Merge-anim is a script that I have written in August 1998 and updated recently for the current version of the GIMP. It can be used to merge the background or top layer of an image with all other layers, while applying some optional effects such as translation, varying transparency, ... This is useful if you want to create an animation quickly or if you want to add some new elements to an existing animation. You will find it in the menu Script-Fu / Animators / Merge layer with others...

The diagram on the right shows how the merge-anim script can be used: an animation with 5 frames is merged with a background layer. The result is a new animation in which all frames have the same background. More complex effects (scrolling, fading) can be obtained by varying the offset or opacity of the layers during the merge.

Like all other scripts, merge-anim does nothing more than automating some tasks that you could also do by hand, but it is very useful because you can save a lot of time by using it. For more complex animations you probably need something like the GAP plug-ins (in the Video menu), but merge-anim is simple and fast and it is sufficient most of the time.

Examples

The following pages contain some examples of what you can do with the merge-anim script... This is a kind of mini-tutorial. The first example is very simple. The "burning arrow" example shows how the script can be used twice on the same animation to create some interesting effects.

• Adding a background to an animation
• Adding a mask on top of an animation
• Adding scrolling text to an image
• Animating selected parts of an image
• A more complex example (burning arrow)

The animation at the top of this page was created by using this script on an image created with Xtns / Script-Fu / Logos / Cool Metal and an animation created with Script-Fu / Animators / Waves. It should not be hard for you to find out how I did it, after looking at the examples above.

Downloads

• merge-anim.scm version 2.0 (2002-01-04), for Gimp-1.2 and later.
• merge-anim-1.scm version 1.2 (1998-08-11), for Gimp-1.0 only.

The new version of the script allows you to merge an animation with a layer from another image. It is also possible to undo your changes if you did not run this script with the correct options. You can see some of the options on the screenshot of the parameters dialog.

To install the script, save it in your personal directory ~/.gimp-1.2/scripts/ or (as root) in the common directory /usr/share/gimp/1.2/scripts/.