How tocreate an animation with Revelation Natural Art.

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About This GuideThis guide will run through the basics of creating an animated image in Revelation Natural Art using animation tools, creating frames and saving your animation as a file format compatible with other programs.

The Animation ToolbarThe main controls for animation are contained within this toolbar.

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Previous and Next Frame ItemJumps back and forth between each frame.

Animation Player ControlsPlays forwards, backwards and stops your animation.

Insert New Before and After Add a new frame before or after the current frame.

Delete Frame ItemDelete the frame you are viewing or have selected.

OrganiserDisplays the Frame Viewer at the bottom of the screen.

Show and Specify HotSpotSets a reference point within the frame item.

Onion SkinsDisplays a watermark of the previous frame.

Animation OrganiserThis appears when the ‘organiser’ button on the animation toolbar is clicked. This area displays the frames of your animation and allows you to create, delete and control certain aspects of your animation fames.

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Edit contains copy, paste, insert and delete options for that particular frame.

An important option for animation is the Set Delay button which allows you to speed up or down the animation.

Animation contains options in controlling order and visual settings of your animation.

Right click on a frame to bring up options to edit and control certain animation settings.

Once frames are created the organiser will show each frame in order of play.

Making a BackgroundIt’s good practice to first draw and save the part of your background that will remain unchanged throughout the animation. This will stop you having to re-draw the background for each frame.

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1. Click page properties to change the size of the frame, or just use the default page size.

2. Draw your background using the drawing tools

3. IMPORTANT! Now save the file as ‘background’.This will be used later to save you re-drawing the background for each frame.

Beginning the AnimationBegin to draw your frame with your animated object in the starting position. Once this slide is correct re-save this file as a different file name.

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1. Click the Organiser button to make the frame organiser appear.

2. Draw any animations that will appear on your first frame.

3. Your frames will appear here.

4. IMPORTANT! Now ‘save as’ your file with a different file name, ‘car_animation’ for example.

Creating a New FrameOnce your file is saved you can begin creating the next frame. You will also import the original background from the saved file to save it from being re-drawn for every frame (time saving).

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2. Click the Onion Skin button to have the previous frame image as a guideline.

1. Click insert new frame after item to create the next frame.

4. You will also notice that a new frame is displayed in the frame organiser. You can go back and forth between them by clicking the frame.

5. IMPORTANT! Load another Revelation Natural Art programme window from the start menu.Open the previously made ‘background’ file and ‘select all’ of the page from Edit options and ‘copy’. Now go back to your animation file and ‘paste’ on to your 2nd frame.(You’ll need to do this for each frame that uses this background)

3. Note the faint image of the previous frame after the onion skin is turned on.

Animating the New FrameAfter creating the new frame and importing the background you can continue to animate your moving objects. Make good use of the onion skins feature when drawing the next frame to make the objects the move more accurately.

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Use the onion skins to help you draw the next frame in your animation.

Don’t forget to set the delay speed for your frames as the current speed maybe too fast. (Right click over the frame to bring up the menu to set the delay)

Now you can continue this process with the rest of the frames in your animation.You can be as creative as you like using as many moving objects or even change the back ground if the background if the story requires it.Top TipThe more frames you use for each movement the smoother the animation will look but don’t use too many because it would take you too long to make!

Saving your Animation as a GIFOnce you have finished making the frames of your animation you will need to save the file as a GIF to insert into a program where it can be displayed.

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1. Click ‘Save as’ from the file menu.

2. The ‘Save as’ dialogue box will appear.

3. Choose GIF as the file type from the ‘Files of type’ drop down list.

4. Select the folder you want to save to, then click the ‘Save’ button.

Inserting the Animation into Microsoft PowerPointMicrosoft PowerPoint supports animated files saved in GIF format. To insert an animated GIF into a PowerPoint Presentation file, first open the PowerPoint file you want to add the animation to and go to the appropriate slide.

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1. From the Insert menu, choose ‘Picture’ then ‘From File’.

2. Find where you have saved the file, select and insert the GIF file.

Inserting the Animation into TexteaseTextease also supports animated GIFs which can be inserted into your Textease file.

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1. Click the Resource Bank and click the ‘My Resources’ and find your animation file.

2. Select your animation file and click ‘Open’.

3. To make the animation play automatically and continuously, select the animation and click the Effects button. Tick ‘Continuous’, untick ‘ Play button’ and click the green ‘Play’ symbol then close the Animation options window.