Salluz Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 I am teaching myself how to create videos and .gif files by experimenting with pictures. Surprisingly, I have only spent an hour working on this craft. I have no complete movie files to show at this time. However, the Chrono Trigger gif I have created is presentable. The mistake I made: the words "Love and Emotion" are too dark, and I believe that some of the frames weren't centered in the exact same plane, but that's nothing. (Edit: the words "Love and Emotion are text effects that bear the colors of the following picture, which are set to begin a smooth transition). Use the CT gif as much as you want (I have no rights to the Chrono Trigger game series, plus it's nothing but a lil' graphic file, no big deal). I am only posting to get some opinions on my experimentation. So, do the rest of you have any gifs that you've created? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gollgagh Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 uh you might try uploading it to an image host instead of whatever the hell you just linked to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salluz Posted August 28, 2008 Author Share Posted August 28, 2008 uhyou might try uploading it to an image host instead of whatever the hell you just linked to. I'll try that (such as photobucket? Hm, I was on google) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Salluz Posted August 28, 2008 Author Share Posted August 28, 2008 Double post... updated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ifirit Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 I like the idea, definitely has potential. Still, as you said, the presentation is shakey and really needs some improvement. The animation, too, is inconsistant, being that it's very slow and jerky in the beginning, while speeding up too quickly at the end. Keep working at it though. There's plenty of room to grow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Falling Posted August 29, 2008 Share Posted August 29, 2008 The problem is that .gif is a very lossy format and it's very difficult to get smooth animation. However, every medium has it's challenges and I'd say it'd be fun to keep working on it anyway. I bet once you get the hang of it you can work around the limitations and challenges and create something really good I don't exactly have anything to show .gif wise. I did make an animation with MSPaint, playing well over 6000 frames on an oldschool slideshow program with intervals of less than one second between each frame. This resulted in a good 15 minutes of "film" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinewav Posted August 29, 2008 Share Posted August 29, 2008 This thread could turn out to be really fun. You pic is definitely a good concept, though I agree that it's a bit choppy. What did you use to make it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pezman Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 Most importantly, I want to know what program you used and exactly how you did it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nohbody Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 Most importantly, I want to know what program you used and exactly how you did it. Was your program free? Its impossible to find any freeware gif creators. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antipode Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 PAGlNG THE COOP TO THREAD 445221.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Coop Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 The problem is that .gif is a very lossy format and it's very difficult to get smooth animation. Internet browsers do more to hinder the animation of gifs than anything else does, due to the down throttling that so many of them have. When many browsers only let a gif play at what amounts to a .1 frame delay in terms of maximum speed, you're going to have a tough time making something move around smoothly. You can still make things well animated by giving it plenty of frames of animation, but making them move across the screen smoothly becomes more of a problem... especially if the object is covering a decent distance with each frame, as it can then start looking choppy. If those browsers would just run gifs like FireFox does (no down throttling), things would be much better for giffing. A gif that's made to run at a .05 delay, and is able to do so, can look so nice in motion Yeah, the color loss is rough sometimes (dear God did I do some heavy optimizing for my X-Mas sig), but gifs were never really meant for high color photographs and heavy gradation usage (though they can still look good with some dithering and such). Some people forget that, and then get pissed at how grainy things look after they've compressed several thousand colors to just a fraction of that. They need to keep in mind that they have 256 total colors to use... no more. If they do that, and plan accordingly, their end results would be much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Falling Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 LOL, that's right, you would know "However, every medium has it's challenges and I'd say it'd be fun to keep working on it anyway. I bet once you get the hang of it you can work around the limitations and challenges and create something really good :)" So yeah, knowing what you can and can't do with gif would be a good start for the OP. As Coop said, you don't have access to yer usual millions of colors, but rather only 256. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLyGeN Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 Fireworks has a way to export a GIF as "exact", which implies to me that it's lossless... is there something that I don't know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doulifée Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 Fireworks has a way to export a GIF as "exact", which implies to me that it's lossless... is there something that I don't know? there is a color limit for a gif so it's tricky, also it's a battle between a good gif, and the file size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Coop Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 Fireworks has a way to export a GIF as "exact", which implies to me that it's lossless... is there something that I don't know? Fireworks likes to trim away what it considers "unused colors". It'll take colors that are nearly identical in hue, or that are rarely used throughout the gif, and either choose what it feels is the best one (getting rid of the rest), or replace it with another very close color that's used more. This is done to help keep the file size down, but it can also lead to visual issues sometimes. The "exact" option means that it doesn't do any of that trimming, and leaves in every color that it can. You still get only 256 colors though, so it's a bit misleading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yangfeili Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 I've only messed with animated gifs a bit, but I usually use a combination of Paint Shop Pro to create the frames and the included Animation Shop to put them together/apply transition effects to smooth things out. With stuff like that, it's usually just a matter of being very systematic. Although one thing worth noting, I created each of the separate components (marching Toads, tanks, Mario) as separate animations first, and then put them together on the background. That way, I can still go back and add more if I want to later (like some zeppelins up in the air... the tanks could also stand to be smoothed out a bit). Another trick worth mentioning, is that I sometimes create a separate layer of bright green or magenta dots and lines to serve as reference points -- to make sure that a certain character stays in the same spot from frame to frame, or moves a consistent distance with each frame. I of course delete this layer from the frames when I no longer need it. And one other thing that's kind of fun and easy to do (and thus makes good practice to get down the basics) is to use screenshots from games as your frames, resize them down, and then just experiment with the frame speeds to get a feel for how you can string things together. Although when using game screens, you especially run into the problems everyone has mentioned about color optimization, so it might take some tweaking to find an acceptable balance between color, image dimensions, and file size (looking at that one, I could probably crop the top and bottom of the screen a bit and thereby knock a significant amount off the file size). One of the many assassinations perpetrated by the mad bomber Ophidios on the nobility of Cyrodiil... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfG-21 Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 Check this vid/gif out metal gear lupon the III style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfInFGJRCbY&feature=related Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penfold Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 Check this vid/gif outmetal gear lupon the III style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfInFGJRCbY&feature=related Haha, I like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottus and Gyes Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 So do you guys use Flash to make the gif? Still unclear what programs you use to get the frames into a "mini film". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pezman Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 How do people make these things? Inquiring Pezmans have asked... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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