How do you make an animated .gif?

Now we have all the layers necessary to make Kirk's mouth open and close. So let's create a quick 2-frame animation so we can enjoy our handiwork. The first frame is just the original Kirk.jpg over a hot pink background, while the second frame includes all of our new layers we created:

http://i34.tinypic.com/35170ub.gif

Not perfect, but it'll get the job done. The rest of this involves getting the banana to fly into Kirk's mouth. Hopefully, you should be able to do that using the Steps two and three Remember that we have three banana layers now so it can tumble through the air with ultra realistic motion. But if you followed the steps I gave you today (FOOL! AHAHAHA), you're going to run into a problem when the banana actually enters the mouth. THIS:

http://i35.tinypic.com/15hodw7.jpg

To understand what's going on, we need to look at the layers:

http://i35.tinypic.com/ifn6mq.jpg

The banana layer is above the the top lip/teeth, above the empty black mouth layer, above the rest of kirk cameron, but below the bottom lip. So far, so good, because want the banana to be above everything but disappear behind the bottom lip as it enters the mouth. But the horror show Banana-Through-The-Mouth occurs because after it disappears below the bottom lip, there's nothing else to cover it up. Again, think of how you would do this with paper. Currently, the banana would slip beneath the bottom lip and then pop back out into visibility. We need ONE MORE cover layer to give it something to hide behind.

Again, choose the MEGADOUCHE layer (kirk), and use your lasso tool. We want to select a big enough area for a banana to disappear behind. Here's what I selected:

http://i37.tinypic.com/23tsbnr.jpg

Again, copy the selection and paste it into a new layer, rename it "CoverLayer", and then position it like so in the Layers Window:

http://i35.tinypic.com/1zn9zqg.jpg

There. Now the banana disappears behind the coverlayer when it gets near the mouth. Now I'm going to create some new frames, make the banana tumble toward Kirk, and as the banana comes near, have his mouth open (turning on all the layers we created today, the top lip, bottom lip, black space, and CoverLayer), show the banana entering, and then snap his mouth shut. To top it all off, I'll do my best to think of what Kirk Cameron would say, and place him in an semi-appropriate context.

http://i38.tinypic.com/290tr9t.gif

I realized I skipped some steps there at the end, but you should be able to figure it out. (hypothetical you, if anyone is actually doing this) The text is just created using the text tool - ok, I used the shape tool to create the heart and then merged that into the text layer (shift-select the layers you want to merge in the Layers Window, then right click and select Merge Layers) - and then turn that text layer on during the final frame. And the hell layer is just copied and pasted from these internets, and placed at the very bottom of the layer order, where the hot pink used to be.

ZS it is so fantastic of you to explain all this! Thanks for your time & your awesomeness.

Don't thank me, thank Kirk Cameron! I can't think of anyone else's pixels I'd like to manipulate, hubba hubba! :)

He is the banana's worst nightmare.

Whoah ZS this is so awesome! And you sound like the perfect teacher: patient, funny, Kirk-hating... <3

Thanks you guys. :)

I'm going to make just a few more next week, covering topics such as

1) How to "zoom in" on an object/person
2) playing with opacity
3) how to do the "flythrough" effect:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/flythrough.gif