8 bit Giant

CS2 trial, and I finally bought Fantamorph Pro.



This is from 4 images, background removed in PS and saved as tiffs, with the canvas flipped horizonatally to double the number of images.
Any single image and its flipped image would make a reasonable walk cycle.
Haven't yet spotted the control in Fantamorph for contolling the length of time for the fade from one pic to the next, so there's some jumpy transitions.

*edit*

OK, the problem with the jumpy transition seems to be that the images don't completely morph all the way from A to B - they keep some of the characteristics of A.
When the next sequence starts - B to C - the jump is down from the B at the end of the first sequence to the B at the beginning of the second which is not mixed with A. The B at the end of the first sequence differs from the original at the beginning of the second.

This is because I'm using images with transparency so I am doing a slight 'portion morph' for some reason, even though I'm choosing morph one, not two..

Needs some more work.
The problem only occurs using images with transparent backgrounds, not ordinary multiple morphs.
Otherwise I would recommend Fantamorph to anyone. It has a great system for copying the dots from the B image in one sequence to the A image in the next, then adding matching dots to the new B image alongside it.

High Elven swordmaster

Giffy orky

Small Marseille tarot

Supercompressed [smaller file size]

Little Thoth deck

and supercompressed [lower quality, small file size]

860 frame Marseille - half size

Sqirlz Morph TAROT

This worked out well..

Or actually no...

... but very prompt and helpful customer service

"Hello Mike,

Thank you for your interest in NeoPaint.

>> I am trying an evaluation of NeoPaint, and would like to ask how,
when I
>> use a free hand selection tool to select part of an image, can I
save
>> that selection as a tiff file with a transparent background. In
other
>> words, how can I save part of a picture as a photo object with a
>> transparent ['checkered'] background?<<

You can save a selection to a separate file using the Edit menu's "Copy
To"
command. The selection will be saved with a white background in the
format
your choice. Whether the saved image is interpreted as transparent
depends
on the requirements of the morphing software. If the morphing software
interprets the white background as transparent then it will work. If
the
morphing software needs a special kind of transparent image containing
an
alpha channel then it will not work. NeoPaint does not currently
support
alpha channel transparency.

Customer Support
NeoSoft Corporation"


Though maybe I could reduce the photo object in NeoPaint and copy and paste my own selection on it [?] since I can at least drop PO's in there and alter them before saving them and then importing them into FantaMorph, still as transparent background Tiffs...

Yes!

Now able to alter images in Neopaint for Windows, and save as 32 bit with transparent background.



So far software I find useful is -
* Sqirlz Morph [free] for swirly organic morphs, and manic morphs without a fixed boundary,
*Fantamorph [trial, £25 pro or 50 quid deluxe]. It helps with multiple morphs [sequences] and the 32 bit thingy. Deluxe gives face finder and extractor [not necessary] and a face mixer [useful], though I'll see if the pro version keeps the screen capture button, which would do the job.
*NeoPaint for Wiondows trial - the 32 bit thingy again - £25 pounds.

*also I'm looking at WinImages, £50, £25 quid reduced price for Paint Shop Pro owners, which looks handy.
*Also trying a trial of a Stop Motion Pro, which has cromakey; - a blue or green screen solution.

I'm surprised there's no free/ low cost 2D cartoon/photo/maquette animation programs using morphing for tweens, unless I've misunterstood how the lower end animation and stop motion programs work - they seem to use objects, drawings or cutouts, and the computer animates the 'tweens, but they don't seem to be geared to the sort of morphing photo-manipulation I'm interested in, morphing between different poses and faces to animate a single object or person over time.
But maybe I've misunderstood what they [Toon Boom, Anime thingy, Stop Motion Pro, Flash] all do, and how they work.....

Sqirlz water Reflectionss is fun - I'm still trying to find a way to have moving immages in/as the background, so I can have layers of action.
Maybe [not sure] WinImages can help with that, or even this NeoPaint program?
I can pick gifs apart and paste forground figures onto a gif sequence, frame by frame, then animate them, but it's a bit labour intensive...

I'm waiting to upgrade my computer - just waiting for the graphics card - because it can take half an hour to save a sequence, load it onto a file sharing site and then post it.

From here on I'll call mixes beween two people or objects um.. mixers. The way ahead, for several reasons, seems to be animating mixers to tell a story.
I'll call the photos I use for a project key frames. A standard morph has just two.
Whatever the computer does will be 'tweens.

Another thought. Something - a body part or whatever - which travels across the body causes 'turbulence' with morphs. Perhaps it could be on a seperate layer, if I crack the layers of movement problem?
Sometime I'll need to look at lip-synching solutions to see what I can do about that, and introducing sound.

