Before we start, I would like to suggest (this is just an option) that you take my tag I have here for you to see a sample of and save it to your pc somewhere you can find it. Then open it up in Animation Shop and take a look at the finished tag frame by frame. This will give you an idea of what I mean by smidgeons and stuff. I have furnished a pink fairy in png at three different sizes, they are on a sheet, so just use your selection tool rectangle and draw ants around the one you want to use, Ctrl+C and then put the original away and then Ctrl+V you have a single copy of the fairy you want to use on your workspace and ready to use. I have also provided you with the font I used ( a link to get it free), and all the settings I used through out the tutorial. Font: FATSOcaps (free font) Here is where you can find it: Font color: Stroke: #b74b70 (stroke width 2) Fill: #ef83a8 (these colors are if you are using my pink fairy) Font size: 26 (or smaller if you have a long name) Lets get started: Open a blank canvas (transparent) 450x300 or wider if you have a long name. 1. Type in your name/text and apply. Convert to raster and apply the following bevel to your name/text: bevel 2 width 31 smoothness 35 Depth 1 Shininess 0 Color : white Angle 83 intensity 45 elevation 35 and add the following drop shadow: vert -1 horiz -1 opac 36 blur 2 Color: black 2. In your layer palette duplicate your name 2 times for a total of 3 layers of names. 3. In you layer palette, delete the bottom blank layer so that you only have the 3 layers of names. 4. Now rename your layers, name 1, name 2, name 3 5. Name 1: leave as is do not scrunch it down. 6. Name 2: Click on the layer to highlight it...get out your pick tool (deformation tool) this will cause a box line to surround name 2, the box line comes with "nodes" which are the little squares you see at each corner, on the middle top, on the middle bottom, and on each middle side of the box line. 7. Using your mouse, click on the middle TOP node, hold and drag it ever so slightly down. Just a little bit goes a long way. Now go to the side nodes and stretch the name out just a smidgeon on each side. Not too much, we don't want it too flat... 8. Now we are going to do the same thing with our name 3, but we have to drag it down a smidgeon more than name 2 because we need name 3 to be just a little more scrunched than name 2. Same with the sides...stretch them out just a smidgeon more than name 2. 9. Now you should be able to see all 3 of your name layers, name name 1 being the tallest and name 3 being the shortest. 10. Duplicate name 3 (in your layer palette) and move it all the way to the bottom of your layer palette rename it: bottom name. 11. Now if you look over in your layer palette you should have 4 layers in this order: starting at the bottom we have the bottom name, name 1, name 2, name 3, for a total of 4 names. We are now ready to add our fairy... 12.Hide all your layers except for name 3 (the shortest name) 13. Bring up your fairy tube (if you are using a different tube than the one provided with this tutorial you will have to resize your tube to fit with in the parimeters of your tag size.) 14. With your fairy tube active go to Edit/Copy 15. Go to your Name Canvas and click to activate it and with your name 3 layer highlighted in your layer palette, go to Edit/Paste as a new layer. You should now have a fairy tube layer just above your name 3 layer. Add a drop shadow using the same settings as your name. 16. We now have to decide where we are going to have the fairy bouncing on our name(I put mine in the middle because I have an odd number of letters to my name), so decide where you want her to be and place her EXACTLY where you want her to bounce( because once you have made duplicates of her you CAN NOT move her somewhere else),and move her to where her toes are just touching your name on the name 3 layer 17. Once you have her where you want to keep her, make 3 duplicates of her so there is a total of 4 layers of fairies. 18. Now name your fairies: fairy 1, fairy 2, fairy 3, and bottom fairy. 19. Hide fairy 3 and name 3 20. Highlight fairy 2 and with your move tool still active, USING YOUR UP AND DOWN ARROWS ON YOUR KEYBOARD ( the ones on the right side of your keyboard) you are going to click the up arrow one click at a time until your fairy 2 toes are just touching name 2 (be sure and use the up and down arrows because they will keep your fairy aligned and remember that the up and down arrows don't work unless you have your move tool active.) 21. Hide fairy 2 and name 2 22. Highlight fairy 1 and using the same proceedure as above using your up arrow key you are going to click upwards until your fairy 1 toes are touching the top of name 1 23. Hide fairy 1 but don't hide name 1 because we need to get our next fairy above the tallest (name 1) name. 24. Highlight Bottom fairy layer and with your up arrow key start clicking upwards until your bottom fairy jumps up as high as you want her to jump past the names...for a little help on this, I can only say that I moved my bottom fairy up 2 full background squares above name 1....I hope that helps because I just can't give you exacts on this part. **** Okay, so this far you should have 8 layers in your layer palette, 4 name layers and 4 fairies, each fairy should be touching her toes to a name except for the bottom fairy, she should have space between her and all the names.**** 25. Hide all of your layers. 26. Unhide bottom name layer and bottom fairy, and merge visible and hide the merged layer. 27. Unhide name 1 and fairy 1, merge visible and hide the merged layer. 28. Unhide name 2 and fairy 2, merge visible and hide the merged layer. 29. Unhide name 3 and fairy 3, merge visible. 30. Hide all layers. ****If you are going to leave your bouncie tag on a transparent background skip steps 30 thru 43 and be sure to start with #44*** ***However if you do want to leave it on a transparent background, your drop shadows are gonna look kind of ugly when it gets optimized in Animation Shop. ***One more thing, if you are not going to add a background, you need to be sure at this point to add your © and watermarks. ADDING A BACKGROUND 31. Add a new raster layer and move it all the way to the bottom and fill it with white . 32 Get out your paint brush size 30 and smear a little color you want for a background onto the new raster layer, not too much though because we want to be able to stretch it out with blasting. 33. Go to effects and get out your dsb flux/blast and blast your paint smear to about 32 left and then go back and do it again except this time blast it right. 34. Repeat steps 31, 32 (except add a little darker or lighter shade) and 33. 35. move your blasted layers around until they look they way you want them to and then merge visible. 36 Once you have your blasted layer the way you want it, merge it down with the white layer. 37. Now add your copyright and a watermark (if you use one), and merge them down to your white background layer. 38. Name your layer background,duplicate your background layer 3 times (for a total of 4) and name them b1,b2,b3 ***You should now have 8 layers, 4 of the fairy/name and 4 of the background layer. *** 39. Hide all layers 40. Unhide background layer and the layer called bottom and merge visible. Hide merged layer. 41. Unhide b1 layer and layer 1 of the fairie/name and merge visible. Hide merged layer. 42. Unhide layer b2 and layer 2, merge visible and hide merged layer. 43. Unhide layer b3 and layer 3, merge visible. 44. Unhide all layers ***Save as a psp image somewhere you can find it when we get to Animation Shop.*** Now lets open Animation Shop 1. Go find your psp tag you just made and bring it up onto your AS workspace. 2. Now click on the film strip up on your menu bar and run the animation. as you can see she bounces just a little too fast for me. Unclick your animation film strip. 3. Go to Edit/select all 4. Go to your top menu bar and click on Animation 5. Scroll down to: Frame Properties and in the frame properties pop up window, set the number to 15, click ok. 6. Run your animation one more time using the film strip and if you are happy with it, then it is ready to be saved. Voila you now have a bouncing fairy on your name.!!!!!! |