How to Animate IMVU Icons Using Photoshop

IMVU is an online 3-D chat community that allows you to create and design your own IMVU avatars and interact with other IMVU avatars in a chat client. Icons are small animated images that you can place on your IMVU homepage layout or use as your IMVU profile picture. Photoshop provides an animation tool that that allows you to create the icons from screen shots of your IMVU avatar, friends' avatars or in-game items.

Instructions

1. Prepare IMVU Images

   • 1
     Press the "Prt Scr" key on your keyboard while in the IMVU chat client to capture a screenshot of avatars or items.
   • 2
     Launch Photoshop, click "File" and select "New" to create a blank document.
   • 3
     Hold the "Ctrl" key and press "V" to place the screen shot within the blank document. Repeat this process for each IMVU screenshot image you want to use as a frame of your animated icon.
   • 4
     Click “Image” and “Image Size” to resize each IMVU screenshot to the same width and height. An icon image is usually anywhere between 100 and 200 pixels in size. If you want to use the icon as the account picture on your IMVU homepage, the image must be no larger than 160 pixels wide and 220 pixels tall. You may need to use the "Crop Tool" to resize your images properly.
   • 5
     Hold the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard and press the “A” key to select the image you want to use as your second frame.
   • 6
     Press the “C” key while holding “Ctrl” to copy the image.
   • 7
     Select the image you want to use as your first frame, hold “Ctrl” and press the “V” key. This will place the second image on top of the first image as a floating layer.
   • 8
     Repeat this process with each image until all of the images become floating layers stacked on top of the first image. You will see these layers in the “Layers” window.

   Create Animated Icon

   • 9
     Click “Windows” from the toolbar, then click “Animation” to open the Photoshop animation timeline. Frame 1 appears in the timeline.
   • 10
     Click the eye icon next to each layer in the “Layers” window until only your first image displays in frame 1. Clicking the eye icon toggles the visibly of the floating image layer, allowing you to choose which image displays in each frame.
   • 11
     Click the menu in the top right corner of the “Animation” window and select “New Frame.” This will place frame 2 in your animation.
   • 12
     Toggle the eye icon until only the second image in your animation displays in frame 2.
   • 13
     Repeat this process until you have created a frame for each floating layer, with the corresponding image displayed in the frame.
   • 14
     Click the “0 sec.” option on each frame to change the length of time that each frame displays.
   • 15
     Click the “Play” button to preview your animation.
   • 16
     Click the “File” menu, then click “Save for Web & Devices.” A new window will appear.
   • 17
     Choose “GIF” from the file type, then click the “Save” button to save your animated icon. You can now use the icon on your IMVU webpage.