Question:
I'm working on a project where I might have a need to add effects to my video and animate some static images. I'd like some 2D software that can perform the animations without a big learning curve. The results I'm after are as follows: rain effect -- making it appear that a video was taken during a rainfall. Another video with snow effect -- making it appear that a video was taken during a snowfall. Any help finding such animation software will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. 
Answer:
We have found absolutely FREE program which allows to add RAIN, SNOW effects to any image or video. This is Sqirlz Water Reflections. It has general rainfall and snowfall effects, and the option of adding reflecting areas of water containing circular (ring) ripples like those seen when rain falls onto water. - Possibility of adding pools of water to an image or AVI video. - The pools can be animated to give gentle rippling reflections of the scene above them. - You can choose from a variety of ripples, and control details such as wave size and perspective. - Animations can be saved as Macromedia Flash (SWF) files, animated GIF files, AVI video clips, and sets of bitmap, JPEG and TIFF files. |
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Step 1. Click here to download and install Sqirlz Water Reflections
Step 2. If you want to add effect to avi video file then you must prepare the file -- convert it.
Sqirlz Water Reflections is currently limited to opening 24-bit and 16(15)-bit AVI files, and has been tested with Cinepak, Microsoft Video 1, Intel YUV, Intel Indeo R3.2, and no compression.
So, in order to prepare your AVI file you can use free program. Click here to download and install Zwei Stein Editor
1) Launch Zwei-Stein (Click Start -> Programs -> Thugs at Bay...)
2) Press File -> Import -> Import Video Clip
3) Select type of files - "All files (*.*)"
4) Open your .avi video clip.
5) Press File -> Export -> Video for Windows (AVI)
6) Enter filename.
7) Choose video codec. Cinepak, Microsoft Video 1, Intel YUV or Intel Indeo R3.2
8) Click OK! You have prepared avi file for video processing in the program.
Step 3. Launch Sqirlz Water Reflections. Click Start -> Programs -> Sqirlz Water Reflections. After that, click File -> AVI Open... and choose your converted avi file.
If you want to add effect to image, then click File -> Open and select the image to open.
Step 4. Click menu Animate -> Combination of Rain/Snow and Ripples. Choose Rain/Snow Only. Click OK.
Step 5. Click menu Reflect Options -> Customize Rain/Snow. Try to adjust parameters and to see the changes by clicking "Run Rain/Snow only" yellow arrow at the top left part of the window. Click Snow checkbox if you want to add Snow instead of Rain.
We have experimented with several options. Here you can see optimal parameters for the Snow effect:
Step 6. Close the window. In order to save video with effects, click menu Animate -> Make AVI File. Click OK. Choose filename, enter frame rate (15 is by default). Select the codec (XviD for example), click OK.
Also, you can save the video with effects using Flash format. This is very good choice if you want to place video on web pages. Click menu Animate -> Make Flash File, click ok. Enter filename, set image quality and framerate. Click OK.
Great! Here's a small example of the video with snow effect:
Useful Tips -- how to use Sqirlz Water Reflections
Reflecting part of an Image in rippling water
Sqirlz Water Reflections allows gentle rippling water reflections to be added to any image or to existing AVI video clips.
Water reflections may be enhanced by ‘basic’ rippling such as is seen on lakes, rivers and the sea, or by ‘ring’ rippling – circular ripples seen when rain, for example, falls on water.
First you draw a boundary line – or Outline – around the part of the image where you want the reflection to appear, then choose a few details of how the reflection should look, and finally run the animation.
The area within your selected Outline is turned into a pool of rippling water, which reflects the part of the original image (or AVI clip) which lies above your Outline.
Any animation can be saved as a Flash file, AVI file, GIF file, or as a set of bitmap (.bmp) or JPEG (.jpg) files.
Steps for setting up reflection animations
Briefly, the steps are:
Load an image file.
Draw an Outline around the area which you want to display the reflections.
