User Guide

Academic Courseware: Chapter 7
Joyce Ryan
65
Chapter 7
Animating with Strokes
Imagine being able to animate simply with a stroke of the brush! Now
imagine creating a brush that consists of the stages of a man walking.
Imagine recording drawing with that brush, and automatically creating
an animation of your character walking wherever your brush wandered!
Working with the Image Hose
To begin, we will create a simple cycle of a butterfly flapping its wings.
Create a butterfly nozzle for the Image Hose
1 Open a new file, 320 x 240 at 72 ppi and call it Butrfly.rif.
2 Create a new layer and name it Butterfly 1. Sketch the first position
of your butterfly using one of the brush variants. Experiment with a
variety of brushes to get an “ink” line that you like.
3 Using the inbetweening skills you learned in chapter 3, create 8
positions for your butterfly cycle, each on its own layer.
Cycles are great for
animating anything that needs to be
repeated. Walks are especially good
candidates for cycling, as well as birds
flying, butterflies fluttering, eyes
blinking, water spilling, flames
flickering—all are worth animating
as cycles.