Fading from source animation...?

Edit: Close this please.

I'm not exactly sure what to search here. So I can't teach myself.

The effect I'm going after is a trailing light following the sprite. I'm attempting to do this in Photoshop using tweens but it looks rather choppy since the sprite only moves in a linear fashion. If anyone knows how to do curved or circular animation, or make a moveable opacity layer for the light(I think that would be easiest to animate...?) I'd really appreciate some help. <3

I really just need to know if curved-animation is achievable in Photoshop without dozens of linear tweens.

ANSWER: You can't




EDIT: A bit of progress! Still learning


I think I know what I need to do to make it work now. Will update later.

Update: a bit better..

 

after effects would be easey to anamate this. i have never saved a .gif in after effects but im shuer you can. an if not im shure ther is an option in photoshop thay you can import a vid in your timeline.(i thank you have to be in cs6 to do that)

 

In CS5 (I don't know about earlier versions) you can import a video into frames for a .gif, it's kind of buggy though

It does work a lot better in CS6 when you can actually open the video as a layer itself for very basic video editing or making avatar .gifs, etc

 

...PERFECT! lol

I might have to update PS >.< still stuck with cs4.

EDIT: Here's some progress! I made it by making a clipping mask for the light, then making the clipping mask move with the sprite. I had to make the clipping mask the same color as the sythe background tho- so it wouldnt work on a different website..



...fuck. its not quite right. I think because I resized it so much the light doesnt show up at first.. also I got the background color wrong.. err.. Ill try fix this soon..

anyone know how to do circular/curved animation so the pixies movement isnt linear?