This tutorial was written on Sept. 25, 2008
and is the sole property of Kimberly Beach
aka Silent Angel Designs. Any resemblence
to other tutorials is by coincidence only.
Please do not offer this tutorial elsewhere
or claim it as your own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Supplies:
Jasc Paint Shop Pro. I used PSP 9
but this should work equally well in other versions.
Animation Shop 3.11
Tube of choice.
I am using the art of Dean Yeagle.
*at the time this tut was written this artist was with CILM,
which is now closed. Please obtain license from whatever company
this artist is now with. Thank you
Font of Choice - I used Bacon Regular which is not available for
free download anywhere.
Outside Filters - Eyecandy 4000 Gradient Glow
Star Floatie- here

Ok, Let's begin! :D
Open a new transparent image, 600 X 600 and flood fill it white.
Open the tube you plan to use and pick a color to use for your circle
and make it your foreground color. Make your background null
Using your Ellipse tool,vector checked, line width solid, width 4,
make an ellipse on your canvas to your liking.
When you are happy with the size and shape
go to Layers - Convert to Raster Layer
Rename this layer Circle Layer for ease of identification
Open and copy your tube and paste as a new layer
Position to your liking and duplicate layer
On the original tube layer , Adjust - Blur - Guassian Blur- Radius 10.00
Then go to Effects - Texture Effects - Blinds with the following settings:
Width:5
Opacity: 60
Color: Black
Horizontal and Light from Left/top both checked
Repeat this step with the same settings except uncheck the horizontal box
Make the duplicated tube layer your active layer and go to
Layers - Merge - Merge Down.
Rename this layer Tube layer for ease of identification


Now let's work on our text.
Using your ellipse tool with the settings the same as last time,
create an ellipse that is of the same approximate dimensions as the first one.
Leave it as a vector layer.
Activate your text tool , floating,
size approximately 24 to 26, depending on your font of choice
and using your chosen font and color
hover the A symbol around the edge of the ellipse until you get the curved line under the A.
Then type your text and move into place by judicious use
of your spacebar and backspace buttons.
Hint: if you place your cursor in the textbox, at the beginning of your text
and hit the spacebar this will move your test around the curve ;)
After you are happy with your text placement, activate your
vector ellipse layer and either X it out to hide it or
delete the layer all together.
Go to Selections - Select None
Make your Promoted Selection layer (your text) the active layer
Go to Effects - Plugins - Eyecandy4000 - Gradient Glow and use the following settings:

on the color tab, change the color to white :D
Add your copyright and tagger info and rename this layer
Text Layer for ease of identification.
Add your name to a new layer and rename this Name Layer

Now to prepare for the animation process ...
Highlight your Circle Layer and using your Magic wand,
select inside the circle
Selections - Modify - Expand by 2.
Layers - Duplicate 8 times :D
If you need to for sanity's sake, rename the layers Circle Layer 1 -9


Open Animation Shop and open your Floatie. The one I am using has 9 layers
If you use a different one, check how many layers it has and insure that
your Circle Layer has been duplicated enough times!
Highlight Layer One . Edit - Copy.
Return to PSP and make sure your first/bottom circle layer is active
Edit - Paste into Selection.
Repeat this step for the remaining 8 layers
After carefully pasting each layer into the corresponding Circle Layer
go to Selections - Select None.
Now comes the fun!

Close off all Circle Layers except the bottom one.
Make your background layer the active layer
Edit - Copy Merged.
Back in Animation Shop, Paste as new animation.
Return to PSP, close off Circle 1, keeping your background layer the active layer.
Open the visibility on Circle Layer 2.
Edit - Copy Merged
Return to Animation Shop and go to Edit - Paste after current Layer
Repeat this process carefully for the remaining layers.
Once you have all 9 layers in Animation Shop, go to
Edit - Select All
Animation - Frame Properties
Change it from 10 to 20.
Highlight layer 1 only, then go back to
Animation - Frame Properties and change it from
20 to 50.
View - Animation.
If you are pleased with your results, save your animated gif and enjoy! :D
I love feedback. Please feel free to contact me to share your results
or if you notice any typos or broken links.