PhotoshopCS3 Tutorial: timeline animation-PS tutorial

Through the previous course, we have learned how to use the key frame transition and the independent layer to create an animation. They can be used to make some simple single-object animation, which is also the only way to create an animation in Photoshop for a long time. Today, we want to learn a new way to use the timeline to create an animation. The timeline method is widely used in many movies and videos. through the previous courses, we have learned how to use the key frame transition and the independent layer to make animations. They can be used to make some simple single-object animation, which is also the only way to create an animation in Photoshop for a long time. Today we are going to learn a new way of using Timeline animation. Timeline is widely used in many video production software, such as Premiere and AfterEffects. Flash is also used in this way.
There are still many operations not mentioned in the key frame Transition animation, because they are not related to the timeline method, and the timeline will be the main way for us to create the animation in the future, so we will skip it.
To unify the materials, click here to download the materials file, decompress the PSD file, and enable it in Photoshop. this is a file without frame settings (you can also use your own production ). As shown in. Because the text layer is used, the replacement option may appear because the font is missing after it is enabled. you can choose to replace it with the default font. although the default font is not beautiful, the teaching is the same.
The PSD file contains three layers (the background layer is not counted), two of which are the text layer and the other is the vector shape layer. If you do not know what the vector shape layer is, the basic part is not well mastered.
　　
Click the button in the lower-right corner of the Animation Board to switch to the timeline mode, as shown in. Careful readers will notice that the name of the board is changed to "animation (timeline)", and the previous one is "animation (frame )". The button in the lower-right corner is changed to the original frame mode.
Note that these two methods are incompatible, so do not switch during the production process. If the switchover fails by mistake, you can use the undo command 'Ctrl ALT Z' to recover it.
　　
In the timeline, we can see the name of a layer similar to the layer palette, and its height and position are the same as that of the layer palette. Click the arrow icon on the left of the layer to show all the animation items of the layer, that is, the animation elements. The animation items are also different in different layers. Different properties refer to normal layers, normal layers with masks, Text layers, and adjustment layers. As shown in the left figure below, there are two animated items: the text layer of "no intention to stay" and the expanded vector shape layer of "Shape 1. There are positions, opacity, and style in total. The difference is that the text layer has a "text deformation" project while the vector shape layer has two more projects related to the mask.

Animation Creation cannot exceed the animation items of the layer itself. for example, you cannot perform "text deformation" on the shape layer ". However, some animation projects can be added later. for example, you can add a mask to the text layer to enable it to have an animation project with a mask.
There is a set of numbers 0: 00: 00: 00 in the upper-left corner of the palette. this is the current time code. the values start from the right end in milliseconds, seconds, minutes, and hours. This generally takes seconds. There is a 30.00fps behind the time code, which is the frame rate, indicating the number of frames per second. Generally, the value is an integer, and the decimal frame rate is used in video editing.
Click the button in the upper-right corner of the animation board and select "document settings". The Timeline settings shown in the right figure are displayed. You can specify the total length of the animation and the frame rate. According to the default settings, the total length is 10 seconds, 30 frames per second, so the total number of frames is 300 frames, which is a very large value for web animation, it occupies a large number of bytes, which is not conducive to network transmission. Now we change the duration to 5 seconds and the frame rate to 5 fps. After confirmation, the new frame rate indicator is displayed in the animation board.
　　　
　
　　
As shown in, when the animation board is scaled up horizontally, time signs such as and are displayed, in seconds. The rightmost end of the timeline is the total length of 5 seconds just set. Drag the slider pointed by the Red Arrow to the right to enlarge the details of the timeline. the enlarged timeline is displayed in the red box area. We can see that there are signs like 01f and 02f between seconds. this is the frame. We just set 5 fps, so there are 5 frames every two seconds. Although we only see the maximum 04f, we need to know that 05f is actually overlapped. Therefore, it is expressed as 01: 00f, which means that it is both the first second and a frame.
Note that there is an inconspicuous thin line between two orange arrows, which is a rendering buffer indicator. other video editing software also has this indicator, but it does not play a very important role in Photoshop, it will be mentioned later in the course.
　　
In the next section, we will use the timeline to create a specific animation instance.