For this tutorial, you will need a wonderful, small program called Reflet.
It creates a faux lake applet animation -- perfect for folks who do not have a website.
This program is written in French, but is quite intuitive and easy to use.If you are uncomfortable
with the french titles, you will find translations of the terms, further down on this page.
You will also need an image of your choice, or you can dl the image that I used here.
Right click and "save as" to a file of your choice.

To download, click on the word "Reflet" above.

Save and Unzip REFLET.zip into a folder (this program does not install).
I put a short cut on my desk top for easy access to it. You can also drag
it to your Quick Launch Tool Bar if you don't want it on up the desk top.

To open the self-executing program double Left click the Reflet.exe file.
(Shown below.)

1) Click on File Open icon and browse to your image to open
(be sure to crop all uncessary areas
off your image first - Keep in mind that your file total size will depend
on the size of image and # of frames you choose).



2) To start the animation click on the animation icon.



3) Copy the height settings. (Hauter %).



4) Set the frames. (Images).



5) Set the style. (Perspective).



6) Click the save icon.



7) Give your faux lake applet a name, and browse to the folder where you want to save it. Click OK.

C'est Finis!

NOTE: The last screen that pops up, asks if you want to generate the HTML
page and see your animation. This screen will also show the total size of
your animation. If you wish to see this information, click yes (oui),
or just close it.

Translations:







Here is a note on how to keep the size down for stationery!

1) Cut out all unnecessary parts of the image. Save it as a jpg.

2) Use the gif optimizer in PSP to get the size of your graphic down.
(or any other graphics program you have.

3) Now you are ready to take the image into Reflet.

4) If your image is fairly large, play with the settings in Reflet
before saving the animation.
Use fewer frames, play with the wave speed and length.
You will be even more surprised how much control you
do have over the finished piece.
When saving the piece, the fewer colors that you use,
reduces the size of it greatly!

5) If the finished piece is still large, try taking it into
Animation Shop and optimizing the gif even more.

Here is another example of what can be done with this little program!

This is an overlay.



This tutorial was created March 20,2003 by Rita Nelson
Property and all rights belong to Clairvisions.
This tutorial and graphics may not be copied or placed on any site,
email or elist without written permission directly from me.