SqirlzMorph Tutorial

(Morphs are the middle distortion and fade images)

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Click here to Download SqirlzMorph V1.7 by Xiberpix
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1) The file you download will be a compressed file called SqirlzMorph.zip. This ZIP file with SqirlzMorph inside is small at around 1.5MB in size. You can either extract this to a directory (file folder) that you are familiar with or you can run the SqM_instal.exe file right after you open up the ZIP file. Both work fine.

2) After installing SqirlzMorph go to the Start menu in Windows and find the newly installed program there. After it launches you see the Welcome screen. Left-click the red continue button.

3) Left-click the green folder icon at the top left of the program. Find the images you wish to morph and left-click Open. You may want to resize both of your morph images before bringing them into SqirlzMorph but that is up to you. One trick I use is to hold the Ctrl key on the keyboard and load both of the images I want to load at once, assuming they are in the same folder. You can arrange the images by going up to the menu titled Window and choosing Tile. This places the images side-by-side.

4) Next we'll use the icons down the left side of the screen. The Green plus-shape icon drops the control points for us. Begin by left-clicking on an image dropping control points at the corners of the eyes on only one picture. Now you will see where the same numbers of points show up on the second picture.

5) The bad news about this program is that dropping the control points and moving them around are two different icons. To align the control points on the second picture left-click the dark black arrow icon below the green plus icon. The black arrow allows us to move the control points. On the second image move the corresponding points to the corners of the eyes as you did on the first image. Notice on the example below that when you drop control points they may not be near where you want them on the second image. As you can see the control points for the chin need moved.

You can adjust control points on either image so adjust as you see necessary. The first left-click picks up the point and then the second left-click drops the point again where you want it. You'll probably need to go back and forth between the green plus icon and the black arrow. The more points you drop the smoother your transition will appear.

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6) Under the Image menu at the top choose Equalize Sizes. This will assure that both of your images match in size for the morph.

7) Next let's preview your morph animation. Left-click the thick yellow arrow at the top of the program. This yellow arrow does the morph/warp and will launch a small preview window.

8) You may have noticed your animation playing a bit too fast. First left-click the main window to stop the animation in the preview window. To slow the animation down left-click the icon looking like six spheres in a triangle arrangement at the top left of the program. This button sets the period of animation which is basically the amount of frames in your movie. I entered 200 frames and my preview slowed down considerably. Click the thick yellow arrow again to re-test your morph.

9) Lastly go up to the red word icon that says gif and prepare to save the animation. If your animation was 200 frames it may take a while to write this file out. When the program asks for frame-rate this is how fast the animation will play. I chose 20 or 15. Any frame rate smaller than that and it becomes hard to see the motion.

Remember that if your animation has double-vision or any part of it doesn't seem right then you can go back and correct it. In fact you may want to save this project in the file menu to make adjustments later. Moving points around will make a world of difference in areas where the transitions don't look smooth or natural.

A real-time preview window is helpful in SqirlzMorph.

SqirlzMorph features outputs such as AVI and animated-GIF. Additionally SqirlzMorph will output each frame as a JPG or BMP so you can use the individual images instead of the whole animation. Another feature touted is the multiple-morphing option where any number of images can be morphed together at the same time. Good luck and happy morphing!

Written March08 and updated Sept08 by Tracy Rose