Spaceship Animation Tutorial PSP 8 and X This tutorial was created January 2nd 2002©Copyright Artwork by EssexGirl please do not copy it, or put it anywhere else without my written permission. Updated on December 2003 and Jan 2007 *NOTE* Sometimes the links for filters change, it's difficult (and a lot of work) to keep changing them on individual pages, so I have created a page with links to filters and programs that I have used in my tutorials. That way it is easier for me, because when there are changes I will only have one page to update and hopefully better for you, because I'm less likely to miss a page out when doing the updates :) You will find links to filters/programs used in this tutorial Here the link will open in a new window 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 NOTE * This tutorial has been updated 27th Jan. 2007

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

Step 5 De-select With the Magic Wand tool click on the area outside the spaceship. Go to the layers palette and click the glasses on the stars 2 layer to turn off the visibility and make stars 1 the active layer 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. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

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 I would also like to give a big thankyou to Patti of Moon's Designs for her encouragement and offer of help when I needed a re-think on how to do the sky. And last, but certainly not least to Suz Thankyou for your help with the lights :) I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

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