Hi dear friends:
This is an easy tutorial to do nice rain , snow or other weather aniomations with the nice program Sqirlz Reflect. You´ll have a nice image but it has a big weight.. I´ll tell you how to low the weight using Animation Shop after you get your animatin on Sqirlz Reflect.

This is what are we going to do:

1. Install Sqirlz .. It´S a little and nice programe

2 .- Open sqirlz and go to Filoe ... And Opne an image you want to use ( of course it has to be an image of a rainny day or with water

[IMG]3.-[/IMG]


4.- Now I want to make rain and ripples on the water

5.- Go to this ( look at the mouse arrow in the shot ) and a window opens and you have to check Rain/ snow and Ring Ripples- after this.. Click OK


6.- Now you are going to see your animation. Click on this yellow arrw and wait just a little time.



7. - You see your animation now.. You´ll see that rain is strong .. Or may be you don´t like how it looks. We are going to correct the rain or the ripples size
Here you see the rain do not looks nice..:



8.- Go to REFLECT OPTIONS and click on Customize Rain/Snow



A window opens and we can paly with settings
I will do rain thiner and I´ll change the angle of the rain:

Look at my settings and if you liked how my animation looks use thiese setting - Here you can play as your likes. I liked a smooth rain and with drops water transparency:
Now It looks like this:




9.- You can use another settings , also you can play with other ripples settigs to make them small or larger .-
I liked how ripples were and didn´t make changes:

10.- IT´S DONE! WE HAVE THE ANIMATION..SAVE IT AS GIF FILE



A windows opens and you save the animation..click on OK .. It will take a few seconds to get the animation:



You´ll see it´S a big file in weight:
We ´ll reduce this file:
11.- Open the animation in Animation Shop
You´´ see we have 20 frames in the animation:
Go to Edit - Select all and after this go to - Animation - Cull animation



12.- A little window opens and you put the frames you want to take off.. .- It will take off 1 frame per 3 frames.. Click ok!


13.- Repeat Step 12 .. Six or seven times-- you have to get just 4 frames , may be you want 3 frames.. Don´t forget to do Edit - Select all--
I made my animation with 4 frames.-


14..
Now we are going to change the animation frame properties.. To have a nice rain and ripples .-)
You have to go to Edit - Select all ( this step selct all the frames)
Then go to - Animation - Frame properties

A window opens and select the properties
I used this settings:




It´S done- we have our nice rain and ripples!!

15 - I f you want to put a frame to the animation.. You can do this:
Look the dimension of your animation frame:- Mine was 504 x 378

Go to PSP and open a new transparent image 504 x 370
I made this frame.. Do not do a big frame because it will do the animation more weight..
Save the frame as gif or jpg
And open the frame in Animation Shop



16. Now DUPLICATE THE FRAME 3 TIMES . You have now 4 frames -
Go to your rain and ripples animation and Select all frames -
Go to your frame and Select all frames and now Insert the Rain & ripples on the Frame:
You´ll have the animation that is on the top of this Tutorial