Flashing Stars

Ok... this is for any1 who doesn't know how to make stuff flash, and mainly for KMT as i promised him id do it for him.

Ok a simple flashing thing, not gonna go into a multicolor tut right away...

Step 1

Assuming you have your basic background layer, and your text layer and your layer you want to animate... this can work for any layer you want to animate, it doesn't have to be a certain 1.

Set your transparency for the layer you wish to animate as 0% in the layers window...

ACTIVE LAYER

TRANSPARENCY

Step 2

In the animation/frame box set the timer under the frame to 0.2 seconds or whatever you want it to be and then duplicate your frame.

ANIMATION BOX, TIMER, FRAME

Click to enlarge

DUPLICATION

Click to enlarge

Step 3

Frame 2 should be selected. go to your layers window and set the transparency to 20%. duplicate the frame again in the animation/frame window.

If you have done this right, then your timer at the bottom should be the same as the first 2 frames, don't worry if its not, you can always change this afterwards so it is the same.

Step 4

In frame 3 set your transparency to 40%. and again duplicate your frame.

Step 5

In frame 4 set your transparency to 60%. and duplicate the frame.

Step 6

In frame 5 set your transparency to 80%. and duplicate the frame.

Step 7

In frame 6 set your transparency to 100%. and duplicate the frame... now if you want you can duplicate the frame twice and have the effect lasting twice as long or you can change the timer setting at the bottom to be twice as long. if you change the timer setting you will have to change it back in the next frame.

Step 8

Once you have your frames set from 0%-100% on transparency going up 20% each time do this again but in reverse in each frame you duplicate after your 6th frame...

So it would go something like:

frame 7: 80%
frame 8: 60%
frame 9: 40%
frame 10: 20%

You don't need a frame 11 set at 0% because frame 1 is set at 0% transparency, and if you have it on an infinite loop you wont need any more than 10 frames for a standard appear and disappear animation.

Step 9 (optional)

If you didn't set a time for your frame seconds do this now before you save, or the animation will run too fast and look wrong. just under your frame it will say 0 seconds click on this and go down to 0.2 seconds and the repeat this for each frame there after from 1-10.

Finished Product

When you are done go to file and SAVE OPTIMIZED AS if you don't save it this way you cant save it as a gif and it wont work. call it whatever you want but make sure its saving as a .GIF file... here's an example of something i made with this simple appearing and disappearing technique:

The layer i had selected as the active layer is the layer which flashes on and off in the image