Blinkie Tutorial Twinkle Style!
Learn to make your own blinkies. This is my way of making them. My PSP blinkie tutorial uses no layers, just the basics of PSP, so it can be used by the beginner as well as more advanced users. It is written using Paint Shop Pro 7, but can be used for version 8 as well with only minor changes as noted.
Terms of use for this and my other tutorials.
Open Paint Sho Pro.
In the upper left hand corner choose "new" image,
width 150, height 20., any color you want.
Just to keep it simple we will simply make one blinkie with text and "flashing blinkie lights" in this tutorial.
Scroll down the left side menu and choose the "Add Text" option. This is where it can get interesting, some fonts work well, others do not. Arial works fine, to start with size 12 and "bold" setting. There are lots of fonts you can use, just play around and use one you like. For our text, we can start with something like "Blinkie Blinkie" Place it in the center of your blinkie base, as seen in figure 1.
fig. 1
Go to "Layers" in you top menu bar and select "Merge All"
In the top menu bar once more, go to "View" and scroll down to "Show Grid" and click on it. You will see a grid appear on your blinkie. Now scroll down one more time to "Grid Properties" and change both settings to 1. Your grid will change now.
Now go to "Windows", scroll down and select "Duplicate". Duplicate your blinkie base twice. You now have 3 blinkie pics. Minimize the first two.
Now, enlarge the blinkie you will be working with first, times 10. You can do this easily by hitting the zoom 5 times button once and then zoom 1 time four more times. Now go again to your left side menu and locate your paintbrush. You will be using this to make your blinkie "dots". Select your color and your brush size will be 1. See figure 2.
Fig.2
In the FIRST square at the edge of your blinky place your brush and left click, a dot of color will show. Do this in the next square too. Then count over 3 squares and left click again to leave 2 dots of color. Do this all the way around your blinkie. Color two and skip three.....It may not look right when you get all the way around, but it works out (trust me). Merge all( if needed) Now minimize this first one and bring up the second one. (See figure 2 above)
On your second blinkie base........start with your dots of color two squares to the right of where you started the first one. Again, two dots of color, one in each square for two squares and then skip three squares, all the way around. Merge all if needed and minimize this one, bring up the third one.
Fig.3
With this third one....skip the first four squares and start in the fifth. Again two dots of color..skip three, all the way around. Merge if needed. Now almost blinkie time!! See Figure 4.
Fig.4
Save each one as blinkie 1 psp, blinkie 2 psp or whatever you want to call them. *NOTE* In PSP 8, save them as jpg. Now open up animation shop. You have numbered them 1 2 and 3 so it will be easy to keep them in order. If you have not removed your grid, don't worry about it, it won't be there when you save and if it is you can simply go to view and then deselect grid and it will disappear on all 3 at once.
Animating your blinkie
Open Animation Shop
In animation shop, open the animation wizard.
Select "same size as the first, click next.
Now select "transparent" and click next.
Select "centered in the frame" and "with the canvas color"
and "scale frames to fit" click next.
Now select "repeat the animation indefinitely" and set your speed at 9 or 10 and click next.
Now add your blinkie images, one at a time in the order which you saved them.
then click next. Then click finish. You can now see your blinkie frame by frame.
Minimize this and in the top menu select "View" and then "animation". Ta da!! Your blinkie! Go to "save as" and save it as a gif. It must be a gif to be animated.....name it whatever you like.....and no need to optimize it as they are very small in byte size.
If you have errors in the movements of your "lights"........it's also easy to see where, so you can select the frame, export it back to Paint Shop~~ fix it and send it back!
Blinkies with added images or effects. Have fun experimenting with different effects and images! Want to see more?
Getting creative with designer blinkies. Part Two of Twinkle's PSP blinkie tutorial.
Blinkie Tutorial Variations
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