Hi, I was reading a book on animation that gave me the idea to create a character in photoshop where each limb and joint was seperately drawn. The question is to make it look like the character is moving is the idea of just moving and rotating each frame and saving as a second, third, etc. image to time consuming, is there a better way?

Photoshop is really the wrong choice for that kind of project. You really want to use vector art, probably Flash.

flash was my first thought, but if I am making a game in c++ how can i transfer over the graphics? and I would think photoshop would give me better tools to draw.

Well I don't know about the programming side of things, but Photoshop won't even make animated gifs, much less avis or movs. Gimp will make animated gifs, but is not the best tool for doing so. Photoshop is probably the best tool for making pixel art, but if you can use larger-resolution images then you can do some very nice vector art in Flash (or the similar Illustrator and Inkscape). I believe there are utilities around which can automatically an automated gif/avi/mov into separate frames, which can then be used as a sprite file.

Anyway, making a nice animation and formatting it for use in a game are kind of 2 separate problems. When dealing with both, first thing you need to ask yourself is, what resolution and color type and depth is the best you can use? Then, that resolution will determine whether vector art is an option or it has to be pixel art. The color type determines whether gif formatting is a good or bad idea, since gif is CMKY, you don't want to use it if your final images must be RGB. Then, don't forget you can make your pencil test by hand or with a vector program and then do your final sprite frames in photoshop for greater control over every pixel.

thank you for the information.