surreelantra
03-20-2005, 06:21 PM
Now I use a Mac, but the concepts for the PC are the same and I'm pretty sure you can get Adobe ImageReady for the PC. Plus, PCs have the option of using JASC Paint Shop Pro/Animation Shop or other 3rd party programs.
1) Find your movie.
2) Convert it to a useable form, such as .mov or .gif. You may need to (steal) a conversion program to to this. Macs can automatically convert .avi and .mpg/mpeg files to .mov from the web. This 1.5 mpeg file was converted into a .mov file before i could use it. (here (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/storyofricky1.mov) -- you need Quicktime to watch the .mov format)
3) Shrink that mother! 1500kb is WAY to big for an animated gif; you'll have mods kicking your *** if you don't. In Adobe ImageReady, crop away and take frames out to shrink the file size. Plus, in ImageReady, saving the movie as an 'optimized' file automatically turns it into a .gif. (here (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/pwned.gif) )
4) Now to put other effects into the movie, you need to add layers to the frames and select which frames get the effects. In this movie, the word 'pwned' is the effect and is in all the frames. Remember that once you save the effects into an 'optimized' format, these extra layers are flattened and you can't go back and tweak the effect, as shown here (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/smoosh.jpg). You may want to save file with effects as .psd or another format until you're happy with them.
5) Tweak the timing of the movie's frames. Different browsers will show movie at different speeds, with Internet Explorer usually being the slowest. What this means is that you may need to run your animated .gif faster for people to see it at the speed you want.
6) You can also do a more classic-type animation by drawing or moving pictures around frame-by frame for a Monty Python cartoon effect.
final result (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/pwned3.gif)
1) Find your movie.
2) Convert it to a useable form, such as .mov or .gif. You may need to (steal) a conversion program to to this. Macs can automatically convert .avi and .mpg/mpeg files to .mov from the web. This 1.5 mpeg file was converted into a .mov file before i could use it. (here (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/storyofricky1.mov) -- you need Quicktime to watch the .mov format)
3) Shrink that mother! 1500kb is WAY to big for an animated gif; you'll have mods kicking your *** if you don't. In Adobe ImageReady, crop away and take frames out to shrink the file size. Plus, in ImageReady, saving the movie as an 'optimized' file automatically turns it into a .gif. (here (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/pwned.gif) )
4) Now to put other effects into the movie, you need to add layers to the frames and select which frames get the effects. In this movie, the word 'pwned' is the effect and is in all the frames. Remember that once you save the effects into an 'optimized' format, these extra layers are flattened and you can't go back and tweak the effect, as shown here (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/smoosh.jpg). You may want to save file with effects as .psd or another format until you're happy with them.
5) Tweak the timing of the movie's frames. Different browsers will show movie at different speeds, with Internet Explorer usually being the slowest. What this means is that you may need to run your animated .gif faster for people to see it at the speed you want.
6) You can also do a more classic-type animation by drawing or moving pictures around frame-by frame for a Monty Python cartoon effect.
final result (http://home.dejazzd.com/mikesmith/pwned3.gif)