle1.png, twinkle2.png, twinkle3.png, twinkle4.png, twinkle3.png, and twinkle2.png.
6) View your animation. Just a note, but when you run it, it will still look fast and choppy. Don't panic! Once it's optimized and saved as a gif, the animation will slow a bit more. What you're looking for right now is whether the lights are too dark, too light, etc. If you're satisfied, then look at the speed again. By right clicking on a frame within the animation, you can change the speed of that frame in the frame properties. In the end, my six frames were set at: 20, 20, 23, 23, 23, 20. But it's really about what you think looks right.
7) If you're satisfied, then save your animation. I find I don't have to lower the quality when saving, because it's such a simple animation, there's little bloat. If you're not satisfied, then close out, go back to PSP, and fix your layers. This is why I said not to delete anything until you're absolutely finished.
Tada. You're done. There are more tutorials, textures, brushes, and icons to be had in iconistas
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Notes:
1 If you don't know how to prep your images, may I suggest this tutorial.