Animation 2 : brush & tween

See this animation. You will learn some topics in making this animation.

balloon crossing the cloud

1. download this raw picture.
   

   raw image

2. You will need to use “cloud brush”. You don’t need to make it by yourself. You can find them easily in the internet. Try to do it by yourself by google “cloud brush photoshop”. Insert the brush in your photoshop, see this blog how to do it.
3. Now you are ready to make your animation. Open a new page with white background. Decide the size by yourself.
4. Set the forground color to “dark blue” and background color to “lighter blue”.
5. Click gradient tool (if you can’t see it, it might be hidden behind the Paint bucket tool). Make sure the setting is like this :
   

   setting of gradient

6. Do this steps to draw the gradient on your background:
   • Hold down the “shift” button
   • Drag your mouse from the top of your document to the bottom, whild the “shift” button still down/pushed.
   • Release all.
7. The next step is creating clouds behind the balloon. Use the brush tool you have prepared, means use “cloud brush” tool.
8. Add new transparent layer. Using the techniques you have learned in the earlier sessions, get the balloon from the raw picture and put in this layer.
9. Add another transparent layer. Use the “cloud brush” tool to make clouds in front of the balloon. The balloon will move behind this clouds.
10. Drag the canvass so that the canvass will be bigger than the image. Drag the balloon outside the image so that it can’t be seen anymore in the image.
11. The layers are ready. Start making animation with opening the Animation window.
12. Make the second frame, click this icon in the bottom of animation frame. Drag the balloon a little bit inside the image.
    

    Add animation frame

13. Then make the third frame and drag again the balloon as it moves to the other side of the image.
14. Repeat the steps until the balloon outside the image in the other side. Make the flow waving so that it will be looked more natural moving. For the example, I made 12 frames.
15. To make the moving more smooth, you can use tween tool.
16. For example, between frame 1 and 2:
    • Select frame 1 and 2
    • Click tween tool
    • A dialog box will appear. Choose how many frames in between you want to add. More frames will give smoother movement, but it will add the size of your animation file. I myself put 3 frames between each two earlier frames.
      

      Using tween tool

17. Finally, save the frame à Save for Web & Device.

Always, make notes whatever you have newly learned !!