Animated Avatars

[Armi]

i cropped some of the pics so the focus on the face ...hopefully you will like it




great work piyaraa!

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.  PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Couldn't ask for more. I don't know how to thank you. Much appreciated. Hopefully I can help you in the future too. Thanks once again. 

[piyaara]

 
 I went the easy route by keeping the aspect ratio.

 Nice avatar, annous!

  

[Armi]

 I went the easy route by keeping the aspect ratio.

 Nice avatar, annous!

 

I'm using yours for my other forum. You two are the best. Thank you sooooooooooo much. 

[annous]

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.  PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Couldn't ask for more. I don't know how to thank you. Much appreciated. Hopefully I can help you in the future too. Thanks once again. 

actually can you identify which films did these pictures came from?...no need to identify Sholay  and SAG though


glad you liked it

[Armi]

actually can you identify which films did these pictures came from?...no need to identify Sholay  and SAG though


glad you liked it

Sure, let me go ahead and edit the pictures and put the film names under them. That's the least I can do for the great favor that you did to me. 

[derketchup]

Hema

I can't access my Pms since I have less than 25 posts.  However I use pixresizer -- you can google it and find it easily.  Also IRfanview works well.

Hope that helps!

[Armi]

Hema

I can't access my Pms since I have less than 25 posts.  However I use pixresizer -- you can google it and find it easily.  Also IRfanview works well.

Hope that helps!

Thank you so much. It surely does help! 

[Aishwarya4eva]

Does anyone here know what program to use to make your own Anims?

[Steena]

By now there are plenty of programs. At first you need a DVD drive on your computer and a program to play the DVD. Then have to make a series of screen caps from the scene in question.

To make the animations you need another program, such as Jasc Animation Shop, Ulead Gif Animator, I think even ImageReady, a Photoshop program can do this. 

To create the caps I use PowerDVD because you can get a whole lot of caps with just one click. But any other program which is able to create caps should work for this as well. Concerning the above programs, I work with Jasc Animation Shop and can only say positive things about it. A friend of mine has ImageReady - and some beautiful animations come out of that program, so it should be likewise good.

Oh ... one more thing, to "sign" your animations with your personal signature, you will also need a graphic program, but a simple one will do, it just needs to be able to create graphics with clear background.

[Aishwarya4eva]

Wow...you're amazing.

Thank you so much! I'll get right on that!

[piyaara]

  Yes, I think Jasc Animation Shop is one of the best animation programs you can use.  Though, Steena, I'm pretty sure you can add text for one/all frames for a 'sign' within the program itself.

 Ah...happy days.

 Now, that I have a Mac, my animated avatar-making days are through as there is zilch in the league of Animation Shop. 

 Doh!

 

[Aishwarya4eva]

What kind of graphic program would I need for a "signature" though?

[Steena]

  Yes, I think Jasc Animation Shop is one of the best animation programs you can use.  Though, Steena, I'm pretty sure you can add text for one/all frames for a 'sign' within the program itself.

Yes, you have to add it in the Animation Shop, but you need to create it somewhere else, don't you? At least I have no idea how to create a signature with this program. I usually create in my PSP and import it. 

[SRKFanatic]

To expand on Steena's explanation, you can also make animated avs from the actual video clip, instead of just screen caps.  This obviously involves a bit more work, because you'd need a program to extract a clip, then convert the clip (if needed), then you import it to the program you're using to make the anim.

As for tagging, I would do that right in Animation Shop, and now also do it in Photoshop CS3.  You don't usually need an extra program for that.

[Aishwarya4eva]

How could you make an animated avatar from just screen caps? I've never heard of that...

[piyaara]

 All of the animated avatars are made up of a series of separate screenshots in the same way as a cartoon is produced. 

 What is required is having a DVD player with the capability of taking exact, regular screenshots.  Some allow you to move on one frame to the next and then take a screen-shot, others actually have a timer that takes scheduled screenshots at regular intervals.

 Some either don't have a screen-shot utility or are not very good at taking screen-shots at regular intervals.


 Animation Studio (and, I'm sure there must be others) then arranges your selected screenshots, crops them to the required size and, then allows you to slow-down and add text to your finished product.

 Hope this helps.   
 

 

[SRKFanatic]

KM Player will continuously screencap frame by frame until you tell it to stop, or until the video is done.  This way you get every single frame, so it's just like you were using the actual video.

[Steena]

KM Player will continuously screencap frame by frame until you tell it to stop, or until the video is done.  This way you get every single frame, so it's just like you were using the actual video.

Sounds like a good program! I'll definitely try it, thanks for this suggestion.

[dhiire jalna]

Now, that I have a Mac, my animated avatar-making days are through as there is zilch in the league of Animation Shop.

Oh, this is very not good. I was thinking of switching to a mac when I get a new computer. Help! I've lots of questions.

Are you guys buying the animation programs or can you download them free somewhere?

(I have PowerDVD, so in theory, after I dump all the junk off the pc hard drive onto the mac, I could use my old computer (the pc) just for avatars. Though it runs Windows 2000 Professional, so is that another problem? Being rather outdated, I mean.)

