PhotoPlus X2 User Guide - Serif

Getting started with animation
Creating Animations 155
Animation creates an illusion of motion or change by displaying a series of still
pictures, rapidly enough to fool the eye—or more accurately, the brain. With
PhotoPlus, it's easy to create and edit images with multiple frames, then export
them as animated GIFs that a Web browser can play back, or AVI movies for
multimedia applications. You use exactly the same tools and interface as for
creating standard, multi-layer PhotoPlus images, with an extra tab, the Animation
tab, that includes all the additional controls you need to set up frames, add special
effects, and preview the animation. Once you're satisfied, use the Export Optimizer
to output to Animated GIF or AVI movie.
PhotoPlus gives you the choice of creating your animations from scratch,
importing a .GIF or .AVI file to edit, or converting existing photos to an animation
by selecting Convert to Animation from the File menu. Either way, once
PhotoPlus detects an animation file, it switches on the Animation tab. If the image
file is new, you'll see a single, blank frame, labelled "Frame 1." If you've imported an
animation, the tab displays each frame separately. Animation files can have one
layer, or many (see below), but all their layers are standard (transparent) layers;
there's no Background layer. If a photo is used, the first frame will be the photo
image.
The Animation tab only displays when an animation is currently open.
Layers and frames
Animations are created in the Animation tab (docked next to the Documents tab
at the bottom of your workspace) which works in conjunction with the Layers tab.
The tab displays a sequence of frame thumbnails. Each frame is a different state of
the image, defined in terms of which layers are shown or hidden, the position of
content on each shown layer, and the opacity of each shown layer.