Intermediate

40 mins

Teacher/Student led

+70 XP

Pupils work on their own device

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC
Wick Editor needs no account

Animate It, Part 2: Layers, Timing and Getting It Out

Students split their animation onto layers, change the frame rate, save an editable project and export a finished GIF. This lesson counts towards outcome 3.8: students use these editing skills to build their digital montage in the montage lessons that follow.

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1 Start
2 Why Layers, and What Frame Rate Does
3 Hands-on: Put It on Layers
4 Hands-on: Frame Rate, Save and Export
5 Make Sense
6 What You Covered
Quiz

1 - Start ~3 mins

Illustration for Start Today you will turn your bouncing ball into a finished animation. You will put the ball and the background on separate layers, change how fast it plays, and save it as a file anyone can watch.

First, open your bouncing ball from Part 1:

Go to wickeditor.com and click Launch Web Editor, then Try it.
If Wick asks Load Autosave?, close that box with its x.
Click open at the top right and choose the .wick file you saved in Part 1. Your bouncing ball comes back.

Missed Part 1, or lost your file?

Download this bouncing ball (a .wick file with four frames). Open it the same way: click open at the top right and choose the file you downloaded.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Why Layers, and What Frame Rate Does ~5 mins

Layers are like see-through sheets stacked on top of each other. Put things that move on one layer and things that stay still on another.

Layer	What goes on it	Why
Top	The ball	It changes every frame
Bottom	The background	Drawn once, never redrawn

Frame rate

Frame rate is how many drawings, or frames, play each second. With the same drawings, a higher frame rate plays faster and a lower one plays slower. If you add more drawings and raise the frame rate to match, the speed stays the same and the movement looks smoother. So smoother movement means more drawing.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Hands-on: Put It on Layers ~12 mins

Now put the moving ball and a still background on separate layers. Follow the steps below.

+15 XP

4 - Hands-on: Frame Rate, Save and Export ~13 mins

Now change the timing, save the file you can edit, and then make a file you can share.

File	What it is for
.wick	Your editable project. Only Wick opens it. Keep this.
Animated GIF	Loops by itself, no sound. Good for posting.
Video (.mp4)	Plays anywhere and carries sound if you added any.

+15 XP

5 - Make Sense ~5 mins

There are two ideas to keep from today.

Separate what moves from what does not. That is what layers are for in every animation tool you will use, not just this one.
Keep the file you can edit and the file you share. They do different jobs.

Key point

A GIF is the finished animation. The .wick file is the one you can still change later.

+10 XP

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