Adding Animation Effects to a Static Image

[Monster Dave]

Hey everyone,

I have an image (seen below) of a strand of DNA and what I'd like to do is add a traveling star burst of light down one side of the DNA strand moving from the top left to bottom right and then refresh and rerun.



Does anyone know how to go about doing something like that? The actual image that I'm working with is significantly larger than the example above. Also, I have CS4 at my disposal (the entire Adobe Professional Suite) but not too much experience in this particular area.

Thanks for the help!

[mitt]

I have done animated .gifs using gimp.  You basically make a series of individual gif frames, then sew them together into a single animated gif file.  You have to have enough frames to make it look fluid enough. 

I am sure there are fancier ways with flash but I don't know them.


mitt

[Monster Dave]

I think that I have GIMP installed but I never bothered to learn how to use it...



Any other ideas?

[mitt]

I think that I have GIMP installed but I never bothered to learn how to use it...

it isn't hard - and there are a ton of howtos out there since it is open source

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/1664.html


http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Simple_Animations/


http://www.csb.yale.edu/userguides/image/moviemaker/anim_gif.html



mitt

[Slide Panda]

What format does the final product need to be in?

If you have CS4 then Flash or AfterEffects are the tools best suited for animation. Flash can export as an animated gif... But an animated gif really isn't the best format to render an animation. The file will be a lot bigger than say a SWF If you have 24 fps to make it look smooth and also the gif is limited to 256 colors - which might make it look crappy

[Monster Dave]

The only constraints that I have for formatting is that it has to be able to be used at a web site banner.

[mitt]

The only constraints that I have for formatting is that it has to be able to be used at a web site banner.

Our banner ads above are all gif, but we request the sponsors no animation to keep things less busy visually.


mitt

[Slide Panda]

If it's going on the web than Flash is what you'll want. It's got the tools you need for the art and animation. And since it's intended for web use, the rendered file (.SWF) will be pretty small, a lot smaller than an animated GIF of comprible quality.

To help you out look for tutorials about tween easing and tweening along a path.

[Monster Dave]

Thanks guys for your input. Conceptually I know what I want to see as an end result, but getting there is my challenge. I started looking at GIMP but am not sure that I will end up using it for this project - it's a bit difficult for me to figure out. It may serve me better to work with Adobe since I have the suite and use some of it in different regards.

I'll post up if I get anywhere so that you can see what I'm doing (if you're interested).


Thanks again! 

[somegirl]

If it's going on the web than Flash is what you'll want. It's got the tools you need for the art and animation. And since it's intended for web use, the rendered file (.SWF) will be pretty small, a lot smaller than an animated GIF of comprible quality.

Except that a lot of us have Flash blockers so we'll never see the banner at all.

[Monster Dave]

Except that a lot of us have Flash blockers so we'll never see the banner at all.

Why would you have "flash blockers" in place? Are they easily exploited?

Even if you do though, a website should show the flash symbol and let you know that the site requires flash to display properly.

[somegirl]

Why would you have "flash blockers" in place? Are they easily exploited?

Even if you do though, a website should show the flash symbol and let you know that the site requires flash to display properly.

Because Flash is annoying and sucks bandwidth.

I have a little button I can click on to activate the flash.  If it's clearly just a banner then I wouldn't bother.

[Monster Dave]

Because Flash is annoying and sucks bandwidth.

Would you elaborate why you find it annoying?

As for the sucking up bandwith, what type of connection and speed are you seeing bandwith consumption increases?

[Slide Panda]

Because Flash is annoying and sucks bandwidth.

I have a little button I can click on to activate the flash.  If it's clearly just a banner then I wouldn't bother.

It only sucks bandwidth when poorly done. Done well and it's smaller than raster stuff... but that's not really the point. But, I'm not including the use of audio/video that's embedded in that flash file - which will make it pretty big

It can be used to be *really* annoying. For examples, those ads you see in a sidebar that suddenly take over the page, obscuring the content you want to see below whatever ware the ad is hawking - That's the reason a lot of people have blockers.

Some business IT will block them - AND as of right now iPhones cannot display flash content.

[Monster Dave]

It only sucks bandwidth when poorly done. Done well and it's smaller than raster stuff... but that's not really the point. But, I'm not including the use of audio/video that's embedded in that flash file - which will make it pretty big

It can be used to be *really* annoying. For examples, those ads you see in a sidebar that suddenly take over the page, obscuring the content you want to see below whatever ware the ad is hawking - That's the reason a lot of people have blockers.

Some business IT will block them - AND as of right now iPhones cannot display flash content.

I see what you mean. I'm not going anywhere near that. I just want to make our web banner more (pardon the punn) flashy.