Gimpdome

This tutorial is dedicated to Kreuger!  Sorry for taking so long to get to it; I hope your patience will be rewarded.

Here's a sample result:



This tutorial requires the use of Art of Illusion 3D program.  You won't need any special plugins to get the final result; however, it's a good idea to have the most recent version installed.  I'm using version 2.5.1.  Your interface may look slightly different than mine.  Don't worry, I just have a special theme installed.

I will be using an eye texture created by HiTech_HillBilly as described in his tutorial here:  Creating an Eye Texture  I'll be using the blue one he posted in this thread: Eye Textures  Either download one of his or make your own, but make sure you've got your eye texture!

Here's the one I'm using:



The forum automatically resizes images above a certain size.  If an image looks low quality to you and you're using FF, just right-click on the image and choose View Image to see a full-size, full-quality version.  I don't know what IE/Other Browser users need to do! 

Step 1 - Create the Sphere

Open up Art of Illusion and choose the Create Sphere Button   



While holding down the Shift key, drag out a sphere in any one of the view windows.  Your result should resemble this:



Next, double-click on the "Sphere" text in the Objects Menu



and set the size of your sphere as shown (you don't have to use the same settings as me) and then hit OK to accept the changes.



Step 2 - Texturing the Sphere

Now, right-click on the "Sphere" text in the Objects Menu and choose "Set Texture..." from the dropdown:



The following window will appear:



Choose the "New Texture..." Button and fill out the next window like below and then choose OK to accept:



A new window will appear that lets us set some texturing options.  Single-Click the Diffuse Color box as highlighted below.



Select the "Load..." Button as highlighted and tell Art of Illusion where to find your eye texture that you made/saved above (you did do that, right?)



Now that the texture has been loaded, choose OK as shown:



You'll now be taken back to the main Image Mapped Texture Window where you can set some other values (maybe adjust the specularity or shininess values on the right side of the window).  After you've made your changes, choose the OK button to accept.



You'll notice in the preview window what how your texture has been mapped to the sphere.  If you've been following my steps exactly, you might notice it's mapped quite nicely.  However, maybe your texture looks a little odd.  If so, I'll show you how to fix that issue next.

When that window closes, the Object Texture window will again appear.



Click the Edit Mapping... button to edit how your texture is placed on the sphere.

In the Texture Mapping Window, set the mapping to Projection (generally for spherical objects you would use the spherical setting, but projection works nicely here).  Also, experiment with the various settings and make sure you check the "Scale Texture to Object" box.  Here are the settings I've used:



Step 3 - Animating the Eye

Basically, I'm going to show you how to do a simple eye rotation as in my preview above.  Animation in Art of Illusion is something I know very little about.  But, this is a pretty simple operation, that won't take too long.

If you look near the bottom of the Art of Illusion window, you'll see a thick bar that has up and down pointer near the left side.  Place your cursor over this bar and it should turn into a two-headed arrow.  Once it does, click and hold the left mouse button and drag up until you see the Score Window appear (this is where you can manipulate your animations).

Score Bar



Score Window



Make sure your sphere is selected in the object window as shown in the upper right of my previous screenshot.  Look at the Score Window and you'll notice that there are two default animation "tracks": position and rotation.  Art of Illusion automatically adds these to every object because they are common animation styles.  We will use the rotation track; however, in your future animations, you may not need either of these track styles.  That's perfectly ok, as there are others you can use.  But, I will only be discussing the rotation track today.

In the Score Window, highlight the Rotation Track as I've shown below:



Next, go to the Animation Menu > Keyframe Selected Tracks (or you can use Ctrl+K)



This will add an option that tells Art of Illusion what an object is supposed to be doing at a particular time.  You should now see a little diamond as shown below, which indicates that a keyframe has been added.



Double-click on the keyframe (little diamond) to modify its settings as shown below.  Since we are at the beginning of the animation, we don't want any rotation for any axis.  So, I set all my values to 0.  (Feel free to experiment).  Click the OK button to accept the changes.



Now, let's add 3 more keyframes.  I won't show the screenshots again, but you can either go to the Animations Menu and add the keyframes or just do a Ctrl+K.  I recommend you add them one at a time and change the settings as shown below before adding the next keyframe.  Remember, just double-click on the little diamond to make changes.

For keyframe 2, here are the settings I've used (again experiment): X: -7.5 ; Y: 25 ; Z: .8 ; Time: 1.0
For keyframe 3, here are the settings I've used (again experiment): X: -30 ; Y: -25 ; Z: .8 ; Time: 2.0
For keyframe 4, here are the settings I've used (again experiment): X: 0 ; Y: 0 ; Z: 0 ; Time: 3.0

With all of those keyframes set, you could grab the Time View / Position Marker (green line in Score Window) and move it back and forth and you would probably see your sphere rotate around a little bit (although it might be hard to see much depending on which view type you have set). 

