Chasing My Heart Tutorial

All the supplies you will need can be downloaded here.

You will also need Animation Shop & Squirlz Water Reflections 2.

Plug Ins Needed For This Tutorial

FM Tile Tools - Blend Emboss - here

Mura's Seamless - Shadow - here

Xero - Seasons - here

Xero - Mistifier - here

Adjust Variations - here

Chasing My Heart Tutorial

Open up all the materials and place them in the right places. Font to fonts, gradient to gradients,
images to psp file and so on. This tutorial was written for PSP 9.

1. Open a transparent image 640 x 480.

2. Go into your material properties and bring up the materials palette.

3. Foreground color #217486 or choose your own

4. Background color #000000 or choose your own

5. Flood fill your transparent image with your background color.

6. Layers - New Raster Layer

7. Flood fill your transparent image with your foreground color.

8. Open image 1 - Gertjes Mask 21 - chasing my heart - Layers - New Mask Layer - From Image -
Source Luminance - checked, Invert mask data - checked. Apply mask.

9. Layers - Merge - Merge Group

10. Effects - FM Tile Tools - Blend Emboss - Default Settings. Repeat

11. Freehand tool - Settings - Selection - Freehand, Mode - Add, Feather - 14, Smoothing - 10
anti alias - checked.

12. Materials Palette - Highlight image 1 - group . Use the freehand tool to remove the oval area around
the inside of the mask. When you are happy with your result hit delete once and it should be black.

13. Open image 2 - monique - chasing my heart. Edit. copy and paste as a new layer. Blend
Mode - Normal - Opacity - 100. Move to the leftish side of the oval.

14. Materials Palette - Move Image 2 - monique under the group layer.

15. Open image 3 - nikita - chasing my heart. Edit. copy and paste as a new layer. Blend
Mode - Normal - Opacity - 100. Move to the right lower corner so that his head is just almost
touching or touching the water inside the oval.

16. Materials Palette - Move Image 3 - nikita under the group layer.

17. Layers - Merge All Flat

18. Effects - FM Tile Tools - Blend Emboss - Default Settings

19. Layers - Duplicate Layer

20. Effects - 3D Effects - Cutout - Settings - Vertical - 35, Horizontal - 35, Shadow Color - black, Opacity - 75,
Blur - 100.

21. Effects - 3D Effects - Cutout - Settings - Vertical - -35 (minus 35), Horizontal - -35 (minus 35) , Shadow
Color - black, Opacity - 75, Blur - 100.

22. Layers - Merge all flat

23. Effects - Mura's Seamless - Shadow - Settings - Offset X - 132, Offset Y - 132, Color R - 0,
Color G - 0, Color B - 0, Effects - 255.

24. Effects - Xero - Seasons - Settings - Red Cut/Boost - 0, Green Cut/Boost - 5, Blue Cut/Boost - 5,
Effect Strength - 255.

25. Effects - Xero - Mistifier - Settings - Haziness - 128, Strength - 128, Red Mist - 255,
Green Mist - 255 - Blue Mist - 255

26. Adjust - Brightness and Contrast - Clarify - Setting - Strength of Effect - 1.

27. Open image 4 - sbg text - chasing my heart. Edit. copy and paste as a new layer. Blend
Mode - Normal - Opacity - 100. Move to the lower center of the background on the bottom
part of the oval but within the frame of the oval

28. Effects - 3D Effects - Drop Shadow - Settings - Vertical - 1, Horizontal - 1, Opacity - 100, Blur - 1,
Color - Black .

29. Layers - Duplicate Layer

30. Layers - Merge All Flat

31. Image - Add Border - 2 pixels. Flood - fill with sbg gold pattern sample or color of your choice.

32. Adjust - Sharpness - Sharpen. - Repeat - Selections - Deselect.

33. Image - Add Border - 6 pixels. Select with Magic wand.

34. Foreground color #217486 or choose your own

35. Background color #000000 or choose your own

36. Materials Palette - make a gradient with your two colors - Settings - Angle - 45, Repeats - 0,
Style - Linear. Invert - unchecked

37. Flood fill your transparent image with your gradient color.

38. Effects - Texture Effects - Blinds - Settings - Width - 2, Opacity - 50, Color - Black, Light from
left/top - checked

39. Adjust - Sharpness - Sharpen.

40. Effects - 3D Effects - Inner Bevel - Settings - Bevel - Straight (1), Width - 20, Smoothness - 2, Depth - 2,
Ambience - 8, Shininess - 18, Color - white, Angle - 315, Intensity - 37, Elevation - 37.

