Play the PS time Axis 5 tips

With the first two articles, we already know the basics and tips for making animations, and here are 5 very useful points of knowledge to explore the PS timeline more deeply. The end of this article is accompanied by a PSD, which can be downloaded to analyze animation techniques.

　　1, using smart objects skillfully

With tips, the PS timeline can do more complex animations, and these animations are implemented more by using smart objects.

Converting to a Smart object can be n times, the deeper the conversion the higher the level of the object inheritance, each conversion can give it a different animation or style, and with the converted animation or style overlay. It is more useful for styles (for example, to add multiple projections to a layer).

Friends who have played Flash know that there is a component called movie clips, it can be flexible to overlap the animation, in the PS timeline, the Smart object is equivalent to flash movie clips, so we often need to make a good animation into a smart object and then do another animation. For example, to do a similar revolution of the Earth, the first to do the rotation of the Earth, and then converted into a smart object, then do the revolution.

It is worth noting that PS Smart objects can not be like Flash movie clips to loop, which means that all animations are based on a single time line from left to right, and do not cycle. For example, a single play animation, the animation (total scene) altogether 10 seconds, in Flash, a movie clip 5 seconds, drag the movie clip to the first frame of the total scene, preview the animation can be learned that the movie clips Loop played two times ( Of course, if you want to play at the last frame of the movie clip, add a stop code, here is not discussed flash; in PS, the smart object has 5 seconds of animation, dragged to the first frame of the timeline, preview animation can be known to play only once.

When an object (a smart object or layer) is animated before the conversion, the converted Smart Object animation length = The length of the animation before the conversion, that is, drag the animation length to the right with the maximum value, and a preview window appears next to the converted smart object when it pulls the animation length, so that you know where the animation is before you convert it. This is helpful for frame adjustment on the timeline.

When the converted object is not animated (none of the key frame switches of the object before the conversion is turned on), the converted smart Object animation length can be extended indefinitely, that is, there is no limit to dragging the animation to the right.

　　2, use clip mask skillfully

We already know from the previous chapters that only transformed action attributes are converted to smart objects, and the animation produced by the transformation has moved, scaled, rotated, chamfered, flipped, actually did not transform from one graphic to another animation production, but we often need to do such animation, such as from a circle into a square, From square to polygon, from polygon to other shapes and so on.

So you need to use a clipping mask and set it up as shown:

　　Clipping masks + zooming

For example, we want to make a circle into a rectangular animation, first draw large enough (why not to say the big enough) circle and convert it to a smart object, and then draw a rectangle, fill set 0, layer style settings such as figure:

Then add the layer mask that adds the circle to the rectangle, go to the timeline, animate the circle, turn on the key frame switch of the transformation, add the start frame key frame to zoom it out, pull the timeline to the specified position and enlarge it

The animation is finished.

While this transformation animation does not transition naturally as the shape of a professional animation tool does, it is the best way to change from one graphic to another.

Classification:

• PS Getting Started Tutorial