Animating a Power Button: Frame Animation

Quick reference

• 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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