Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Turn a static design into a glowing button by using the Frame style of animation in Photoshop.
Exercise files
Download the Photoshop file used in the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Animating a Power Button The Frame Animation.psd2.8 MB
Quick reference
Topic: Animating a Power Button: Frame Animation
Turn a static design into a glowing button by using the Frame style of animation in Photoshop.
When to use
The principle of this tutorial is good for understanding how Frame animation works in Photoshop. The fun starts when you start thinking about what else you can animate this way, blinking eyes, snow falling or speech bubbles. Or for a business platform you can animate graphs and pie charts.
Instructions
From a previous project that contains both a button and a glow
- Make sure that all the layers that contain filters are converted to Smart Layers.
Activate the timeline
- Menu/Workspaces/Animation.
- Press the ‘Create Video Timeline’ button: Select ‘Frame Animation’.
- Click on the first Frame and switch to ‘No-Delay’.
Set the glow frames
- Go to Frame 0.
- Set the Layer Opacity to 0%.
- Click on the duplicate selected frame.
- Set the Layer Opacity to 100%.
Tween the animation
- Press the ‘Tweens Animation Frames’ button.
- Set ‘Tween with’ to previous frame.
- Frames to add: 7 frames.
- Press OK.
Add a delay
- Click on the last Frame and switch to 1 second.
- Click on the duplicate selected frame.
- Switch to ‘No-Delay’.
- Set the Layer Opacity to 0%.
- Press the ‘Tweens Animation Frames’ button.
- Set ‘Tween with’ to previous frame.
- Frames to add: 10 frames.
- Press OK.
Finish animation
- Menu/File/Save for Web.
- Make sure that GIF is selected.
- Switch ‘Looping Options’ to ‘Forever’.
- Save to computer.
- 00:04 Hey, everyone.
- 00:05 We've created a power button before and now it's time to animate it.
- 00:08 Let me show you a simple way of animating the power button in Photoshop.
- 00:12 In this tutorial,
- 00:12 I'm not going to go through the processes of creating actual design to this button.
- 00:16 I've used bits and
- 00:16 pieces from my Siri Icon tutorial and my Power Button tutorial.
- 00:20 The PSD contains two versions of the power symbol, one layer that's turned off and
- 00:25 one layer that contains all of the glows.
- 00:27 Transitioning between the two symbols is quite simple but
- 00:30 we need to take care of something quite crucial before we begin.
- 00:33 Photoshop doesn't animate layer styles that well.
- 00:36 If we were to create an animation using the glowing symbol with the layer
- 00:39 styles attached, Photoshop won't activate some of
- 00:41 the layer styles until the last frame of that animation.
- 00:44 We can solve this issue quite simply, head up to the Filter menu and
- 00:48 then convert this layer for smart filters.
- 00:50 This will essentially flatten your layer,
- 00:52 allowing Photoshop to seamlessly animate between the two layers.
- 00:56 At any point you want to change your layer styles,
- 00:58 simply double-click on the layers thumbnail in the Layers panel.
- 01:02 Now we are ready to animate.
- 01:03 In order to animate within Photoshop, we need to reveal our animation panel.
- 01:07 Head up to the Window menu and then click on Animation to bring up your timeline.
- 01:11 It's going to appear at the bottom of your workspace.
- 01:14 However, we don't want to animate using the timeline but
- 01:16 instead, we wanna animate frame by frame.
- 01:19 Click on the Convert to Frame Animation button on the far right-side
- 01:22 of your timeline.
- 01:22 You should now see the frames view in your Animation Panel.
- 01:26 At this point,
- 01:26 there are a few small things that need to be done before we animate.
- 01:29 First, you might notice the ten second text below the first frame.
- 01:33 This tells us how long each frame will be held for.
- 01:36 As we are looking for a smooth animation, we can safely change this to
- 01:39 No delay by clicking on the small black arrow beside the time.
- 01:43 The next thing that needs to be done is we need to create our initial view.
- 01:46 Do you want your animation to start with the power button on or off?
- 01:50 Assuming that you want the power button to start in the off position when
- 01:53 the animation starts.
- 01:54 Set the Opacity of the glowing symbol to zero percent.
- 01:56 You should only see the dark power button visible at this point.
- 02:01 We now need to set the glowing view.
- 02:03 In your Animation panel, click on the Duplicate Selected Frames button to
- 02:06 create a new frame beside your current frame.
- 02:09 Now just like we set the Opacity of the Glowing Symbol to zero percent for
- 02:12 our initial view.
- 02:13 We now want to set the Opacity to 100% in order to fully reveal the glowing layer.
- 02:18 Your Glowing Symbol should be fully visible at this point.
- 02:21 Now that we have both frame set up, we need to create the transitioning frames.
- 02:25 Lucky for us, Photoshop has a really simple way of doing this.
- 02:28 Tweening.
- 02:29 At the bottom of your Animation panel, there's a Tweens Animation Frames button.
- 02:33 Pressing this button will pop-up a new window with a few options.
- 02:36 If your second frame is selected, you'll want to set Tween With to Previous Frame.
- 02:41 Now the Frames to Add will define how fast or how slow your animation will be.
- 02:46 Seven frames should give you a nice on effect.
- 02:48 Press OK to create our seven new frames.
- 02:51 A nice transition has now been created between our two frames.
- 02:55 Pressing the Play button will allow us to preview the animation.
- 02:58 Now you have to note that the first time you playback your animation,
- 03:01 it may seem a little bit choppy, as Photoshop is rendering that animation.
- 03:05 From here, there are a few options.
- 03:06 If you want the animation to simply turn on, you will leave the animation as is.
- 03:10 However, we are gonna go a little bit further and create a throbbing animation.
- 03:14 To create the off animation,
- 03:15 we essentially wanna do the exact same thing except for one small change.
- 03:19 Instead of transitioning right into the off animation,
- 03:22 we're going to add a slight pause.
- 03:24 On the last frame of your animation, change the delay to a higher number than
- 03:28 zero, such as one second this will put a slight pause after the button turns on.
- 03:33 Now need to create the backwards animation.
- 03:36 Just like we did earlier, press the Duplicate Selected Frames button to
- 03:39 create a new frame and make sure to change the delay on the new frame to No delay.
- 03:44 When that frame is created,
- 03:45 turn the Opacity of the glowing laying back down to zero percent.
- 03:49 Once the Opacity for this new frame is set, it's time to tween it.
- 03:52 Just like we did before, click on the Tween button at the bottom of
- 03:55 your Animations panel, and choose your desired frames.
- 03:58 I'm gonna add a few extra frames for
- 04:00 this animation to give it a stronger throb effect.
- 04:03 At this point, you may notice that your new frames have been set to one second.
- 04:06 To fix this, hold down your Shift key and
- 04:08 then click on the second frame with the adjusted time.
- 04:11 This will select all the frames in between.
- 04:14 When those frames are selected, click on any of the black arrows, and
- 04:16 change the delay to No delay.
- 04:19 Your animation is now complete.
- 04:21 Now to save this animation, head up to the File menu and then click Save for
- 04:25 Web and Devices.
- 04:26 When you're in this dialogue box,
- 04:27 you wanna make sure to save your image as a GIF.
- 04:30 This ensures that it will animate when you save it.
- 04:32 And then down below, we have our Looping Options.
- 04:35 This will allow us to either loop the animation just once or forever.
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