One of the features that I often apply using Filter All Layers (or Apply Filter on Layer(s) with GAP's Frames Modify) is Map Object. Recently I began testing the Curve Bend Distortion filter. It can provide it's own interesting potential uses for animation sequences. Here are two recent ones that I came across using a nice sine wave looking bend:



The first result was this:



The above was done using Gimp and GAP and a situation where in the Curve Bend filter, the Upper and Lower curves are the same.

In the next animation, I set the Upper curve to a sine wave type of curve, but left the Lower curve at it's default straight line. That produced this result:



Because of the orientation of the two curves, the text begins on the right side of the screen flipped upside down, and at the middle of the screen flips to it's upright orientation. It also expands and compresses as it moves across the screen, which is another neat looking effect.

Over at gimptalk, I had created a tutorial about how to have animated text following a path. While you can use Curve Bend to make a neat little animation, there are many more tricks and effects you can do by applying the original animated text along a path tutorial. However, that approach is much more complex, where doing this in GAP with Curve Bend ended up being a much simpler approach, that can still produce some neat effects with very little effort. So while this cannot do all the things the text along a path animation can, it still has a lot of potential, and with much less effort.

I'll try to post some other animation possibilities from using the Curve Bend distort filter as time permits.

Thank you for checking this out.

Wow it's almost like Flash!
Nicely done ccbarr!

Rod,

Thank you.

Here are two basic animations of lines using the Curve Bend Filter:





One issue that I see with the above two animations is the Curve Bend filter doesn't apply antialiasing very well (if at all) to the final result. I'll compare this with a bending Path in Synfig Studio, where the antialiasing is much more evident:

Indeed he does!

Great stuff, ccbarr! I guess we better start polishing up a Wilber statue.

The text along a path tutorial ccbarr created can be found below.

There are so many older GAP tutorials with missing pictures and they are so instrumental in helping people see and understand the menus, etc. It's really disappointing. Do you ever translate your tutorials to PDF, ccbarr? Maybe tutorials should be offered in separate mediums just so they aren't completely lost as time goes by.

I've attached a PDF of the Text along a path tutorial below:

Wow, you guys are like so groovy, man.

Gotta try this one too.

IMO, the rapidity of the animation doesn't allow the eye to linger on the nonantialiased (is that a word?) edges long enough to make it unappealing.

Simply brilliant! Something I will need to try!!

I was thinking the same thing O.You really do not see the effect that much because of the animation.Your eye sees the movement instead.

Saul that was very nicely done!

Mahvin thanks for the PDF file.

I am pretty sure i goofed it on the W layer (move path)

I dig this!

Thank you all for responding. You all rock as well!

@saulgoode Thank you very much and may I please pay the compliment back to you as well. Your contributions to both Gimp and the Gimp community are inspiring. That is one very cool animation.

@mahvin Thank you for converting the Text Along Path animation tutorial into a PDF. I have written and saved some of my tutorials in the Open Document format here locally. Time (and motivation) permitting, I may convert them to PDF and add them here. It is unfortunate that some of the GAP tutorials no longer have images. Not only the GAP tutorials, but others in general over at gimptalk. Unfortunate too since there were a lot of quality tutorials posted there.

@Rod, nice effort on animating text along a path. It's one of the more complex tutorials to attempt to follow.

Regarding the antialiasing issues with the Curve Bend filter that I mentioned, they are not so noticeable with the text animations, but they are (for me) in the case of the bending and stretching line animations.

However, O and Rod's points about the animations proceeding at such a speed that it's not that noticeable make sense to me. Depending on what part such an effect plays in an overall animation, that may be acceptable to whomever is creating the animation effect. Also, not having antialiasing can be used to an advantage to dramatize an effect in some cases.

Again, thank you everyone.