Talkies!

Brian Blessed vs Jacko

For some random reason.

Girl on girl action

Let's see that again

That's gotta hurt.

Couldn't be bothered to add more points, but far preferable to the triangular frame morphs.
Tracking the punch would cause turbulence in both - I only included it in this version, not the triangles.

I'm using just 12 key frames on all these.

Sqirlz bouts

and unfixed boundaries


Both using just a few control points - since each point must appear in every frame...


More organic.

Black back bout

Stepping onto the learning curve

Hah

Using photo-objects direct program [Hemera Photo-Objects] to program [FantaMorph], with transparent layer.
Next step, creating them, since Arcsoft Photo Studio 5.5 seems unable to save the trasnsparent layer..



I actually prefer the swirly transition effects from Sqirl Morph to the triangular structure of this one, but it has more features.

Struggling here...

OK, Elements doesn't support 32 bit images [24 bits with 8 channels of alpha], whatever that means.
So I've got Arcsoft PhotoStudio 5.5 which does [and which I prefer for simple tasks anyway], and it can convert images to TIF format.
So I've taken two jpegs, converted them to tif, cropped the backgrounds off which I'd hoped would mean there's a transparent layer as a background but which obviously doesn't as when I load them in Fantamorph and morph them the background doesn't show through.



Back to Photostudio to try and create a layered tif with a checkered background to show it's transparent.. I think.

But not today.

And is there a way to have an animated background showing behind the main morph, rather than a jpeg or bitmap? And can tifs can be animated like gifs?

I hate technology, I just want to make things move.

Also,
"A picture says a thousand words. 5,000 Photo Objects is a photographic library of full colour 24-bit 72-DPI high quality JPEG images for work, school, home and your own personal Web pages.

Hemera Photo-Objects 5,000 can be used with the most popular home and business applications including Microsoft Word. Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, Corel WordPerfect, CorelDRAW, Microsoft Picture It, The Print Shop, Print Master Gold, Adobe Photoshop and many more! Photo-Objects are cropped photographic images with transparent backgrounds and come with built-in alpha channels."

Could be useful.

Hopeful lead?

"FantaMorph supports the import and export of 32-bit with alpha images in BMP, TIFF, PNG and TGA formats to create professional effects. Most images used in computing are based on 24 bits, specifying the red, green and blue values at each particular point on the image. These 24-bit images are fully opaque, thus anything under them will be hidden. A 32-bit image has an additional 8-bit alpha channel, which is used to specify transparency. Such images can be smoothly blended with other images.

32-bit image; - the portion filled with the small checkerboard grid represents transparency. The image containing transparent areas can be laid over a single color image, like the middle image, or over any other image, as seen at the right. In both cases, the background shows through the transparent area.

You can use 32-bit images within FantaMorph, or export 32-bit morph results for use with other graphic or video software. The example below uses two 32-bit PNG images blending with a flower image as the background and a radial style bitmap as the mask. The result is amazing!"

I've been exploring Anime Studio and Toon Boom. Can't import own images into AS [which also seems Southpark and animated silhoutte oriented]unless it's the Pro version, and Toon Boom seems more geared to drawings and rigged cutouts; though if there was a way in Toon Boom to set up several cycling gif morph animations as 2D objects in a scene with adjustable cameras...

Anyway, looks like I need Fantamorph Pro or Deluxe, which is 25 or 50 squids.

Soul bird

Challenge

How to take an animated morph like this -



and place it as a seperate layer on a ssimilarly morphed animated background like this -



I'm using a free morphing program - Sqirl Morph - which can output as gifs [for a short sequence], flash, or avi.
I could buy a better one like Fantamorph.

Not quite the ideal of picking up and placing cycling animations, but I've just come across this regarding Anime Studio; -
"The best image format to use with Anime Studio is PNG. PNG files have high quality, good compression, and support full alpha channels for transparency effects. Although PNG is the preferred format for use with Anime Studio, you can also use JPEG, BMP, Targa, or GIF images.

Image layers can also be used to bring external movies into Anime Studio. Instead of selecting a still image, select a movie file when creating a new image layer. Anime Studio can import QuickTime (Windows and Mac OS) or AVI (Windows only) movies as image layers. When importing a movie file, Anime Studio will use the movie's alpha channel (if present) to composite the movie with other elements in the scene."

I'll give the trial a go

So, What other relatively cheap program can I use to work with building collages of animated layers?
I'm using PS Elements 3 as an image editor.


Thanks!

Mike