Animated Glowing Objects
This tutorial will teach you a method to create an animated glowing object.
Instead of making the exact thing I show in this tutorial, please try to
create your very own version / object instead of copying mine.
If you do copy, and I know many people will do this, you will have the exact
same shaped / colored object as many others. It's your choise and I care little!

Table of Content
1. Creating an object
2. Applying the glow
3. Animating the glow

1. Creating an object.
This step of the tutorial is optional, as I recommend you create your own unique
object. I will demonstrate a technique to make a fancy depth radioactive sign.

Program used: Photoshop

Create a new document. Mine is 300x300.
Fill it with a dark color. I used #1E1E1E.

Grab the Custom Shape Tool and select your object.
I used the radioactive sign, but ofcourse you can use another, maybe custom one.
Draw the object on the screen. You should now have something like this:


Image 1.1: Object Concept I

Rasterize the object layer by doing Rightclick -> Rasterize Layer
Apply the following blending options to give it depth and color:


Image 1.2: Drop Shadow


Image 1.3: Bevel and Emboss


Image 1.4: Gradient Overlay

Now that we have applied the blending options above, our object should now look
somewhat like below:


Image 1.5: Concept Object II

In the next step you will find out how to apply the glow layer onto your object.
Please note that this step is 100% optional and that I recommend you make your very
own shape to apply a glow onto.

2. Applying the glow
After creating an object you want to apply an animated glow onto, this step will teach
you how to apply the not-animated glow layer.

Create a new layer. name it 'glow'. Make a rectangle selection using the selection tool.
Make it a little bit wider than your object. Fill it with the following gradient.


Image 2.1: Gradient Example

You should now have something like this:


Image 2.2: Concept Glow

Next up, set the glow layer to Overlay



As you can see, we now have a glow layer for our object.
Read on to learn how to make it animated using Adobe ImageReady!

3. Animating the glow
This step of the tutorial will mostly take part in Adobe ImageReady.
Don't close photoshop just yet! First, we must set our glow layer opacity to 0%.
Now we're done in photoshop! Press CTRL+SHIFT+M to switch to ImageReady.


Image 3.1: Non-animated object

Click Window->Animation to get the animation box.
Make sure the opacity of the glow layer is set to 0% for our first frame.

Now click the arrow on the far right top and click new frame.
Click the new frame you just made and set the opacity of the glow layer to 100%.
You should now have something like below:


Image 3.2: Half way done!

In order to get our animation smooth, we must add a tween between frames 1 and 2.
You can add a tween by clicking the tween () button.
Apply the following tween:


Image 3.3: Tweening

You should now have something similar to this:


Image 3.4: Almost there!

To finish things off, add a new frame. Set the glow layer opacity back to 0%.
Apply a tween on it to tween it with the previous frame.
Behold, our result:


Image 3.5: Result Image

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and learnt a bit about animation in Adobe Imageready!
Until next time! Here's a preview from my next tutorial!


Image 3.6: What we will be making next time