Morphing Text in Photoshop Animation - Digital Art and Design

So far in this on-going Photoshop^R animation project, we have created a text fade effect and a simple framed based text animation for the blinkie. We have 47 frames in our animation. Now, we will morph the text on the J3 Designs (website name) layer using Photoshop’s Warped Text feature and the Animation palette.

To prepare for the morph of the website name, we need to add a new frame (Frame 48) and set the duration back to .1 sec. We will also need to turn off the visibility for the Designer and for layers. Then, turn on the visibility of the J3 Designs (website name) layer in the Layers palette.
Now we can start the morph. Add a new frame (Frame 49) to the Animation palette. Go back to the blinkie and select the “J3 Designs” text with the Text tool. This will allow you to use the Warp Text button. Click on the button to open the Warp Text dialog box. Set the Style drop-down list to Fish, the radio button to Horizontal and keep the sliders set to 0. Close the dialog box.
To set the ending frame for the first half of the morph animation, add a new frame (Frame 50). Select the text again and open the Warp Text dialog box. Move the Bend slider to 100 and close the dialog box.
To create the morph animation, select Frames 49 and 50. From the palette menu, choose Tween. Set the number of frames to 5 and click OK. Photoshop will add the tween frames. You will have 55 frames in the animation.
Now let’s go back the other way with the morph. Add a new frame (Frame 56). Select the text and open the Warp Text dialog box. Set the Bend slider back to 0 and close the dialog box. Select Frames 55 and 56 and create another Tween with a 5 frame duration. Photoshop will add the tween frames and you should have 61 frames in the Animation palette.

Now we will repeat the last two steps but this time set the Bend slider to -100 instead of 100.
Add a new frame (Frame 62). Select the text and open the Wart Text dialog box. Set the Bend slider to -100. Select Frames 61 and 62 and create another Tween with a 5 frame duration. Photoshop will add the tween frames and you should have 67 frames.
Add a new frame again (Frame 68) and set the Bend slider back to 0. Select Frame 67 and 68 and create one last Tween. You should now have 73 frames.
Finally, we want the animation to show the website name (J3 Designs) for 2 seconds. Add a new frame (Frame 74) and set the duration to 2 sec.

Select Frame 1 in the Animation palette and play your animation. Save your project as blinkie2.psd. In the next tutorial, we will start moving our bugs and finish the animation.

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