All right-- here's the promised tutorial on making an animation for this. (Hopefully, this post is different enough so that the mods won't yell at me... it's supposed to be! Honest!)
Let's begin by going into the Animations tab.
To add a new animation, we simply increase the maximum number (1), and then select the newly-empty animation.
We select a suitable Animation frame set (2), and select an arbitrary number of frames. For this image, I chose the RTP Action01, and 16 frames.
When you pick out an Animation set, you will notice the individual frames that you'll have available (1). You can also adjust the colors of the animation set with the slider (2), but do remember that this will adjust the colors of the entirety of the animation frames in use.
At this point, we start creating the actual animation. For this specific project, a shiny thing is going to split into four pieces, flying off in all directions. I'd like to begin that with some sort of growing light that will then explode into four lights streaking away. I chose Action01 because it has a circle of light, as well as a streaked, oval light, so it ought to do for our purposes.
I'm going to begin with that shiny circle of light. It's going to grow to a large size, and then I'll add the four light streaks after a few frames.
I start by selecting the specific image from the set that I want to use (1). Clicking on the black screen will place the cell that I selected on the frame, wherever I place it, and it can then be clicked-and-dragged to any point I want(2). I'm putting it in the center of the screen. Note that there is a digital display of where that event is, relative to the crosshairs. (3)
I didn't circle it, but I chose "Middle" for the position of the event. I could have chosen something else, such as "Top" or "Bottom," but this is essentially a symmetrical event, so there's no point.
Once a cell is placed, it can be adjusted in various ways by double-clicking on it to bring up the Cell Properties window.
Within the Cell Properties window, every part of the cell can be digitally adjusted, including the image (4), X (5) and Y (6) coordinates, Zoom (7) (which adjusts the size of the displayed image), Angle (8) (which lets you rotate the image in one-degree increments), Flip (9) (used to flip the image left-to-right), Opacity (10) (used to set the degree of transparency), and Blending (11).
Blending is worth a special note, here-- the default for animation cells is Additive blending, which adds the color values of the image to the color of what it's on top of, creating a glowing, translucent effect. Subtractive subtracts the color values, creating a dark, negative translucent image, and Normal simply overlays the image on top of whatever is already there-- very useful, for certain animations, but for these purposes, the default of Additive blending will work better.
But this is only one frame-- 1/20 of one second. There's fifteen to go. I could, of course, create each frame from scratch, by hand. But that would be a tremendous waste of time, because tools exist to make this much easier.
The most useful for some purposes is the Paste Last button (1). This copies the previous animation frame on to the currently selected frame. From there, it can be adjusted at will.
On the other hand, that may not always be the best option-- that's what the Copy Frame button (2) is for. Using this button, entire sequences can be copied from one section of the animation to another. (3)
This can speed the process up for a long animation considerably-- copy frame 1 to frame 2, copy frames 1-2 to frame 3, copy frames 1-4 to 5, etc.
I'll do that to create about six frames of the circle.
However, I don't want that circle of light to just sit there-- I want it to grow.
To do that, I'll go through and adjust the Zoom of each cell, increasing it by, oh, 30% every frame, using the Cell Properties window (1).
Note that not only is the outline of the current cell visible (2) in white (if selected) or red (if not), but the outline of the cells from the previous frame in blue (3). This is useful for comparing this frame to the previous one, to check for smooth movement.
I continue for the next few frames, increasing the size by 30% each time.
However, around now, I realize that I really didn't want the circle of light to be as opaque as this-- it's a background effect, and ought to be more transparent.
I could, of course, go back and adjust each cell individually, by hand. However, I again don't have to. Instead, I press the Cell Batch button (1).
The window that this brings up is essentially the same as the Cell Properties window, but it also has Frame Numbers (2) and Cell Numbers (3). Thus, a given Cell can be changed however is needed in each and every frame, or only in some of them.
This is an excellent reason to be consistent in the use of cell numbers-- it makes it much easier to make adjustments.
In this case, I'll scale back the Opacity of all the cells to 200 (4).
Whoops! At the larger scale, I can now see that this particular cell is a bit off-center, despite what the numbers say. Luckily, it's easy to move the entire animation relative to the center, which the Entire Slide button (1) can handle easily.
Note that the digital numbers (2) reflect the selected cell's position. Using the Entire Slide button, whichever frames are desired (3) can be shifted any relative amount (4), for precise placement.
This is important, because analog adjustment-- moving the cells by hand-- generally can't be done less than 8 pixels at a time. However, digital adjustment with Entire Slide, Cell Properties, or Cell Batch can be done with single pixel units, allowing for precise placement.
At this point, I need to add the four streaks of light. I go to the animation set, select a new image, and place it on the frame (1). Note that it can overlap with the other cell that's already on the frame (2).
I do this three more times in the frame, but I obviously don't want to have them all facing the same direction. It's easy to use Cell Properties to adjust the Rotation of each cell, and slightly adjust their positions.
Now I go to the next frame. I use Paste Last (1) to copy the previous frame, and I move the streaks of light to their new positions (2). I am able to use the blue traces of the cells from the previous frame to ensure that the new positions are in alignment with the previous ones (3)-- a very important trick.
I then repeat these actions for each subsequent frame, copying the previous frame and adjusting the positions of the streaks and the size of the circle of light. Eventually, however, I'm going to run out of room to move the streaks of light in a given direction (1).
At this point, I just stop using cells that there isn't room for, but keep going until I run out of room for the horizontal cells (1).
If my work has been uneven at any point, I can smooth it out with the Tweening button (2), but be careful with it-- it's a computer, not an artist.
At this point, I have a growing circle of light and four fast-moving streaks, and that's fine. I could stop there.
But I'm not going to. For one thing, those streaks of light appear fairly abruptly, and it would be good to cover that up. Also, I'd like to add some visual and sound effects while I'm at it.
And that's what the SE and Flash Timing window is for. Double-clicking on it will create an entry (1), and open the SE and Flash Timing menu.
Here, we can create various flashes and sound effects. The Frame option (2) determines which frame a given effect will happen in. The SE window (3) opens a menu of available sound effects. I chose frame 5, where the streaks first appear, and Sound Effect 157-- Skill01, which has a building noise followed by a nice "Swoosh," which suits my needs nicely.
Condition (4) won't be used for this animation, but it's worth noting some of the uses for it. Condition can be None, Hit, or Miss-- the choice is useful for, for example, weapon or skill animations, allowing for, for example, a flash of red and a meaty "Chunk" when an attack hits, but no flash and an empty "Swoosh" when an attack misses.
Assorted Flash effects can also be added. (Sorry, this is not the programming language-- just flashes of color.) "Target" (5) will cause the target of the effect (only) to flash the color selected, while "Screen" (6) will cause the entire screen to flash. Hide Target (7) will cause the target to actually disappear for the duration, which can be surprisingly useful for Invisibility or Transformation States, Skill animations where the attacker is supposed to be charging the target, and certain Death-type spells, among other things.
A flash can have the color and strength of the flash selected digitally or analog with four sliders (8), with the highest level of strength entirely covering the target or the screen. (The flash will be at its most intense in the frame selected, and fade over the course of its duration, which is set in the same window (9).)
In this case, I choose a white flash of maximum strength. This will cause the screen to entirely white out for 1/20th of one second at the moment that the streaks appear, thus hiding the abruptness of their appearance (10).
It is important to note that there are really no limits to the number of Sound Effects and Flashes that can be used in an Animation, and that Sound Effects can overlap, allowing for interesting results.
Was that helpful? Any questions?