Is there really no way to make animated/video avatars on a mac? Or is it that they just turn out kinda crappy?

(Now for the idiot question...) Is it possible to just use a pure chunk of video (ie ripped from a DVD) for an avatar? Or are the sizes of both the "picture" and the file a problem?

[SRKFanatic]

(Now for the idiot question...) Is it possible to just use a pure chunk of video (ie ripped from a DVD) for an avatar? Or are the sizes of both the "picture" and the file a problem?

If you're ripping from a DVD, you'll end up with an mpeg2 file.  Most animation programs (or at least the two I'm familiar with, Animation Shop 3 and Photoshop CS3 extended) won't allow an mpeg2, so I usually have to convert to mpeg1.  Then you end up with a .gif after you make the animation in your program.  An avatar would have to be in either .jpg, .bmp, .png, or .gif format, so that's what you'd have to do if you want a stream of video as your avatar.

I hope that made sense, and that I understood your question correctly.

[dhiire jalna]

Thanks! Yes, you did understand. Basically, I think the answer to that question is no. Because I don't think there is a way to convert, say, an .mp4 to a .gif file - I'll ask my roommate. He'll know for sure.

[Aishwarya4eva]

KM Player will continuously screencap frame by frame until you tell it to stop, or until the video is done.  This way you get every single frame, so it's just like you were using the actual video.

Ok, I downloaded that program...but now I have no idea how to work it the way I want! Any help....

[piyaara]

 

Is there really no way to make animated/video avatars on a mac? Or is it that they just turn out kinda crappy?

 

 It is possible to make animated avatars on a Mac but, not to the same standard as on a PC.

 For example (Click on image for true size.):

 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/piyaara/Avatars/charmme-lakshmi.gif

 


 This is an avatar I made.  To get the series of images, I used a screen-shot utitily called Capture Me and then a very basic gif creator called GifBuilder.

 As you can see I could not resize the gif and I had to make it black and white as the colour quality was basically awful.

 It was also a pain in the backside to create, relying on precise-ish timing to capture from the DVD and then a very user-unfriendly animation process.


 The only DVD player for the Mac that takes screen-shots (so far), is the VLC media player.  It does not have a 'step' function, nor a timed screenshot utility.  Capture Me does require a steady hand and some adjustments but it can work.  The Charmee avatar is part of a larger sequence where the camera zoomed in, so I had to stop playback to move the 'capture window.'  It's just not very precise.

 Oddly, I've found another program whilst collecting links for this post: GifMation.

 Maybe this is the one...

 I'll keep you posted.



 Edit

 I've changed the avatar to a link to the image.  It was a bit too big!

[SRKFanatic]

Ok, I downloaded that program...but now I have no idea how to work it the way I want! Any help....

Open up the program, right click in the middle of the screen, go to Capture > Frame: Extract (Control + G will do the same).   Set the folder you would like the caps to be stored in, set a prefix for the frames, like if you want them all to start with certain prefix like "movie_0001" you can.   Then select the number of digits you want it to use.  If you think it'll be just a few caps, then set the number low.  If you're capping a large chunk of video, use a higher number.  Default is 4, that should be enough for anything you do.

Pick your format, .bmp, .jpg, or .png.  I usually use .jpg.  Then image quality, and if you want the subs to show if there are any.  Next, you can have it take every single frame, every other frame, every two frames, etc.   Also, you can choose to have it cap at every 2, 3...however many seconds. 

Also, you can pick a certain size for the caps, or to keep it the size of the actual video.  That's pretty much it.

Now, without closing that Frame Extraction box, go back to the player, click at the top left, go to open file, open the file you want to cap, and when it starts playing, click Start on the Frame Extraction box.  It'll start capping until the video stops, or you click the Stop button on the Frame Extraction box.

[Aishwarya4eva]

Open up the program, right click in the middle of the screen, go to Capture > Frame: Extract (Control + G will do the same).   Set the folder you would like the caps to be stored in, set a prefix for the frames, like if you want them all to start with certain prefix like "movie_0001" you can.   Then select the number of digits you want it to use.  If you think it'll be just a few caps, then set the number low.  If you're capping a large chunk of video, use a higher number.  Default is 4, that should be enough for anything you do.

Pick your format, .bmp, .jpg, or .png.  I usually use .jpg.  Then image quality, and if you want the subs to show if there are any.  Next, you can have it take every single frame, every other frame, every two frames, etc.   Also, you can choose to have it cap at every 2, 3...however many seconds. 

Also, you can pick a certain size for the caps, or to keep it the size of the actual video.  That's pretty much it.

Now, without closing that Frame Extraction box, go back to the player, click at the top left, go to open file, open the file you want to cap, and when it starts playing, click Start on the Frame Extraction box.  It'll start capping until the video stops, or you click the Stop button on the Frame Extraction box.

Yes! That's perfect! This is very handy....

But do I need another program to make it an avatar?