Animated Avatars

[Piglet]

How does one make an animated avatar?

[Lionheart]

One way is if you have Adobe Photoshop with its sister program Image Ready (accessed at bottom of LH menu), then you would..

* Take a stack of snap shots
* Combine all snapshots into one picture so they are layers and in order for direction of animation
* In ImageReady, on each layer, you can select blends and things so the animation will have certain effects..
* Optomise (means export) as a GIF


On my PS 6.0, it doesnt animate smoothly and the GIF is slightly rough. But it works.

That one with the blue and white Yin and Yang is brilliant! Must be a Max rendering animation...



Bill

[Dangerousdave26]

***edit Bill beat me to it.

Its an animated .gif file

You take a series of pictures and assign the data on how long each is displayed and then compile it into a .gif file. Photoshop can do it and I used to have another program that would do it called .gif construction set.

One of the problems with an animated .gif is the size all the data adds up. Our avatar size is rather limiting if you want an animated gif. The image starts to get real small.

[Lionheart]

Daves on it.

They can be huge in file size.. but this one for instance is a 140 by 130 pixel size of about 5 or 6 'slices' (as they are called in ImageReady), which came to about 54 KB. (The Avatar limits are 150 square max, and 58.7 KB).


When you make a layered GIF, then go to (take it into) Image Ready, then click on File/Optomise and save as a GIF, Animated, regular file order for animation.

I had done one if the LearFan years ago by taking screenshots of it at angles in Gmax (I made a Gmax scene with the plane rotating via the slider, taking screenshots at certain angles through the rotation).

I then took all screenshots, put them in a stack in PS, all in order, then cropped it for the right amount of edge size, then export (jump) to ImageReady, then use animation options (blend) and then Optomize. Oops.. and resize.. You can make several, one huge, one medium, then one super small for Avatars..


Bill

[Ickie]

here is an old free program
http://ickie.net/AnimationShop.zip

[Panther_99FS]

Hmmm..:d

[N2056]

Great...
Now his babes are gonna be doin' reps! :weightlifter:

[Lionheart]

great...
Now his babes are gonna be doin' reps! :weightlifter:

lolol...

[Piglet]

Thanks,
I did make one (see 5th Cylon thread). But it couldn't be set up as an Avatar.
Tried to upload as avatar, but I got a "you are not allowed to upload animated images" message. Nothing about format or size.
Oh well, it's really no big deal.

[Panther_99FS]

Tim,
You should be able to upload it as a .GIF...

[Piglet]

It is a .gif file

[grunau_baby]

ooooohhhh! I thought we were limited to JPGs only! My creativity explodes...

Alex

[Snuffy]

Hmmm..:d

ED!!!! NO!!! :help:

:faint:

[Ickie]

animated avatars are reserved for charter members and staff

[Cazzie]

Hmmm..:d

Now I wonder what you're up to, ya rascal. You gonna stick a whole bunch of "X" things in the Cantina? :costumes:

Caz

[Brian_Gladden]

I just went with an animated Ssignature. Nothing I made myself. just one I found and liked.

Brian

[Lionheart]

Cool Gif Brian!


I see the Capn is in a new show lately, a police like weekly drama type. Good actor..




Bill