Animation Tutorial with GIMP
Posted: 27th January 2010
Difficulty: Intermediate
Animation is one of the most common tutorial requests I get, so I've decided to do a basic one to introduce animating on a blinking doll.
In this tutorial I will be using the free graphics software GIMP to do the animation. Windows users can download GIMP here. At the time of this tutorial, the current version is 2.6.8.
In this tutorial I will be using the free graphics software GIMP to do the animation. Windows users can download GIMP here. At the time of this tutorial, the current version is 2.6.8.
Contents
Saving the Image
To save the image, go to the File Menu -> Save As (Shift+Ctrl+S).
Name your animation - mine is simply called myanimation and I have added the extension .gif making it "myanimation.gif". Choose the folder you want to save your animation to as well and hit "Save".
Low and behold, another box! :D Make sure you change the first option to "Save as Animation".
With the second options, the first one about Indexed colours should be chosen automatically. The gif format can only use 256 different colours and if you have more than that, it will reduce the number until there are only 256. In most cases of pixel art, you won't get to 256 colours in a single piece.
Now, hit "Export".
It's the last box, I swear << You can add a comment here if you want, but it's not necessary.
The option "Looping Forever" should default be checked. As it says, it will make the animation loop forever, so it'll constantly cycle through the frames.
The second option you need is the Frame Disposal - you must change this to "One frame per Layer (Replace)". You won't notice a difference without this option when blinking, but you will when you start moving arms / legs / hair / clothes, or making it float etc, so it's good practice to change it now.
Hit "Save" and that's it! :DYou can now go to the folder you saved it in and gaze in wonder as it moves before your very eyes! Ok, moving on...
Less Predictable Animation
The animation you made and saved out in the previous steps should work and look fine, but the blinking happens just like clockwork.
To change the rate between blinking and make it appear slightly more random, we can add more frames. Ideally, I would usually have blinking done with two blinks close together and then another blink spaced further out unless I'm trying to keep the number of frames down.
Here I have a total of 13 frames. I've also added the time in milliseconds underneath to show how long the frame appears for.
You can see the animation blinks three times before repeating. It first blinks twice closely together (within 600ms), then stops for nearly a second and blinks again before stopping for a whole second.
This helps to break the monotony of having the animation blink just once before repeating.
Try changing the frame delays and find what suits you - and try the animation with different sized pixel art to see what effect it has. Don't forget that if the animation appears to jerk, or is moving too sharply, try adding a frame in between to smooth the movement.
To change the rate between blinking and make it appear slightly more random, we can add more frames. Ideally, I would usually have blinking done with two blinks close together and then another blink spaced further out unless I'm trying to keep the number of frames down.
Here I have a total of 13 frames. I've also added the time in milliseconds underneath to show how long the frame appears for.
You can see the animation blinks three times before repeating. It first blinks twice closely together (within 600ms), then stops for nearly a second and blinks again before stopping for a whole second.This helps to break the monotony of having the animation blink just once before repeating.
Try changing the frame delays and find what suits you - and try the animation with different sized pixel art to see what effect it has. Don't forget that if the animation appears to jerk, or is moving too sharply, try adding a frame in between to smooth the movement.
The End~
And that's it for this tutorial! I hope you've managed to use GIMP to create an animation. Some of you may find other programs easier to use, but GIMP is freely available and if you know how to use it, it's quite powerful.
If you have the time, I suggest trying out some of the drawing tools and perhaps reading some of the tutorials found on the GIMP website ^_^
If you have the time, I suggest trying out some of the drawing tools and perhaps reading some of the tutorials found on the GIMP website ^_^
