MariaPia's Animations
Create Your Own Animations
  Have you made your own graphics before?
TEST0.GIF

TEST1.GIF

TEST2.GIF

TEST3.GIF

TEST4.GIF

 If the answer is "yes", skip to the <next section>.

To make your own graphics, you need a piece of software like Paint Shop Pro or any of many others. Download one at Ziff Davis or WinFiles formerly Windows95.com.

To get started with it:

  • Find where to change the Background Color and make it Black.
  • Click "NEW". It will ask for the size. Put in Height 150 and Width 200. That window will close.
  • Find where to change the Foreground Color and make it White.
  • Draw 4 Filled Circles in the box, and Save it As "TEST0.gif".

Your graphic template is complete. Now copy this same graphic as TEST1.GIF, TEST2.GIF, TEST3.GIF and TEST4.GIF:

  • In each of these files, use the Filled Square Tool, color Black, and erase 3 of the balls, leaving a different ball showing in each box, as illustrated.
  • Change to a Marker tool, change Line Width to 2. Draw 2 animation ticks next to each ball..
  • Finally, save all 4 files.
You now have 4 graphics that are the same size. You are ready for the Animation section.

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. Do you have Animation software?
. If you are here at this page, you probably don't. Here is where to get it: Ziff Davis or Win Files. One program is "GIF Movie". All are simple to use. I made my very first animation in seconds! The part that takes the longest is making several coordinated graphics (as above) to use for the animation.

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. Make Your First Animation

 Using those bouncing ball graphics, you can make your first movie/animation.

  • Open your animation software.
  • Select "File", "Open". Click your way to the the directory where you saved the 4 "gif" files (see examples of separate frames above).
  • While holding your "Control" key down, click all 4 files in a row.
  • They will open up in GIF Movie in a row.

Click the first GIF and do the following:

  • Select "Edit", then "Frame Properties". Uncheck the box that says "Transparent". Close Frame Properties.
  • In the box for length of time the animation is allowed to run, put 100.
  • Repeat these 2 steps for each of the 4 gifs.

Now, find the symbol on the Menu Bar for Optimizing. This tool makes your final animation as small as it can be . . . by reducing the number of colors from 256 to only the exact number of colors that you used. It is often a significant savings in the size of the file. Do this for all 4 frames.

Save your file ... under the GIF Movie directory ... as "test.gif". Run your animation by finding the Forward Arrow and clicking it. You will see your 4 signs merged as one, being played over and over again.

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. Experiment & Tips
test.gif Here are a few tips for you, and I would appreciate hearing yours!

  • Sometimes you want Transparency, usually you do not. If your animation is messy and graphics or text are appearing inside of the previous frames, then you do NOT want Transparency.

  • To make expert placement of text or objects, make all of your GIFs complete (see box with all 4 balls above), then on each frame, put a black box over certain portions, so they will appear in other frames but not in this one. Everything will be positioned accurately ... and the size of the GIF will actually DECREASE with your "erasures".

  • By default, Black is always Transparent. You can change this to another color, change it so there is no Transparency at all, or use this to your advantage. If you want your animation to appear to be floating on the page, stay away from Black entirely except for the Background, and leave Black transparent in your animation software.

  • Experiment with timing for your frames.

  • Learn the many other features of your Graphics and Animation software packages!

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