Click here to download a the Waterfall screen saver shown in this tutorial. The screensaver is shareware, but will give you a good idea of how it all looks when put together. An uninstaller is included :-)

This tutorial illustrates how to color your overlay animate a waterfall using the lake effect.
If you're uncertain what a "sprite" is, please read the AnimateIt help files.
For a tutorial on using the lake effect, please read "Adding a rippling lake to your screensaver-part2" on the AnimateIt site.

This first illustration shows the original image before any effects are added.

The first step is to decide which parts of the image that you want to be animated. Look at the flow of the water. The waterfall effect is created by coloring the water throughout the waterfall that will be transparent in the screensaver causing the original image to show through. There are many ways to achieve this and it will vary depending on the image you start with. For the purpose of this tutorial, I will explain how the effects were created for the image above.

The water at the base of the waterfall is not colored at all in this image. This is because for this image I wanted the water to flow down the waterfall so I only colored the water that flows down the falls. I will cover later how to animate the bottom water if there IS water at the bottom of your waterfall.

You may have to experiment a bit with the overlay color. Yellow, blue and gray seem to work well but in some images there are colors that will work better. You MUST choose a transparent color that is NOT in any parts of the original image. This is because the color you use will be transparent throughout the entire image. If I had used gray or black for the overlay color in this image, parts of the rocks would move and be transparent in the screensaver and this looks really bad! In this case I saved the overlay as a gif though there are times when jpg or bmp may be a better choice.
(see lake effect tutorial Part 2 on the Allersoft site).

Try making an overlay and use the original image with NO alterations and you will see if you need to tweak the original image. (Instructions below) Chances are you will.

Now make copy the bottom of your waterfall from the point your bottom water starts all the way to the bottom of the image. Save as a new image which you will use on top of the overlay for the classic lake effect. Save this image as a jpg.

If the bottom of your waterfall has only partial water, use an overlay for the bottom also. Here is an example of another using that effect.

Now that your images are ready you will need to add them under the "Sprites" tab. Choose your original image (or the altered original if you have had to alter the original) and add it to the sprites list. Click on the "Basic" button. Make sure that the image is highlighted by clicking on it. You will want to choose the path as stationary and the position to full screen. It is not necessary to change the initial direction.

Now click on the effects tab. Choose Lake "Extended" and Waterfall for the preset from the drop down menus. Click on the overlay image button and choose your overlay. Now you will need to set your overlay color. Choose the color that you used as the transparent color. For more detailed instructions on this, see the AnimateIt help files. I suggest leaving your waterfall settings at the default first and then if needed you can adjust them to suit your image.

Now add your second image which is the bottom water. Use Stationary as the path and then bottom for the position. Now back to the effects tab and choose lake "Classic". If you used an overlay for the bottom image also, then follow the overlay steps above steps for the bottom image also.

The final step is setting the lake size. The default is 49 which for a lake or waterfall that is on the lower half of the image is a good size. For this image though, because the waterfall is at the top of the image, I set the lake size to 99 which will animate to the top of the screen. One thing to remember when choosing an image to use for your waterfall screensaver, is that the higher the lake size, the more total resources the final running screensaver will use, so it is important not to set the lake size higher than 49 unless you need the effect at the top of the screen. Looks horrid you say>>> go to page 2