Pixel Art Prepare Animation

	Before you begin, make sure that you have done the Tutorial " Pixel Art Tools In PhotoImpact " and knows all the setting, cause they are always the same and save them in your Easy Palette for a fast access. Remember, no soft edge, none whatsoever. If you haven't done the little guy here, you may want to do the tutorial Pixels Art Outline Line art first. Or you may use the one I have made here on the left. Right click and save as on your computer. If you don't have any free; line art, graphic outline or color book page, you could right click on the image on the left and save as on your hard drive.
	Let's bring your image into the workspace. Convert your database to RGB. Unhide the background, if your background is an other color than white, change it to white. Let's duplicate your image and put it on the side in your work space, we will use it later on to color pick on it. Go back to your image. Zoom in at 800 %, or what ever you are comfortable with. We are going to modify the eyes, we want to make him blink.
	Select your paint brush with the pixels setting. Click on mode and paint a black horizontal line across about half of the eye. Just like in the example on the left. Since one eye is lower, you will have to make that part lower. Then make a vertical black line to divide the two eyes. Once that is done, color pick the yellow shadow color that is around the eyes. Paint the inside of each eyes. Click out of mode and save your work as ufo.
	Open your layer manager and hide the eyelid image you just did. Select your paint brush again with a black color. Click on mode. Paint a vertical black line to separate the eyes. Color pick the same color as before for the close eyelids and paint inside of each eyes. Click out of mode and save your work as ufo.
	This is what we have so far in our layer manager. You want to see, what it would look like if we animated it now? Ok, let's click on the switch text that we have at the top right corner of the PI program under the red X button and click on the Ulead Gif Animator. Don't make the mistake to click on the red X, cause this will close the PI program. Ok, this will open the Ulead Gif Animator program.
	When the program open, choose to open an image or a file. Browse where you did save your image you want to animate and select it. This is what you are going to see in UGA5( Ulead Gif Animator 5).
	Select your frame if it is not selected by clicking on it. Then right click and click on Duplicate Frame. Do this an other time, so we have a total of 3 frames.
	Select the first frame, and in the object manager on the left, we are going to hide our eye parts. This way it will only show the little guy and not the eyelids object.
	Next, we are going to select the second frame. But this time, we are only going to hide the full close lids. We only see now the little guy with half close lids in our workspace in the middle.
	Now we are going to select our last frame. But this time we are going to hide the half eyelids. It will show in the workspace, our little guy with his eyes fully close. Pretty cool hey!
	Ok Now we need to set the timing for it, pay a careful attention to this, bad timing could rune your animation no matter how beautiful your graphics are. Select your first frame. Right click and click on Frame Properties.
	This is the window that will open. Set the delay to 15 and click ok.
	Select the second frame, and set the delay at 25 Select the third frame and set the delay at 15.
	Now click on preview and see the little guy in action. You may if you want go back to edit and set the delay differently, experience with it and you will see what is better. Here is mine on the left, what it look like with the delay setting I have mention above. Once you are done, click on optimize and save your animation as a gif format. Close UGA5
	Ok great!, we are back in PI. We still have our image open. We are going to make him an other pair of legs, and will animated him later on, to get more action going on. Let's duplicate our little guy. Bring the layer down in your layer manager, look at the example on the left.
	Keep the duplicate image select and choose the Hue and Saturation under format ( this is in version 8, other version may be at other places). Set you Lightness between 33 and 42, what you are most comfortable to work with, and click ok.
	We are still in zoom, if not zoom in at 800% or so. We are going to select the paint brush with a black color. Click on mode. We are going to paint only the shoes. Paint over the black line in mode with the black color, staying in mode, change your color with the color pick tool on your image you have on the side the brown color of the shoes and paint the inside of the shoes. Once done, click out of mode, position the shoes just under the bottom of the shoes. Look at the image on the left.
	Let's select the paint brush again, click on mode. Change your color to black. Look at the image on the left to see how I did modify the pants. Drawing the black outline first, then change the color to paint the patches on the knees, then change color for the highlight on the pants and then change color for the main color of the pants. Once you are done, click out of mode, select both pants and the shoes and merge as a single object. This is what you should have on the left. Save your work.
	Duplicate the little guy again, not the fade one. You could delete the fade one we did made earlier now. In your layer manager, bring him down before the last image. Keep him selected. With the eraser set for pixels art, we are going to erase the pants and the shoes, this is the fade view on the left. Once done click on trim. We now should have left the top part of out little guy, this is the bright view on the left.
	Let's have a look in our layer manager. This is what we have so far. Let's select the bottom image.
	We are going to erase the top part of our little guy. To only keep the lower body, which are the pants and shoes. The fade part on the left is what we do erase, and the bright image, the pants and shoes is what we are going to be left with. Don't forget to trim when you're done erasing.
	Save your work. Now you are ready to go in UGA5 and start animating this little guy for more action.
	Open your image in UGA5. Zoom in on your image.
	Duplicate your frame 4 times. You will need a total of 5 frames.
	Select Frame # 1. Hide the straight legs and the two eyelids object in your object manager.
	In your work space, click on all your view objects while holding down the shift key. Just like in the example on the left. You could see that all your view object in this frame are selected.
	Now, with the down arrow, on your key board, bring him down to position him at the bottom, all the selected image will follow. Look at the example on the left. This is what you should have.
	Select Frame # 2; Hide the same parts as I did in the left example here.
	Select all your view object in your work space. With the down arrow, position like we did before. Look at the example on the left.
	Select Frame # 3: Hide the objects in the object manager like in the example on the left. Select your view object in your workspace and position the same way as we did before.
	Select Frame # 5: Hide the objects just like in the example on the left here. Select all your view object in your workspace and position as before.
	Select your last frame, which is Frame # 5: Hide your object just like in the example on the left here. Select your view object in your workspace. Using the same procedure, position as before. But this time, push the down arrow one more time. This will make him, spring a little.
	Select all your frames, and right click, click on properties and set your delay at 15.
	Now click on preview. This is what you are suppose to see on the left. Pretty cool hey!. Now you just have to optimize and save your animated gif. Now it is up to you to try to modify other parts of our little guy or modify the parts that we did differently and animated it.
Hope you did learn something new and had as much fun as I did had to write the tutorial for you. If you are posting to The Pirc forums, post your animation in the Animation forum, but you could always post a link in the pixels art forum that you have made the part and animated it. If you want to only post the prepared parts, please post in the Pixels Art Forum, not the finish animated result, we want to keep everything where it should be. If you want some help or critic, please use the critics Icon and in the pixels art forum, post as well a screen shot of a zoom, so I could see better your work and help you out. It won't be possible for me every time to download your work and open in PI to zoom on it. Thanks. Don't forget to show result at PhotoImpact International Board, I would love to see it. If you are not a member, you just have to register, it is free. Don't forget to grab your award.