This tutorial uses Animation Shop 3 & PSP 7 to create an animated GIF. You will also need the PSP file of the bee which was saved from my Vector Honeybee tutorial. If you haven't completed the tutorial, please do so before beginning.

After beginning the tutorial it is recommended that you save your work often in the PSP format, or use the "Autosave" feature located under File > Preferences, to prevent loss of your work due to program or system crashes.

*Screenshots optimized and resized for faster download times.

Open the PSP file saved from the Vector Honeybee tutorial. Shift + D to duplicate the image and close the original.

To create an animated GIF that is small in file size and that will display well at various color depths, we need to resize the image and change the gradient that was used for the bee's coloring to a flat color. With vector images this is a simple process.

Resize Image

With the Object Selector activated, right-click on the image and choose "Select All" from the context menu. Right-click on one of the corner handles and pull to reduce the size of the bee. See illustration.

Right clicking to resize maintains the proportions of the image

Change Color

To change the color, hold the Shift key and click on the ellipses used for the head, middle (thorax), and bottom (abdomen) of the bee in the image to create a multiple selection. Make sure that you click on a yellow area so that unwanted objects will not be included in the selection.

Click the "Properties" button in the Tool Options palette. When the Vector Properties dialog box appears, click the arrow on the button containing the gradient (or click on the button itself and hold the mouse button down until you see the style popup menu) and change the fill style to "Solid Color" . Click on the button and type "#FFFF40" in the "HTML code" text entry area at the bottom of the Corel Color Dialog Box to change the color to yellow (see screenshot).

If you do not see the "HTML code" text entry area, you are not using the Corel Color Dialog box. Click on File > Preferences >General program preferences, activate the "Dialogs and Palettes" tab and uncheck the option to "Use standard Windows color picker."

Animate

Activate the vector "Wings" layer and duplicate the layer three times by dragging it onto the "Create Layer" button on the layer palette. Right-click on each of the wing layers and rename them from top to bottom: "Wings 1," "Wings 2," "Wings 3," and "Wings 4." The layer palette should look like the following:

Click on the plus sign to expand the "Wings 2" layer, activate the Object Selector and click on the top ellipse object button in the layer palette (See screenshot below). This will select the object in the image so that it can be rotated.

Since the underlying wing objects are not clearly visible because they are stacked in the layer palette, it is important that you use the layer palette to create all of the vector selections for this project. It is also important that you do not alter the objects on the "Wings 1" layer at all.

Go back to the image, hover your cursor over the center handles until you see the rotation cursor (see screenshot). Click & drag the handle slightly to the left so that it the wing is visible behind and above the top wing. Move your cursor until you see the "mover" cursor, and position the wing slightly above the top wing. Select the other ellipse object for this layer, rotate to the right and position. Expand the "Wing 3" layer and repeat this rotate/move process for each object then repeat for the "Wing 4" layer. When finished your image should resemble the image on the right.

Rotate
Move

If you haven't already done so, save the image in PSP format. Hide all but the "Body" layer, "Wing 1" layer, & the "Background" by clicking on the "Glasses" icon on each of these layers in the Layer Palette. Choose File > Export > GIF Optimizer and use the settings shown below for each tab of options.

Click "OK" to close out of the GIF Optimizer, name the file "B1.gif" and save the image where it can be easily located. Hide the "Wing 1" layer and make the "Wing 2" layer visible. Export again with the same settings, naming this image "B2.gif". Repeat this process for the other two wing layers. You should have four versions of the bee, each version saved as an separate GIF image.

Choose File > Corel Software Products > Launch Animation Shop. When Animation Shop opens press Shift + A to launch the "Animation Wizard". Use the options below for each dialog box:

Click "Next" then click "Finish." You should see the images as a series of frames. Hold the Shift key and click on frames two & three to select them (see screenshot). Right-click on the selected frames frames and choose "Copy" from the context menu.

Without pressing any keys, click on the last frame in the animation to select it, then right-click and choose Paste > After current frame. With the pasted frames still selected, choose Animation > Reverse Frames.

Right-click on the frames and choose "View Animation" or click on the "View Animation" button on the Toolbar. If you're satisfied with the final result, choose File > Save As, name the file "Honeybee" and click "Save." You will then be presented with a series of optimization options. Use the options listed below:

Animation Optimization Settings
Better Image Quality: Move the slider to the top if it is not already in that position
Use settings...unoptimized files: unchecked

Click "Next" at the remaining prompts then click "Finish"

Congratulations! You have just completed the "Animated Honeybee" tutorial! Now use your imagination and create some more animations!