PhotoMirage Tutorials, Tips And Tricks

Novica

I'm starting the thread on PhotoMirage, which is a sheer joy to play with, so folks can share what they learn, and I'll provide a few links to get you started. This is a VERY EASY PROGRAM. The interface you see is the total interface, you have a couple rows of choices, and down below the Play and Zoom options. (As usual, you can zoom with your mouse also.)  There are several ways to animate, my first demonstration is just one way to place the animation lines.

Take a quick peek.  (Overview)

Novica

Links:

Corel's Tutorial Page   

Novica

I'm just starting out and this is going to be the first one I do. I already played with it and it's easy to keep getting better and better, if you know what I mean. I'll do a few screenshots to show you the process. 

The first tip I'll give you- if you want to animate hair, understand that if it overlays on top of an arm, you're going to have to be really nit-picky and mask out the arm so it doesn't flow off too. And, that's not hard!  The mask is just a click to select it, then you can do + and - to fine tune. Very, very easy. So I am tackling a more complicated one just to show you how it's done.

I'm not going toreally re-invent the wheel as Corel's video shows you what the tools are, but that purple arrow is on by default and that's your animation tool "on." The purple square with the arrow inside it (directly below the huge purple arrow) is what you click to start drawing your lines. You draw in the direction you want the flow to go. TIP: Smaller arrows are more precise. Definitely use that where hair curves.

I've tried several approaches, I like to select the mask tool (the marker, next to the purple arrow) and mask the entire image. You can make the brush size huge and it takes about two seconds to mask. Note the + and - directly above the brush size? We'll be using the - mask later to remove the mask from the hair strands you want to animate. Easy!

Click on the purple arrow to leave masking, and you'll be in the Animation tool again. Draw lines in the direction you want the flow of motion. So mine start by her head and go out. I'm doing one strand to show you a technique I like. (First mask, then do animation lines. Yes, it's still masked.) 

Next, click on that marker (the mask tool, by the purple animation tool arrow) and reduce your brush size to about 14. We're going to use the - for the mask, and remove the mask that is directly on top of your animation lines. This makes for precise selection of the hair. See how easy this is? Mask everything, put in your animation lines, choose mask and the -, and remove the mask from the hair strand. 

If you remove too much of the mask, simply click the + (while still in the mask tool) and add the mask back in. You don't want the background moving! 

TIP: Avoid crossing other strands going the opposite direction- aka horizontal instead of vertical, or you'll get a blob. I'm going to remove that very last animation line (closest to the bottom right corner.) See how that crosses other hair waving across horizontally? It's a mess when I animate it. So you select the Select Tool (K is the shortcut, will be handy to learn that one!)  which is the arrow with the dot at the tip,  and by clicking on the animation line on the render, and Delete, poof, away it goes. 

You can also mouse over the square that will appear over the line when you select it, and rotate the animation line. (Curved arrows appear at the corners.)
You can also move the line when you see the plus sign, and pull a corner to enlarge the line,  like in other graphics programs. 

Then you rinse, repeat with other strands. You can click the PLAY button down at the bottom to check your animation at any time, Stop, and make changes. Have fun!

As Corel videos show, you can also use anchor points to securely lodge an area so it doesn't move. If you are still having areas which are masked but they move, try adding an anchor point also. The anchor point is visible when you are in Animation (click the purple arrow) and it is on the second row, next to the purple box with the arrow in it. It's the box with two little boxes in the upper left corner. (Look at the next image which shows the anchor points, in red.) 

Novica

The videos will show you other ways of selecting areas and protecting other sections from movement, which is basically using the Anchor Points and surrounding the area which doesn't move. For example, you'd do Anchor Points in a circle around her face.

Here's something interesting-  You would ASSUME- "The reason masking is best for the gal with hair- you can't Anchor Point the arm because any hair crossing it wouldn't move."    I just tested it, and ANIMATION LINES OVERRIDE THE ANCHOR POINTS.  If you have animation lines inside Anchor Points, the area will move.

This shows the technique of simply first doing animation lines, no masking. You'd need to mask the areas you don't want to move, so this would be "in progress." 
It also shows anchor points on the arm, with animation lines going through it. THE ARM MOVES SO THIS IS INEFFECTIVE. (Aka, an example of what NOT TO DO.) 

And reminder, use CTRL + Z to undo. It took me about 15 seconds to undo all those Anchor Points and animation lines.

Novica

Question- what types of animated files can be posted on the forums? Animated gifs?

Novica

I'm going to be working on that off and on this evening, and hopefully will have something to show, but I want to save it where it can be viewed. Otherwise, I can set up an Instagram account I suppose.

Novica

Fact:  Whereas animation lines overrule Anchor Points- 
MASKS HOLD FIRM.  Anything masked WILL NOT MOVE, even if animation lines are on top of them or happen to bump into the mask/cross it.  So this is the  "does what it's supposed to do. The masked area won't go anywhere." 

Novica

So here's another experiment and WHAT NOT TO DO. (Which is just as important as what TO do. It'll save you the trouble and the time.) 

I wanted to see if masking along the strands would make the strands appear crisper in their flow. It doesn't. As somewhat expected, what it does is create severe anti-aliasing jagged z lines along the strand. I masked the background and hair areas I wasn't working on, that can easily be removed using the - mask feature when I get to that part of the hair. I'll be removing all this mask anyway due to the "yuck, don't like THOSE results." 

Click to enlarge that second image, I made it really big so you can see the details.

Novica

TIP:  LONG strokes for hair. Anytime you stop and start an animation line, it really is apparent when you have highlights/changes in color in the hair. 

Novica

Okay, so here's the smoothest way to do this-do your animation lines first, run Play and see the movement, then mask OVER any part of the lines/flow you don't want moving. Some parts of the hair strand are just not going to look right, due to color differences, so you can mask out part of the width of that strand so it's less obvious. If a strand has high shine and more light in one little section,  you can cut that area down with masking. Second, make sure it's a long stroke through there, which is difficult as some of the high shine is where the hair curls/bends.