Time View / Position Marker


Here's a screenshot of all my keyframes:



Step 4 - Adjusting the Light and Environment Settings

Art of Illusion adds a single default light to every scene you create.  It's a Directional Light.  For this tutorial, we will only use this light.  Double-click the Light in the Objects Window as shown:



and then set the parameters as I have in the next screenshot:



Choose OK to accept the changes.

Next, let's adjust our environment settings.  I won't go into the specifics here, just follow along!  Go to Scene Menu > Environment...



In the Environment Properties window that appears, click on the Ambient Color swatch and change its color to black.  Do the same for the Environment Color swatch and make sure that Solid Color is selected from the dropdown as shown:

Environment Properties



Color Settings Window



Choose OK to accept the changes and close the window.

Step 5 - Rendering the Animation

Next, let's tell Art of Illusion to render our animation!  But, before we do that, maybe you want to see what your animation will look like.  Art of Illusion will let you do a preview of your renders - they don't look the best - but, at least you'll get the idea of what the final product will resemble.  So, go to the Animation Menu > Preview Animation (Ctrl+P)



and set the parameters like so:



Choose OK to see a preview of your animation. (The final result will definitely look much better!)  Then, when you're finished, close the preview window.  If you want to make changes to the way the animation looks, adjust the keyframes as necessary until you're satisfied.  Once you're happy, let's start our render.....

Go to Scene Menu > Render Scene... (Ctrl+R)



In the Rendering Options window, set the parameters as shown:



Before choosing the OK button, click the Output... button:



and make the settings like so:



Choose OK to accept and then OK to close the Rendering Options Window.  You will then be greeted by another window allowing you to choose the format you want to export to.  Since we're going to use transparency, png is a good choice:



Another window will pop up asking you where to save each of your rendered images:



When you decide on the location, hit save and Art of Illusion will begin the rendering process.  Depending on the dimensions of your image, number of lights, reflections, etc., and computer speed, the rendering process could take awhile.  But, in our case, it shouldn't be too long.

Step 6 - Compiling the Animation in GIMP

After Art of Illusion has finished the rendering process, you need to compile each of the frames in GIMP to produce the animation.  That is a very simple process!

Open GIMP and go to File > Open... (Ctrl+O)



and select ONLY the first rendered frame.



Now, manually open up the folder where you stored your rendered images.  Since I'm a Windows user, I'll go through Windows Explorer (Windows key + E) - keep in mind this is Windows Explorer NOT Internet Explorer!

Once in the folder, select ALL of your rendered images, with the EXCEPTION of the first image (that one's already in GIMP).  If you've used the same render settings as I did, you should have 44 images selected (you should have a total of 45 images in all).

Now, here's the important part.....Put your cursor of the first SELECTED image of the bunch (in my case Untitled0002.png), click and hold down the mouse button and drag your cursor (all of the selected images will be in tow) over to the GIMP image window and release your mouse button.  GIMP will automatically place the images in their proper order in the stack.  If you placed your cursor over any other image than the first selected image, the results won't be correct.  GIMP places images, starting with the one you were hovering over when you clicked and dragged.

Now, before we do anything else, let's add a delay to the first layer in the stack (the one on the bottom).  Double-click the layer name and type in something like I have below):



The number of ms is how fast the layer pauses before moving to the next layer.  2000ms is 2 seconds.  You adjust yours to suit you.  Make sure you hit the Enter Key to ensure GIMP accepts the change.

Let's try out our little creation.  Go to Filters Menu > Animation > Playback...



If you're satisifed with your creation, go to File > Save As... and give it a name with the ".gif" extension.  When the following windows appear, choose these settings:





Well, that's it!  I hope this tutorial has been informative and you've added a new tool to your graphics arsenal!

Cheers!

Art

Neat fence.. I forgot all about the eye thing.

I will have to give this a go if i can get AOI working that is

Thanks, yeah i was talking about the edges, not the animation.. I'm going to try this with a smiley I made.

Awesome tutorial, Fence.  I'll have to give it a shot, even though it creeps me out just a little. 

Success! One small thing. In your step for the environment properties, you said to make it black however your screenshot shows you changing it to white (is that just to show youre changing it?).

Correct.  I was just showing what the color selector box looked like.  I can change that if you think I need to....

Also, how can I get AOI to save that texture for future use so I won't have to recreate it?

Well, you can't really save textures file, per se.  You could always put it in a "blank" AoI file and import it later, but it's really just as easy to create an AoI textures folder and just put the eye image in there.  That's what I do.  So, I can get my to image textures really quickly.  Make sense?

Do I just save what I have after rendering?

I suggest you save your AoI project for later use.

PS: I used your settings and it only came out with 45 frames 

I copied and pasted that from my animated twist tutorial and didn't proofread very well.  Nice catch!  I'll correct that right now.

Nice work!  Wasn't hard at all, was it?