Usage Tips

PM Animation Usage

The simplicity of PM Animation makes it very easy to create an animation.  One simple way to create an animation is to paint frame by frame using Smear tool by setting smear amount to 1, which effectively acts as a Warp tool to push the pixels around smoothly.  By duplicating frames and applying Smear paint tool on each frame, an animation is created.

The other simple way to create an animation from a still image is to duplicate the same image into multiple frames and apply the image effect filters to each frame with different effect filter values.  You can use the 'Tween' function to generate a sequence of frames based on the effect filter values. The followings are some of tips that will help you to create an animation effectively.

1. How to create a photo slideshow using PM Animation ?

Use the Animation Wizard to set the animation size and load image files from a folder.  By default, if an image frame is resized, the width and height ratio is preserved.  If you need to fit the large image to the target animation size, change the resize option to 'Distort to Fit' via Tools -> Options -> Usage.

By default all the image frames loaded are key frames. Once all the image frames are loaded, use Tools -> Transit to select the transit effects for the key frames. The transit effects will generate non-key frames for the transit effects.  The frame delay can be adjusted through Animation Preview for all the frames.  Set the frame delay for a low number and then add some empty frames for the all the key frames so that the duration for key frames will be longer than the frames generated by transit effects.

2. How to merge two animated gif images, concatenation and combination ?

To concatenate one animated gif image to another, simply load one animated gif image and then use 'Insert Images From File' frame operation to insert the second animated gif image at where you like.

To combine two animated gif images frame by frame, first find out the number of frames of each animated gif image by loading it as stamp.

Create a new transparent blank frame and duplicate as many frames as the animated gif image that has the the smaller number of frames. Use the Auto Stamp tool to paint each animated gif image to the blank frames by adjusting the offsets and selecting 'Linear' for Stamp Selection in Auto Stamp.

Here is an example of duplicating one animated gif image into 4 images and combining them together. 

3. How to create animated drawings ?

To create an animated drawing, first create a new transparent blank frame as scratch page and start drawing using the available paint tools. By using Shift+Z keys at any time to generate a frame containing your current stage of drawing and delete the scratch page when the drawing is done.

4. How to apply the same drawing to all different frames ?

To apply the same drawing to different frames, you do not need to draw on each frame. Add a blank transparent frame as scratch page and then draw on this frame. Use the 'Merge Frames' tool to merge the drawing to all or selected frames and then delete the scratch page.

5. How to resize an animated gif image?

Simply use Resize animation to resize an animated gif image. Unlike some other animated gif software, PM Animation can the optimization of the original animated gif image by adjusting the offsets and keeps the disposal method.

Here is an example of resized animated gif image.

6. How to clip off  a part of an animated gif image ?

Use "Crop As New Animation" to create only part of animate gif image. 

Here is an example of cropped animated gif image.

7. How to change the background color of all the frames ?

Make a selection of the region that you want to change, then select 'Fill Color' tool  and apply the 'Fill Color' operation while holding down the Ctrl key. You can perform the same operation if you want to make the background transparent by using the transparent color.

8. How to turn a still image into an animation ?

Duplicate the images into multiple frames, select the image effect filter of your choice, set the start value and end value for the effect and then apply the effect to all the frames.

9. How to create a moving character ?

Select an animated gif image on the web or create your own for the character, use the Auto Stamp to paint the character on each frame at different location.

10. How to scroll the background ?

To make the background look like scrolling  across  the screen, you'll need to have a background image that has the left and right sides being joined smoothly.  The simple way to make such an image is to use Effects -> Transform -> Reflect. You can reflect the image horizontally if you want to move the background horizontally or vertically if you want to move it vertically. After you create such background image, set Tween flag on via Effects ->Tween and then use Effects -> Transform-> Offset to generate different offsets for the frames tweened. Make sure that you set Edge Action to Warp when using Offset effect filter.

11. How to create an effect, such as smoke or fire ?

Find an animated gif image or create your own and load it as a stamp. Then use Effect -> Particle -> Stamp to randomly paint the stamp onto each frame.  You can control where to paint the stamp on the frames by set selection first.

12. How to create a fog or smoke effect ?

Duplicate a few frames and take the first frame to create a color cloud background and then use Gray Scale to get rid off the color. To make this cloud image left and right smoothly joined, use the method in Tip 9. After you get the proper cloud/fog image, then use Tools -> Merge -> Frames to merge this cloud/fog image  to all other frames by setting different X-Offset. Make sure that you set 'Warp' for  'Edge Action'  during the merge.