User Guide

Academic Courseware: Chapter 5

Joyce Ryan

5 Open your Sky.rif file. Open a new movie file, 720 x 486 at 72 ppi,

60 frames, and name it Skytitle.frm. Leave the default setting for the

layers of onion skin at 2, and the storage type at 24-bit color with 8-

bit alpha.

6 Copy the gradient layer from the Sky file and paste it into your

movie. Hold down the Step Forward button on the Frame Stacks

palette to deposit your gradient on each frame of your movie. When

you have finished, drop the gradient layer.

7 Copy your first cloud layer from the Sky file and paste it into the first

frame of your movie. You will be moving the clouds slowly across the

screen. You may also select individual clouds from your layer to paste

if you prefer.

8 Forward to the next frame and press the right arrow key on your

keyboard to nudge the clouds over. Press the Page Up key twice, then

nudge your clouds again. Repeat moving your clouds once for every

two frames of animation until you have animated your clouds moving

over the entire 60 frames. Drop the first cloud layer. (Animating on

“twos” will cause the background clouds to appear to be moving

more slowly than your foreground clouds.)

9 Close the file. Make a copy of the file under a new name for backup.

All changes you make to a movie file are automatically saved over

previous versions of the file; if you want to preserve the current

version of the movie, you need to save the file under a different name

before making any further changes.

Create the write-on

1 Open the Skytitle.frm file, the Whew.rif file and the Sky.rif file. Click

the Fast Forward button on the Frame Stacks palette and make sure

you are on frame 60 of your animation.

By moving the background

clouds only one “arrow key press” every

two frames (animating on twos), you

make them move more slowly than the

foreground clouds, which are moved

every frame.

Save versions of your

animation regularly. You cannot undo

once you forward a frame. You should

copy your frame stack with a new file

name and version number to keep track

of your work.