Using Custom Font Tools Release 13 to Create Gimp Learn Banners: Part 2

[skinnyhouse]

Scenario 2: Create an animated banner as a gif file

I rarely have need for animations and I always have to start learning the technique all over again so forgive me if I make any obvious errors in the animation process itself. So, to reiterate, this is not a guide about how to create animations but about how to create the text elements with custom font tools as part of the animation process.

Part 1 dealt with using Custom Font Tools to create static banners that displayed text at a constant size using Paragrapher. This section shows you how to manage text that varies in size; the techniques discussed here could also be applied to static banners.

To create individual, or groups of, frames you may need to keep the characters as individual layers. In order to do this you will need to use the FontSlab filter, rather than Paragrapher; this tool gives much greater control over the sizing, positioning and orientation of characters along a path.

Use the same vertical guides as in the previous section of this tutorial, but omit the horizontal guides.

Add a curved path to the banner image; be aware that you may need to keep a certain distance ( i.e. about half the maximum font size of the characters on the path) away from the top and bottom boundaries of the image. Disregard this hint if you deliberately want to place characters partly off the edges of the image.

Wavy Path.JPG # (21.44 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Call up the FontSlab plug-in:

Filters>>Custom Font Tools>>FontSlab v0.12...

FontSlab_Dialog.jpg # (74.45 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

I want to place my custom font text (‘Let the Gimping begin’) along this path so that the characters will increase in size from left to right. I could use the ‘Text size step change’ option with a positive value but in this situation I think that the ‘Use text size modifiers’ option will give better results since that allows me to fix the final ‘target’ size to whatever I need.

Use these options:

Choose a custom font file on your system with the xcf font file navigation tool.

Set ‘Use custom font’ to ‘Yes’.

Set ‘Use text size modifiers’ to ‘Yes’.

Alter values for ‘Initial text size’, ‘Target text size’ and ‘Final text size’ to suit your needs. I used values of 30, 50 and 100 to increase the size from beginning to end.

Leave the ‘Retain layers’ option set to ‘No’ for the time being.

Click on the dialog ‘OK’ button to test out these settings.

First Try.JPG # (20.34 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

As you can see, the text doesn’t quite fit the path. Since it’s almost there, the simplest solution is just to make the path a little longer (rather than altering the modifier values) by using the path tool (Keyboard B) to drag the last control anchor a little further to the right.

Second Try.JPG # (23.57 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

That’s fixed that – it was only a smidge out - but I still need to have each character on its own layer. Undo the last step (Ctrl + Z) and re-run the filter (Ctrl + F) with the ‘Retain layers’ option set to ‘Yes’.

Not retain layers.JPG # (20.52 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

The screenshot below of the Layers dock shows the new character layers (first character at the bottom of the stack of course):

Layer Dock.JPG # (44.32 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

As I am going to use these layers to create a Gif animation, I need to combine the background layer with each of the character layers before animating.

SHIFT select the background layer over its ‘eye’ to make it the only layer visible
Make the first character layer visible by clicking over that layer’s eye
Select the first character layer by calling the menu with the pointer over that layer
Select ‘Copy visible’ from that menu

A new layer will be created from the two visible layers and then added to the layer dock.

Use this process to add a new combined layer for each character and the newly created visible layer. The idea is to create a new layer that shows one more letter than the previous layer.

First From Visible.JPG # (16.27 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

The view at the top of the layer stack after adding all the new layers:

Visible Layer Stack.JPG # (54.91 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

The next step is to delete the unwanted character layers. If you prefer to work on a copy of the file, just in case of mistakes, you can always do this with:

Image>>Duplicate (Ctrl +D)

After deleting I will have a more manageable list of layers to try out:

Deleted Visible Layer Stack.JPG # (36.18 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Note the renaming of the top layer by adding (1500ms) to the layer name in order lengthen the playback time used for this frame layer:

Filters>>Animation>>Playback

This provides an idea of how the animated banner will run, although the file really needs optimizing to reduce it in size, before saving as a gif.

A slightly smaller version of the resultant saved gif file:

Writing2.gif # (138.31 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Using some of the other FontSlab options

As well as the ‘Text size step change’ and the ‘Modifier values’ there are other options that can be used to add interest to a line of characters.

Use the ‘Jitter range’ option to set a range of random values for the angle of rotation for individual characters in the text along the path to give a shaky, tremor effect.

Tremor2.gif # (183.96 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Use the ‘Adjust spacing between characters’ option to add a sense of motion along the path.

Expanding2.gif # (277.28 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

Use the ‘Angle of Rotation’ option to rotate characters on the path. Set the angle to something like 15 degrees for one layer then 30 degrees for the next layer and so on until you complete a full circle of rotation.

Rotating2.gif # (464.13 KiB) Viewed 1501 times (Thumbnail | Recognize | Sq Tile)

FontSlab has a lot of options for you to play with. Best of luck and have fun!

[Krikor]

Skinnyhouse,

I think I only used FontSlab v0.12 3 or 4 times before, that's when I installed it and tried to see how it worked. Even so, I only used the default parameters.
This tutorial gave me a better understanding of the versatility of this plugin!

As for Paragrapher, although I downloaded it in the recent R13 pack, I never installed it. But after having understood it a little more thanks to the ( Tutorial Part-01 I decided to add it to the collection!

Excellent tutorial on animation and that clarified a lot about these two plugins.
https://imgur.com/THFSKjL

Thx a lot!

[skinnyhouse]

Thanks Krikor:

I would never pretend to be an animator but I am so glad that you have been able to delve into FontSlab. It is the most versatile of all my filters.

I love this undulating effect!

[Pat625]

SKINNYHOUSE, I sound like a broken record to me, but . . . You never cease to amaze me! I can't begin to explain how much in awe I am of your intelligence, creative abilities, and knowledge to continually improve and further ways in which the fonts can be used. We are extremely grateful for all of your efforts.

[skinnyhouse]

Too kind Pat. Am going to have to check my hat size!

[Issabella]

How interesting your tutorial for Banners 2.
I have enjoyed doing it. And I see very attractive the result, too.
However, I must say that I've been unable to get the right settings to the nice two last effects.
Thanks a lot Skinnyhouse for your patience and time to write your banners tuts 1 and 2.

[Issabella]

Krikor or Skinnyhouse, please, could you remember what were your settings to get your last effect? I love it.
Thanks in advance.

[skinnyhouse]

Just finishing a more detailed explanation...

[skinnyhouse]

Expanding Text Gif - more detailed explanation:

Expanding Text.pdf #

(340.12 KiB) Downloaded 25 times

[Krikor]

Issa, I only messed with it the day / moment that I followed the tutorial and out of curiosity I stretched a little more on the results based on the examples that Skinnyhouse gave. In fact I would have to redo the tutorial to better remember what was done.

Luckily I have already seen that Skinnyhouse provided a more detailed explanation in the post above (Thx Skinnyhouse!) And I will enjoy and check it out too.

However if there are still any doubts, please do not hesitate to express it, within my conditions I would do my best to help you.