# Creating an animated brush using Anim Selection

3DO Animator lets you take an animated selection from an animation and turn it into an animated brush. In effect, you can use the selection as animated clip art.

This section steps you through:

- Loading an animation
- Creating an animated selection
- Using the selection as an animated brush

## Loading an animation

If you are already familiar with 3DO Animator, load and preview the Skiing file. Otherwise, follow these steps:

1. Choose Clear > All Frames to clean the canvas.

2. From the File menu, choose Open and find and load the Skiing file.

   Figure 1: First frame of Skiing file.

   The control panel shows you have loaded a 12-frame animation.

3. Press Command - 5 to play the animation.

4. Click the mouse button to stop the animation and press Command - 1 to go to frame 1.

## Creating an animated selection

The Pickup Selection feature lets you create an animated selection. Pickup Selection works like a cookie cutter: The animation is the dough and the animation selection is the cookie. It's as if the 12 frames of the animation were sitting on a table, one on top of the other, and you cut through all 12 with a cookie cutter. What you cut out is the Anim Selection.

### How to create an animated selection from the Skiing file

To create an animated selection of the skier, follow these steps:

1. Choose the Rectangle Selection tool.

2. Set the Shrink/Expand modifier to Shrink, as shown in Figure 2.

   Figure 2: Pop-up menu for setting the Shrink/Expand modifier.

3. Surround the skier (including the "wake" in the snow) with the Rectangle Selection tool.

   The Marquee indicates the area you've selected. You can treat this selection like any other; for example, you can drag it to another part of the screen or make a copy of it.

   You can also pick up the selection as it looks in each frame of the animation.

4. From the Anim menu, choose Anim Selection, then Pickup Selection.

   The Pickup Selection dialog appears.

     - The Pickup box has the number 12 in it, which means that 3DO Animator will pick up all of the selected parts (the skier and the trail she makes in the snow) from the 12 frames that make up the animation.

     - The From box has 1 in it, which means the program will begin to pick up the 12 frames on frame number 1.

   Figure 3: Pickup Selection dialog.

5. For this example make sure the Leave a Copy Behind box is checked and choose OK.

The skier begins to move through all the motions that make up the selection while 3DO Animator picks up all the frames. When the pickup is complete you're back at frame 1. You might notice that the selection Marquee looks a little different. The reason is that the copy of the skier Pickup Selection created by is sitting right on top of the original. The program uses the different Marquee to distinguish selections it picked up from other selections.

### Looking at the animated selection

To look at the twelve frames of the animated selection you just made, follow these steps:

1. Press and hold down the Option key and drag the copy of the skier to the left. This skier (Skier 2) is now selected.

2. Press Command - 8 to move the selection forward one frame.

3. Press and hold Command - 8 to see all 12 frames. If you want to move backward one frame, press Command - 7.

## Using the selection as an animated brush

This section illustrates how turn the selection into an animated brush, like the bird in an earlier section, and how to paint with that brush.

Note: You have to complete the steps in the previous two sections to work through this section.

To turn the animated selection of the skier into an animated brush and paint with it, follow these steps:

1. Press Command - 1 to go to frame 1.

2. Press Command - B to turn the copy of the animated selection (that is, Skier 2) into an animated brush.

   You are now ready to paint with the animated brush.

3. Move Skier 2 above the original animated selection.

4. Hold down the backquote key and the mouse button. 3DO Animator flips through the frames while the animated brush changes at each frame.

5. Watch the frame counter and release the backquote key and mouse button when you are at the last frame.

Figure 4: An animation using an animated brush.

At this point you can experiment with the animation: create other skiers, create other movements for them, etc. Exploring the program's possibilities will give you good ideas for your own animations.