Basic Animation - Scan Bar

Waffle · Feb 13, 2005

Basic Animation Tutorial - Scan Bar

Ok after a couple of requests on how to make an animated sig, I figured I'd write how do one.

We'll be making this sig in todays lesson:

You can then apply the principles to your own sigs.

Ok...

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Step 1
Create a new document 400x100 pixels. Set the background colour to white.

Step 2
Create a new layer on top of this one.

Step 3
Grab the RECTANGLE MARQUEE TOOL and drag a smallish box around one end of the rectangle, like so:

This rectangle will be our scan line, so make it as wide or narrow as you want.

Step 4
Fill this selection with a colour of your choice. I chose a light blue. Then reduce this layers opacity to around 30%, or whatever looks good to you.

The idea is that with Scan Bars, you want to be able to see what's underneath the bar, so a low opacity is desirable. If you want a solid block of colour, that's fine.

Step 5
That's all you need to make a basic scan line. If you want to add other images, text or a decent background, do so. Just make sure you keep the "scan bar" layer on its own - dont add anything else to it accidentally.

Step 6
Jump to ImageReady.
Either press CTRL + SHIFT + M together, or hit the button on the toolbar:

Step 7
With ImageReady open, you can begin to animate.
You'll be shown the default layout, with your sig shown. Along the bottom will be a window called Animation, with Image Map and Slice tabs too. If it's not there, go to Window>>Animation to make it appear.

Step 8
Notice there is a thumbnail of your sig in this window? Go to the Layers Pallete, and click the EYE to hide the Scan Bar layer. You should just have the white backlground, or whatever you have.

Step 9
If that is so, then click the "DUPLICATE FRAME" button, on the animation tab:

Step 10
There will now be two frames in the Animation window.
Now, go back to the Layers, and click where the Eye was, to make the scan bar show again.

Step 11
Now, select the Move Tool, hold down SHIFT and drag the scan bar along the white signature. Try and keep the movement as straight and steady as possible. If you do find that you slip, make the scan bar longer, so if you do slip up or down, there is still image to cover the gap.

Keep dragging until the bar is off the other side:

Step 12
Let go of shift. Now, click the TWEEN button on the Animation Tab. It is the little image of several circles, fading into eachother. It's next to Duplicate Frame and after the last arrow.

Step 13
You will be shown this window.

Right, select the boxes that are ticked on that image, which are the defaults.
Enter the number of frames you would like to TWEEN. Tweening is basically the name for the process of adding frames to the animation, and fading the last one out to make it look smoother.

The more frames you choose, the larger the file size will be, but the smoother the animation will be. 20 is good for this example, but you can choose to your liking. When you are done, hit OK.

Step 14
Many more frames will appear in the Animation window if you did it right.
You can now preview this animation by clicking the PLAY button on the Animation Tab. The scan bar will now appear to move across the sig. If this is the case, congratulations, your first animated sig!

If not, check you followed the instructions properly.

Step 15
Now go to File>>Save Optimized As>>

This will save it as a *.gif, which is probably the best format, (probably the only format) for this tyoe of animation. Save it, and then quit ImageReady.

Don't forget to save the PSD if you want to edit it later.

Then go to the file, see what it looks like.

Then upload it to ImageShack etc, and post it in Graphics Design.