Animating in Photoshop?

[Aric]

Hi, I'm an after effects expert but I always draw on paper. Right now it doesn't save any time drawing on the computer for animation, unless I could use photoshop. Is there a way to set up frames sequentially in CS3? It looks like you can import a movie and get a timeline. If I could draw over the movie (just for reference) and have onion skinning to make my frames it would be a faster way to work. So, can I get frames in photoshop for illustrating? Or only layers?

[J Wilson]

I think the closest thing you'll find is Imageready, which used to come bundled with Photoshop (perhaps it still does, I don't know). It's made for web graphics, and so it can handle creating animated gifs using a frames based type of timeline, but it's very basic compared to actual video editing timelines. You can fake onion skinning with layers.

[iluvmuff]

CS3 does have an inbuilt animation builder, it works kind of strange though. The way it works is by creating frames and then in each frame manipulating to contents of the layers sequentially. I don't think it makes for a replacement of ImageReady it's pretty clunky.

[jodali]

I have done rotoscoping in CS2 before, but not CS3 (I dont know if it will work for CS3) this is how I did it, its a bit ghetto-ish but it works.

first you need to have all the frames as individual image files named with sequential numbers at the end, (frame001, frame002, frame003, or frame757, frame758, frame759) replace "frame" with whatever you want.

*the following will prevent manually importing of individual frames into a single PSD which would take a really long time..

open photomerge and select all the files you want,
select PS to "automatically attempt to arrange source images"
let PS open all the files, get ready to push the "ESC" button (PC)
push "ESC" as soon as the photomerge window comes up, (don't let photomerge actually merge or stitch any of the images)
if your timing is right you will get a new untitled document will all the layers named as your source files.
go to WINDOW>ANIMATION to open the animation window

go to the button at the top right with a [> right arrow,
then click "make frames from layers"
delete the first frame
FILE>SAVE FOR WEB or (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S)
save as GIF
import GIF into video editing program (I know for a fact windows movie maker recognizes GIFs, and will convert, but I have no experience in other editors.)


**framerate on GIF:
select all frames in animation window right click on "0 sec"
'.1' = 10 frames a sec
'.08' = 12 frames a sec
etc

** I'm not sure what limit photomerge has on number of photos, but I think there is one, on my old PC I tried 180 frames but it said I had to many. I could only do 60 frames at a time. Newer PC 80 frames without a problem. I had to break it up into a few PSD files and GIFs

** the bad part about this is that you either have to draw directly on the imported layer, or if you make a new layer above or below any frame (for transparent purposes) you have to go back and delete the original frame in the animation window, or do NEW FRAME, turn off previuos layer, turn on next drawn layer, and repeat several hundred times.

** dont forget to save the original 'untitled' file out of photomerge so you can go back if if something gets messed up. also save periodically troughout the whole process considering the amount of memory that will be taken up.


to make a real simple animation with out rotoscoping;

NEW PSD
fill background with gray, black, leave white, whatever
NEW LAYER
draw frame one, repeat for a few more layers,
go to WINDOW>ANIMATION to open the animation window
go to the button at the top right with a [> right arrow,
then click "make frames from layers"
delete the first frame

if all your frames are transparent....

go to the button at the top right with a [> right arrow,
"select all frames",
in the layers window, turn off BKGRND then back on again
now you should have the BKGRND with all the layers as new frames
FILE>SAVE FOR WEB or (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+S)
save as GIF


I hope no one goes crazy from reading this.

[Neolight]

insert a video layer in your document and open up the animation timeline which you can find under the windows tab.

Then you get something you can make your keyframes with and even onion skin. It isn't the greatest system yet.

But, if you want a completley digital pipeline you can allways sketch your animatics and stuff in flash and then take your frames into photoshop for coloring and finishing. Alot of people do that.