Animated emojis - how to?

[Manoj]

Thanks Rik! Very well done. Hopefully I'll be able to do it all in Xara after all. Now to hunt down some animation basics!

[wizard509]

I could do a small tutorial for you if you need it or want it.

[Manoj]

Larry - yes please, that would be most welcome! Thank you!

[wizard509]

It's kinda late now so will do it in the morning. Do you want/need tutorials for gif or flash or both? Gif does not have issues with certain things(as flash does) and you can do much with it, but, the beauty of flash is tweening.

EDIT: This will be a written tutorial not a video like angelize and egg do so well.

[mikeymopar]

i'm certain @wizard509 will explain it all properly but just to hit on a couple of points...
something that small, you really needn't concern yourself with backgrounds or overlays. won't save you much, if any at all, in file size
also, being only a few frames the gif is quite a bit smaller in file size with nearly no difference in animation (top gif=6kb, bottom swf=14kb)
they're 5 frames. could have a little smoother transition yet adding one or two more frames.

[wizard509]

Rik I used your fine example here, hope you don't mind.

[Hajeem]

Nice clear tutorial.

Thanks

Hélène

[wizard509]

Thanks Hélène.
As regards the eyebrows, presonally I would have used a line with a profile, i based my tutorial on what i looked like Rik had done. Maybe I should have done something from scratch with little graphics showing each step, but, it's done now, for better or worse. Anyway thanks for the kind remarks.

To quote Gare
"My best"
Larry (wizrd509)

[wizard509]

I was just looking over Rik's xar and he used an 8pt line for the eyebrows with an ellipse profile. Sorry I had that wrong Rik.
For the final frame of the blinking eye I'm just not sure. it could have been a line with no profile instead of further altering the eye shape and probably was.
Sorry for any misinformation in my mini tutorial.

[Manoj]

Larry - sorry for the late response, been busy with deadlines. I'm still waiting to hear what the client has in mind for the next emojis, and will go through your tutorial in the meantime. Thanks so much for your help!