Spaceship Animation Tutorial
PSP 8 and X

Updated on December 2003 and Jan 2007

Filters and programs used in this tutorial :-
Paint Shop Pro
Dragonfly's Sinedots II
Greg's factory output vol II
Two Moon filters

Materials :-
See the text file included in the zip, for where to put the items.
My sg_spaceship.cfg and lights preset Here

some images have been made smaller to shorten file size

step 1.
Open a new image 300 x 300 transparent
and flood fill with #000057 (dark blue)
Go to Layers...Duplicate...
then Layers...and Add a new layer.
Rename the bottom layer stars 1, the middle
layer stars 2 and the top layer spaceship
Minimise or save the image, you will need it later.

step 2.
Open a new Image 150 x 150 transparent, go to
Layers and add a new layer TWICE. Make the bottom
layer active flood fill with (yellow) #EDFF21 and
turn the opacity of this layer down to 3 on the
layers palette, leave the layer blend mode at normal.

Make layer 2 active, flood fill with (red) #FF0909,
change the opacity to 3 and change the layer blend
mode to Soft Light.

Make the top layer active, go to
Effects...Plugins...Sinedots...open the spaceship.cfg
choose the spaceship preset and click ok

Leave the Opacity of this layer at 100 and change
the layer blend mode to Dodge. This is what the
layer palette looks like

and here is the sinedots image

step 3.
Using the Magic wand tool and holding down the shift key
click on the blank area around the ship and the small
blank bit in the middle of the ship to select them
Go to Selections...Invert...then Layers... Merge visible.
Go to Effects...Illumination Effects...Lights...
Open the dropdown list of presets and choose
sg_spaceship from the list

the image should now look like this

While the spaceship is still selected go to Edit...Copy.
This Image is no longer needed

Step 4.
Open up the first image that you made
(the blue one), make sure that the spaceship
layer is active Edit...Paste...and paste as a new
selection at co-ordinates 140,10

Go to Effects...Plugins...VM Natural...Sparkle,
using the default setting.
While the background is still selected, hide stars 1
and turn on the visibility of stars 2.
Make 'stars 2' the active layer and repeat the
VM Natural.. sparkle, changing the max size to 39
De-select

Step 6.
While you are on stars 2 layer go to
Effects...Plugins...Greg's factory output vol II...
Spotlight...and use the default settings

This is my result

Hide the 'stars 2' layer, make
'stars 1' the active layer and repeat the
Gregs factory output II...Spotlight on
this layer, using the default settings again.

Turn the visibility of all the layers back on.
You should have 2 layers with the same colouring,
but different sets of stars, plus the spaceship layer.

Next is the animation
Hold down the shift key and hit D twice to duplicate
the image, you should now have three images

Step 7.
On the first image go to Layers...Merge...and merge all
Go to Effects...Illumination Effects...Sunburst...
and use these settings

OPTIONAL :-
If you want to add a border to the animation you
can do so now, just make sure that you make a note
of all the settings etc because all the images must
use the same ones. This is how I did mine.

I made the palette background white
Image...Add Borders...
I used a symetrical border of 10, clicked on the border
with the Magic Wand tool to select it
Effects...Texture effects...Sculpture...
with these settings

This is the first frame of the animation.
When it is saved you will need to make it psp7 compatable,
otherwise Animation Shop will not be able to use it, so
go to File...Save as...
In the dialog box click on Options

On the 'Save Options' dialog box, in the
'version' section, choose PSP7 compatable file
Save it in any folder you want, as long as you know where to find it
when we open Animation Shop. I created a folder called animations.
Name the image 'frame 1'
Unless you change it back afterwards, PSP will save all your images
as psp7 compatable now. Personally, I prefer to leave it at psp7.

Step 8.
On the second Image go to the layer palette
and turn the visibility of the stars 2 layer
down to 70 then merge all layers, go to
Go to Effects...Illumination Effects...Sunburst...
and use these settings

If you added a border to your first image,
do exactly the same to this one.
Save this image as 'frame 2'

Step 9.
On the third Image lower the visibility of the
stars 2 layer to 25 and merge all layers
Go to Effects...Illumination Effects...Sunburst...
and use these settings

If you added a border to your other images,
do exactly the same to this one.
Save as 'frame 3'

Step 10.
To put it all together open up Animation shop
Click on the animation wizard in the top left corner

these are the options to select on the windows that follow
'same size as the first frame', click next
'transparent', click next
'upper left corner of the frame', and 'canvas colour',
click next. Yes to repeat indefinitely and 20 in the
time box, click next. Click on add image and navigate
to where you put your three images select each one,
or hold down the Ctrl key and select them all, but click
them in reverse order if you do it this way, click next.
Click 'finish'
To see the animation working go to
View...Animation
If you want to resize your animation,
go to Animation...Resize...
and save using the default settings.

When I first created this animation, I used a starry background from
a tutorial written by Rosepetal's PSP Tutorials and Island Girl Designs.
When I decided to make it into a tutorial, I changed the way I did the
background to make writing the tutorial easier for myself.
I would like to thank Rosepetal and Island girl
for the inspiration for the starry sky
thank you to Suz for your help with the lights :)

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.