icon-making question
I saw “The Gay Divorcee” last night and there were a couple of images that I think would be perfect as animated icons. As in, about a second of footage looped over and over. The problem is that I cannot find a tutorial on how to do this, what format to use, etc. I really did search LJ communities and use Google.
Has one of you created a moving icon from a movie source? Or is your Google-fu stronger than mine, and perhaps you see something I did not? Little help?
ETA: Never mind. My computer froze like winter in Alaska when I put the DVD in. Le sigh.
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A gif creator is what you need, plus something to capture the clips you’re after.
Essentially, you take image 1 of the clip saved as an image file and load it into the the gif creator, then you load the second clip. Then you adjust the speed, etc.
It’s actually fairly simple – unfortunately, it’s been so long since I’ve even messed with making gifs, I don’t know what is a good program anymore. There are a few sites out there that will handle that part for you, all you need is the images you want to make the gif out of.
A gif creator is what you need, plus something to capture the clips you’re after.
Essentially, you take image 1 of the clip saved as an image file and load it into the the gif creator, then you load the second clip. Then you adjust the speed, etc.
It’s actually fairly simple – unfortunately, it’s been so long since I’ve even messed with making gifs, I don’t know what is a good program anymore. There are a few sites out there that will handle that part for you, all you need is the images you want to make the gif out of.
I’ve done something similar to this once using Gimp (which is free, if you’re not familiar with it), but you may have to figure out how to get the clip into frames. Here’s the instructions I got from my friend when I last tried this:
I have six images of the same size. I want each of them to remain on the screen for two seconds before the next one appears. I want them in a perpetual loop.
Open the first one then hit ctrl-L to get the layers dialogue.
Make a new layer. You can leave all the settings at the default.
Close that one.
Create a new image, 300 by 350 pixels.
context->File->Open as Layer
(Or ctrl-alt-O)
Repeat for each of the others.
Delete the blank “Background” layer.
Somewhere you’ll have to specify how many milliseconds you want between frames.
If you have your layers set up, right click the picture and Save-As
I’d save it once as ‘blah.xcf’ since that’s Gimp’s native format and will let you bring it back up to make later changes without losing anything. Then save it as ‘blah.gif’ to get your animated gif.
When the dialog comes up, pick ‘Save as Animation’ and Export.
In the next one, you want “Loop forever”, Delay…3000, and OK.
Hope this is useful!
I’ve done something similar to this once using Gimp (which is free, if you’re not familiar with it), but you may have to figure out how to get the clip into frames. Here’s the instructions I got from my friend when I last tried this:
I have six images of the same size. I want each of them to remain on the screen for two seconds before the next one appears. I want them in a perpetual loop.
Open the first one then hit ctrl-L to get the layers dialogue.
Make a new layer. You can leave all the settings at the default.
Close that one.
Create a new image, 300 by 350 pixels.
context->File->Open as Layer
(Or ctrl-alt-O)
Repeat for each of the others.
Delete the blank “Background” layer.
Somewhere you’ll have to specify how many milliseconds you want between frames.
If you have your layers set up, right click the picture and Save-As
I’d save it once as ‘blah.xcf’ since that’s Gimp’s native format and will let you bring it back up to make later changes without losing anything. Then save it as ‘blah.gif’ to get your animated gif.
When the dialog comes up, pick ‘Save as Animation’ and Export.
In the next one, you want “Loop forever”, Delay…3000, and OK.
Hope this is useful!
The Gay Divorcee … as in Fred and Ginger Gay Divorcee?!! ::purrs:: I LOVE that movie if that’s the one you’re talking about. ::sighs:: Now I really want a Fred and Ginger fix. I need to buy more movies …
The Gay Divorcee … as in Fred and Ginger Gay Divorcee?!! ::purrs:: I LOVE that movie if that’s the one you’re talking about. ::sighs:: Now I really want a Fred and Ginger fix. I need to buy more movies …
Yep, that’s the one! The hubby was out of town for the weekend, so I kicked back after the kiddo went to bed with a little Fred and Ginger!
Yep, that’s the one! The hubby was out of town for the weekend, so I kicked back after the kiddo went to bed with a little Fred and Ginger!
Yeah, I’ve done ani gifs before – like the one I’m using. They can be annoying to trim down to LJ-appropriate size, that’s for sure…
Anyway, here’s what I did. For this system you need an AVI file of the thing to be iconned.. Not sure of a good rip program for DVDs so you might need ta ask around for that. But! Once you have your AVI,download a freeware program called VirtualDub, you should be able to Google it.
You open up the AVI in that, And then you can, using the menu, select anchor points to crop down to the footage you want. You have to set the end point then the start point – don’t worry if there’s bits you don’t want in the crop, so long as it’s not excessively long extra bits. You can hit play to run through the crop to ensure you got everything, otherwise just clear the anchors from the menu. Next, hit Export AVI from the menu, and save it somewhere. These AVIs are not well compressed so it’s probly gonna be a big file.
Last step is to (download and then) open JASC Animation Shop – you can get a trial of it form their website. Open you cropped AVI file with it, which may take a while. It’ll present it as a frame-by-frame animation. Select and delete any excess frames, and ensure that you’ve got what you want. Then, it’s just a matter of using the crop tool to get what part of the frame you want (remember it’s gonna be tiny, so it may not be very clear from the full frame), then use resize from the menu to cut it down to a size that’ll fit within LJ icons’ 100×100 pixel format. Finally, go to file > save animation wizard and play with the optimising settings until it fits the filezie constraint for LJ icons.
Tadah!
Yeah, I’ve done ani gifs before – like the one I’m using. They can be annoying to trim down to LJ-appropriate size, that’s for sure…
Anyway, here’s what I did. For this system you need an AVI file of the thing to be iconned.. Not sure of a good rip program for DVDs so you might need ta ask around for that. But! Once you have your AVI,download a freeware program called VirtualDub, you should be able to Google it.
You open up the AVI in that, And then you can, using the menu, select anchor points to crop down to the footage you want. You have to set the end point then the start point – don’t worry if there’s bits you don’t want in the crop, so long as it’s not excessively long extra bits. You can hit play to run through the crop to ensure you got everything, otherwise just clear the anchors from the menu. Next, hit Export AVI from the menu, and save it somewhere. These AVIs are not well compressed so it’s probly gonna be a big file.
Last step is to (download and then) open JASC Animation Shop – you can get a trial of it form their website. Open you cropped AVI file with it, which may take a while. It’ll present it as a frame-by-frame animation. Select and delete any excess frames, and ensure that you’ve got what you want. Then, it’s just a matter of using the crop tool to get what part of the frame you want (remember it’s gonna be tiny, so it may not be very clear from the full frame), then use resize from the menu to cut it down to a size that’ll fit within LJ icons’ 100×100 pixel format. Finally, go to file > save animation wizard and play with the optimising settings until it fits the filezie constraint for LJ icons.
Tadah!