Halloween Spider
rewritten for PSPX
Both original and rewritten version by kim@pixelbit.com

Needed tools:

Eye Candy 4000
Mura Copies
Unplugged shapes
Spider tube

Open a new image 500 X 500 transparent.
Fill with Black. Duplicate your layer.
Your layer palette should look like this.

Make the top layer active.
Apply Unplugged Shapes > Spokes with the settings shown below.

With your magic wand tool, click somewhere on the black area and press delete.
Your image will look the same but your layer palette will look like this.

Make a new raster layer.
In your color palette, set the foreground (top) color to white.
Set the background (bottom) color to NULL.
Select your preset shape tool and select the Dodecagon shape.
Set your width to 5, create as vector UNchecked.

Place your mouse in the upper left corner. Press and hold your shift key as you make your shape.
Make a shape that is as big as you can make it without being chopped off on the edges.

Apply MuRa Copies. plug-in.
Click on the preset effects on the lower left and select the feedback (center) effect, click ok.

Right click on your top layer and select Merge > DOWN.
Your layer palette will look like this. All the white stuff on the top layer, the black layer on the bottom.

Apply Eye Candy 4000 > Bevel Boss > Inner carve preset.

Click on effects > Illumination Effects > Lights

Select the Christmas corners preset that came with PSP and click ok.

In your layer palette. merge visible.
Now is the time to add all of your Halloween decorations.
Throw some witches, bats, etc on there.

When you're don adding your decorations, if you have more than one layer, merge > visible.
make a new layer.
Leave the color palette as it (foreground id white, background is null).
Use your line too. width=15, vector is unchecked, mode is polylines (looks like the straight line segment in the middle).
Press and hold your shift key to insure a straight line and make t vertical line that goes almost to the bottom of your image.
Apply the same inner carve bevel that you used on the web.

On a separate later, add your spider and place it at the very bottom of your line.

Right click on your spider layer and merge > down so that the line and spider are on the top layer, everything else on the bottom layer.

In your layer palette, duplicate your spider layer.
Make your mover tool active. Click on the spider (on the image, not the layer palette)
Press and hold your CTRL key and press your UP ARROW 5 times.

Duplicate your top layer.
Click on the highest spider with your mover tool.
Press and hold CTRL.
Press UP ARROW 5 times.
Repeat this process until your spider as all the way at the top of your image as shown below.

Your layer palette will look very much like the one shown below.
Save your image in psp format
(In the save window, be sure to click on options and select psp7 compatible).

Open Animation Shop.
File > Preferences > General Program Preferences > Layered files.

Be sure that "Each frame shows first and current is checked and click ok.

Open your image.
You will notice that the very first frame has no spider.
Also that the first frame has a blue border around it.
The blue border indicates that frame 1 is selected.

Be cure that frame 1 is selected and press your delete key on your keyboard.

Press SHIFT and D at the same time to make a duplicate image.
In the duplicate image only, make frame 1 active (should already be active) and press delete.
Move the slider bar at the bottom to the right until you can see the last frame. Click on the last frame to make it active.
Press delete.
Now your duplicate is the same as the original minus the first and last frames.

Press CTRL and A to select ALL frames.
Click Animation > Reverse frames.

All frames should still be selected, but just to be sure, press CTRL + A again. Copy (CTRL + C)

Lets go back to the original image now.
Move the slider bar to the right until the last frame is visible. Click on the last frame to select it.
Using your RIGHT mouse button, click on the last frame.
Select Paste > after current.

Almost done.
Select all again. Press ALT + ENTER.
The default number here will be 10. Change it to 25 and click ok.
The lower the number, the faster your spider will move
Higher numbers make it move slower.
If 25 is not the preferred number for you, feel free to change it to one that is.

Now its time to resize.
Press SHIFT + S and resize to 50 to 70 percent of original (the percentage is your choice)
Press CTRL + S to bring up the first save window,
Click ok on all of the save windows and you're done.
To get a preview of what your animation will look like, click View > Animation.
In a separate window, your animation will be displayed.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at:
kim@pixelbit.com