ROTATION AND REDUCTION EFFECTS

The Tapptoons Animation Studio has facilities to Rotate and Reduce bitmaps to achieve animated effects with characters or text. The following tutorial takes a line of text and rotates it towards the camera starting from 5% of it`s ultimate size and turning 360 degrees.

If you haven`t already got a Project started then start up the Animation Studio, created a Project and give a name to the first scene.

Click on the Start Scanning button....

 

Choose the Drawing option on the Choose Image Source form

This will bring up the Draw Frames Form. Go to and select the Text menu item.

Click on Select Font and choose one and a size of 48 point or thereabouts, then click on Text Colour and choose the main colour for the text face. If you want a drop shadow click on the Add Drop Shadow check box then click on Shadow Colour and select a colour for the shadow. Type the word " Tapptoons" or whatever word you wish in the text window.

Remember to highlight the text you`ve typed by clicking and dragging the mouse over the text BEFORE clicking on the Continue button.

 The Text Form will then hide itself and you can left-click on the Draw Frames Form image so as to centre the text. If you don`t get it right first time click on the Undo toolbar button and try again.

 

When the text is fixed to your satisfaction got to the File menu and select Exit to return to the Main Scanning and Editing Form.

Select the frame A0001 from the Dope Sheet and then enter 19 in the How Many Frames box on the Dope Sheet Edit Form. Then select the Duplicate With New Numbers option to make 19 copies of the frame you`ve just created. You should now have twenty frames numbered A0001 to A0020. Select the A0019 frame on the Dope Sheet.

On the Dope Sheet Edit Form select Modify Current Frame and then click on the Do It! button.

On the Draw Frames Form go to the Rotate menu and select the number 10 from the list. The image should then rotate 10 degrees counter-clockwise.

Click on the arrow at the extreme left of the Scroll Bar below the image and move to Frame A0018. Return to the Rotate menu and select the number 30 from the list. this frame will then be rotated. Click again on the extreme left of the Scroll Bar and move to frame A0017.

This time choose the number 60. Repeat these actions until you`ve reached the 300 option after which you can go to the number 350 to "cushion" the effect of the rotation.

 

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Use the arrow on the extreme right of the Scroll Bar to return to Frame A0019. Go to the Reduce menu option and select 95% from the drop-down list.

The image will be reduced to 95% of its former size.

Use the left arrow on the Scroll Bar to move to Frame A0018. Return to the Reduce menu and select the 90% option from the drop-down list.

Work your way down the frames till you reach 5% and use 5% on any remaining frames in the sequence.

When you play back the animation the title will zoom towards the `camera` and rotating 360 degrees as it does so.

You can set values other than the MENU options by selecting CUSTOM from the menu and filling in your own value between 1% and 99% on the SPIN EDIT box that will show itself

 

These effects can be combine with LEVEL MOVES and/or TRACK IN or OUT effects.

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From version 4.5.0.1 onwards of the Tapptoons Animation Studio some of the above proceures can be done automatically for you using the new Custom Rotation and Custom Reduction forms below.

 

When you wish to change all of the images in a given Dope Sheet column select the 'Apply to All Images..' button.

The images can all be changed to the same percentage reduction or you can start at a given setting by altering the value in the Spin Edit box (in the illustration above it is set at 50 percent) then clicking on the Start Set button.

Then change the Spin Edit box value to the percentage value you want the final frame to be given and click on the End Set button. The values will appear at the side of the buttons.

Then click on the Continue button.

(Please note that this procedure can only deal in whole numbers and not fractions. If you want to finish on 98 percent but start on 35 percent over 24 frames the percentage step per image would be 2.625 but will in reality be rounded down to 2 percent per frame and the start frame adjusted to suit the process. Therefore the reduction value for the Start Frame will be higher than you originally wanted)

If you started at 26 percent and finished at 98 the step value would be exactly 3 (over 24 frames) and your chosen Start Frame reduction value would apply.

The same principles apply with the Custom Rotation form shown below.

  

 

  

 

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