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4 edits | Simple Scrolling in ImageReady (revised) Part #2 METHOD #2: While this method is more easily accomplished (I think), it is difficult to provide that “seamless” loop mentioned below; hence, the ADDITIONAL NOTES below (my own example has a bit of a “jump” to it when it loops).
In this method, it is important to make sure that there is not a discernable “jump” from the last frame of the animation to the first frame when the animation loops. To accomplish this, one has to make the background look all the same: when the animation jumps from the last frame back to the first frame, the background cannot have anything different about it, or it will show up as an annoying “reset” jump.
Okay, open a new file, and when the box comes up to choose your background, choose white. Set the pixels to 656 for width, and 174 for height.
Now, let’s make the background. Set the foreground to the default shade of blue under web safe colors in the Color Picker Palette (0000FF). Again, we’ll have a blue sky and clouds, because with the foreground set to blue, making the clouds is a simple matter of going to Filters>Render>Clouds (you can also have the foreground white and the background blue – either will work; in fact, having the foreground white and the background this shade of blue [0000FF] usually will give us a richer looking blue sky, and when we use Image>Adjustments>Levels we can really bring the white of the clouds out to our satisfaction, although, again, the Levels step is not necessary if you don’t want to do it).
Next, we have to make the background two to three times the width of the canvas size (your choice; also, see ADDITIONAL NOTES below) by copying it twice (or once), scrolling one copy to the far left and the other copy to the far right (if only two copies are used, just scroll one to the far left), linking the copies, and then joining the copies with the original (Layer>Merge Linked), so that there is one continuous background, a portion of which is showing in the center of the animation at any given time after we reduce the Canvas Size back to it’s original size (if you want to check out the size of the background, go to Image>Canvas Size and set the canvas to two or three times the width of the background – ignore the dialog that comes up when you set it back to the original size).
The images below show the linking and joining of the copied layers, one and two layers visible, and the resizing of the Canvas to the original width of 656 pixels.
NOTE: The reason you don't see the blank layers in the images below that are supposed to show one blank layer and two blank layers is that I set my default to transparent automatically (contrary to what I told you to do at the beginning of this tut  ).
Remember, we have to set the Canvas to its original size after making it bigger (if we do that to see how it looks), so that only the center of the image is visible at any given time. Also remember not to do anything to the height size; it’s not necessary for this tutorial.
Finally, having jumped over to ImageReady by clicking the bottom of the tool bar (as we learned in the first scrolling tutorial), we move the background – via the arrow keys on the keyboard while the Move Tool on the Tools Palette is selected – so that the copies of the background have moved, or “scrolled,” from Right to Left, leaving the copy of the background to the furthest Right visible. Then, we click on the copy icon at the bottom of the Animation Palette (we learned where this is in the first part of this 2 part tutorial), copying the first frame, and in the copied frame we move, or “scroll,” all the way from Left to Right, leaving the copy of the background to the furthest Left visible. Next, we select the first frame in the Animation Palette, then, making sure it is set to default (Tween With next frame), we set our tween of the background; in this manner, we achieve the illusion of the sky moving, while the foreground object – in this case, the plane – stands still. Since the clouds are “moving” past the plane, it looks like the plane is flying through the air (The tween can be set to any amount of added frames, but remember, more frames mean more file size).
ADDITIONAL NOTES: It may be necessary, prior to linking and joining all the layers, to use Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal or Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical to have the last frame match more or less seamlessly with the first frame.
I have also found that if one wants to have an instance of some objects moving, they must make multiple copies of the Layer that they want to show the object moving in, turning on one layer and turning off the others as they want them to show in the Frame. Although that isn’t the case with this type of scrolling movement (the program does it all for us), it is in some others where the type of movement isn’t a one-side-to-the-other-side or from-the-bottom-to-the-top off the frame type of movement. Why this is so is beyond me, but it seems to be most prevalent in movements that are made inside the Layer that don’t actually go outside the Frame border, such as a bird flapping it’s wings. For that, you would need two layers: one with the wings up, and one with them down; you would also need to link those layers together, and do the scrolling bit of the first part of this tutorial, then turn every other Layer off for either the up stroke of the wings or the down stroke of the wings, so that it would show up that way in the Frames.
Experiment, try different movements, have fun (and get frustrated, at times) with the way ImageReady works.
It is also a given that this Second type of scrolling (the background) method will have a larger file size, so that more optimization will be necessary, and in some cases, the overall quality of the graphic will suffer.
You can experiment with filters on this one, but it really isn’t meant to have any filter other than the Filter>Render>Clouds; still, playing is always fun.
That’s it; we’re finished!
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