Select basic or ring ripples to appear within the Outline.
Click the Run button.
The “Customize Basic Ripples” button and “Customize Ring Ripples” button can be used to modify the appearance of the reflection.
Adding several reflecting areas or areas of rain
Adding Several Reflecting Areas
To create two reflecting areas, do the following:
Set up the animation as usual with a single Outline around your first reflecting area. Save the animation to an AVI file (preferably using no compression when saving). Load your saved AVI file using the “AVI Open” command in the File menu. Draw a new Outline around your second reflecting area.
You can now view your two-reflection animation, or save it to an AVI, GIF, or Flash file.
The above procedure can be repeated as many times as you like to create three, four or more reflecting areas.
Adding Several Areas of Rain or Snow
Several areas of rain or snow can be added using a similar procedure to that described above for adding reflecting areas. Here, you would set up the Outline and tick the “Within Outline Only“ option when customizing the rain or snow.
Superimposing Rainfall – for example, to enhance depth
Rather than adding rain in different areas, you could superimpose one area of rain onto another – perhaps slanting it down at a different angle.
Superimposing areas of rainfall also allows greater control over the ‘depth’ (the impression that the rain stretches from nearby all the way into the distance) beyond that offered by the “Depth of Field” sliding control. For example, fairly large drops could be used in the initial animation, and then smaller, slower-moving drops could be superimposed to enhance the impression of distance.
Web Animation Options
Sqirlz Water Reflections animations can be saved in four ways: (1) as a Macromedia Flash (SWF) movie file, (2) as a video clip file in AVI format, (3) as an animated GIF file, or (4) as a set of image files (of type .bmp, .jpg or .tif) with one image file saved for each frame in the animation.
The most common ways of incorporating a simple animation in a web page is as an animated GIF file or a Flash movie.
Flash is becoming the standard web animation format, and can be produced directly from Sqirlz Water Reflections, as can GIF.
Other video formats such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 can easily be produced from an AVI file using one of a number of available Freeware and Shareware converters. These can be found, for example, by searching the Web for “AVI to MPEG” and the like.
Loading Simple Image Files
File Types
Sqirlz Water Reflections can directly read Bitmap (.bmp), JPEG (.jpg) and TIFF (.tif) file types.
You can still work with other file types which can be copied into the Windows clipboard (but see below for .gif files).
To work with a file other than .jpg, .bmp, and .tif, load it into a standard photo/imaging package such as Microsoft Paint and copy the image to the clipboard. You can then Paste the image directly into Sqirlz after creating an empty image window with the New command.
You could also, of course, just use the other imaging application to save your image as a .bmp .jpg or .tif file and then Open it in Sqirlz.
Image Formats
Sqirlz can only handle 24-bit color images (which is the standard format for most applications). If you have an image in, for example, greyscale, or 8-bit indexed color, or 32-color format, then you must first convert it to 24-bit color format for Sqirlz to understand it.
One file type which you will have to convert is the .gif type. These usually support no more than 8 bits of color information.
Many standard photo/imaging packages (like Microsoft Paint) have the facility for converting image formats, so you will need to use one of these first.
Once converted to 24-bit format, the image may be copied to the clipboard and pasted into Sqirlz, or saved as a .bmp, .jpg or .tif file and opened in Sqirlz as described above.
Loading Animation Files
Sqirlz Water Reflections is currently limited to opening 24-bit and 16(15)-bit AVI files, and has been tested with a number of popular video CODECs (for example, Cinepak, Microsoft Video 1, Intel YUV, Intel Indeo R3.2, and of course, no compression). If you have a file in, for example, 32-bit or 8-bit format, you will have to obtain a video converter (try Web search engines).
If you have a Macromedia Flash (SWF) file, you will have to obtain a converter – look for “Flash to AVI” or “swf to AVI” or “Flash to video” etc on a Web search engine.
Depending on the popularity of video input, we may add Flash input and other formats.