41. Selections - Select None.

42. Image - Add Border - 2 pixels. Flood - fill with sbg gold pattern sample or color of your choice.

43. Adjust - Sharpness - Sharpen. - Repeat - Selections - Deselect.

44. Image - Add Border - 30 pixels. Select border with magic wand. Edit - copy and paste into the selection
with sbg border pattern - chasing my heart

45. Layers - New Raster Layer

46. Edit - copy and paste into the selection with sbg border pattern - chasing my heart

47. Materials Palette - Highlight new raster layer flood filled with #560606. Blend Mode - Soft
Light - Opacity- 50.

48. Layers - Merge All Flat

49. Effects - Adjust - Variations - click on original and then click on darker once.

50. Effects - FM Tile Tools - Blend Emboss - Default Settings. Repeat

51. Effects - 3D Effects - Inner Bevel - Settings - Bevel - Edge (3), Width - 8, Smoothness - 0, Depth - 4,
Ambience - -30, Shininess - 0, Color - white, Angle - 315, Intensity - 50, Elevation - 50

52. Selections - Select None.

53 Image - Add Border - 2 pixels. Flood - fill with sbg gold pattern sample or color of your choice.

54. Adjust - Sharpness - Sharpen. - Repeat - Selections - Deselect.

55. Image - Add Border - 6 pixels. Select with Magic wand.

56. Foreground color #217486 or choose your own

57. Background color #000000 or choose your own

58. Materials Palette - make a gradient with your two colors - Settings - Angle - 45, Repeats - 0,
Style - Linear. Invert - unchecked

59. Flood fill your transparent image with your gradient color.

60. Effects - Texture Effects - Blinds - Settings - Width - 2, Opacity - 50, Color - Black, Light from
left/top - checked

61. Adjust - Sharpness - Sharpen.

62. Effects - 3D Effects - Inner Bevel - Settings - Bevel - Straight (1), Width - 20, Smoothness - 2, Depth - 2,
Ambience - 8, Shininess - 18, Color - white, Angle - 315, Intensity - 37, Elevation - 37.

63. Selections - Select None.

64. Image - Add Border - 2 pixels. Flood - fill with sbg gold pattern sample or color of your choice.

65. Adjust - Sharpness - Sharpen. - Repeat - Selections - Deselect.

66. Text Tool - Settings - Create as - vector, Direction - up and down, Font - NotnorvalHmk Size - 12,
Stroke width - 1, Font Style - Bold/Italic, Alignment - center, Anti-alias - sharp, Line style - solid. Type in your
name or initials.

67. Layers Palette - Select Vector layer and click on the plus sign in front of it. Click on the text and right
click your mouse. A menu will open up. Scroll up to properties and click on it. Stroke should be checked
and the little box should have your gold pattern in it. Fill should also be checked and should have your
black background color in it. Stroke width should be 1 and the line style should be solid. Visible
should be checked. Anti-alias should be checked. Once all these are correct click okay.

68. Layer Palette - Highlight your vector layer, right click on your mouse and convert to raster layer.

69. Effects - 3D effects - drop shadow - settings: vertical 1 - horizontal 1 -
opacity 50 - blur 5 - color black. Adjust - Sharpness - Sharpen

70. Layers - Duplicate Layer. Repeat.

71. As an alternative you may use your watermark.

72. Layers - Merge all flat

73. File - Name and Save as a jpeg.

74. Open Squirlz Water Reflections Program.

75. Click on the green folder and find the image you saved as a jpeg.

76. Click on Outline and then click on begin. Draw and outline around the oval in the mask. If you only
go a short distance before using left click to keep it there you get a more oval looking oval .
Right click your mouse when finished.

77. Click on the Y and choose rain/snow. Click okay.

78. Click on the rain and choose these settings. Rain - checked, Within outline only - checked,
Number of rain - 905, Width - 6, Brightness - 255, Speed -1, Softness - 0, Transparency - 50,
Depth of Field - 10, Direction Variation - 50, Direction - 213. Click on the x.

79. Check your animation by clicking on the yellow arrow. Click the yellow arrow again to stop the
animation.

80. Click on avi to save your animation. Click okay and a box will come up. Name your animation
and click okay. It will save it in 15 frames. Click okay. It will save full frames. Click okay. It will build
your animation and tell you it has been saved. Click okay.

81. You can close out Squirlz and open Animation Shop. Bring up your saved animation from
Squirlz in Animation Shop. It will ask if you want all the frames. Click okay.

82. Click edit and select all.

83. Click on animation scroll down and click on cull animation.

84. A new window will come up. It should say remove 1 frame for every 2 frames, 20 candidate
frames, 10 frames will be removed by this operation, 10 frames will remain after this operation.
Click on okay. I usually repeat this step again so I only have 5 frames.

85. To check on your animation click on the little filmstrip. Close your animation when you are done.

86. To slow down your animation, click on animation and scroll down to frame properties.

87. A new window will pop up. For this tut I chose a setting of 10 but you can set this wherever
you would like it to be. Click on okay when you are done.

88. Check your animation again with the little filmstrip.

89. Once you are satisfied with your animation, go to file, scroll down to save as and click on it.

90. Name your animation and click on save. I will usually add something to the name so I don't
replace the animation saved from Squirlz just in case. Make sure you save it as a gif.

91. A new window will pop up. Click on next.

92. A new window will pop up. Click on next.

93. A new window will pop up. Click on next.

94. A new window will pop up. Click on finish. make sure you pay attention to the optimized file
size because yahoo will not allow stationary or files larger than 1 mb.

95. If you need to make your optimized file smaller still, you will need to repeat steps 81 through
92 again.

96. If you are finally satisfied with the outcome, you are finished in your Animation Shop.

97. If you are satisfied with your image then you are finished.

98. You are now all done and I hope you enjoyed this tut.

 

Credits
 
Mists by Sabrina Buck Graphics
 
Song Credit
Song is Listen To The Falling Rain by The Cascades.

Created March 30, 2008

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© Sabrina Buck Graphics 2005 - 2008. All Rights Reserved.