[Signature]

<font face="comic sans ms" color="#577ac6">Oops.
This is my fault.
I got all creative and made Dark Star an animated gif, (my first).

I thought it would work here, but I made it way, way, way too big, and I don't know what to do about it, since I just began dabbling in such things a few days ago.

It's 50x40 pixels, (which was all I was concerned about at first, not knowing any better), but its properties tell me that it's 38.3KB(39,229 bytes) 40,960 bytes used.
And Dark Star says the properties are 424 bytes (8192 bytes used)???

Am I looking at the right properties, and is this gonna involve math?
If so, please pass the bottle opener - I'll have a Corona.

I hope AcaCandy can fix it with no trouble, but if it's too much, I can take it back to the "drawing" board, with helpful and much appreciated suggestions for making it smaller.</font>

[Ratboy]

I had the same problem with my avatar. I used the program linked below, as recommended by davey7546 in another post.

I removed every other frame to get under the 20kb size limit.

Microsoft GIF Animator

[Signature]

<font face="comic sans ms" color="#577ac6">Thanks Ratboy.
Nice avatar, by the way.

I did remove a couple of frames that really weren't all that necessary.
And it helped.

I also messed about with different formats, and ended up with 1 jpeg and 22 bmp's all converted into an animated gif, instead of 23 gifs converted into an animated gif.
(That 1 jpeg just looked better than its bmp counterpart, for some reason.)

Altogether, it made a quite a difference.
The so-far finished product - (I may still play with it a little) - is not as smooth as the original, but it's a much smaller size, and it came out pretty good all-in-all, I think.

Next time I'll try to be more careful from the start, now that I understand a little more about it.
I've learned alot about what to do, and what not to do, and I can't wait to learn more.</font>

[Dark Star]

I'm happening now,........ Whoosh.

At this time I'd like to thank Angel, AcaCandy (I owe you at least a bottle of wine, and a large bottle of Tylenol. This girl has the patience of a Saint) RT (thanks for showing up and having a drink with us) Gram (I knew I could count on you) Ratboy (for all of your insight) and of course........ Signature (who created the avatar and would not give up on this)........... Let me see am I forgetting anyone? Oh yeah my Mom, Thank you all.

Whooosh....... Dark Star.

[Gram123]

Just a thought,
When I chose my avatar, it was just one from those available on TSG, and obviously designed by someone else.
If I were to download the gif animator, could I also download my existing avatar and edit it?
If I was to design an entirely new one, is it easy to create the single gifs? Would I have to get a drawing package and draw each frame from scratch? Does the animator have effects like PowerPoint?

Not that I'm sick of my monkey, just that I'd like to be able to do my own without nicking someone elses pic.

Gram

[Davey7549]

Dark Star
Nice Avatar! I like it.
Signature for your first attempt at Gif animation you sure have quite a talent. Extremely creative and user specific. I like how you used the frame specific delays to accentuate certian events and still maintain size and flow.
Very good job!
Dave

[~Candy~]

Heyyyyyy! Too cool Dark Star! I like it! Great job Signature!

I'll drink to that! (gotta be happy hour somewhere in the world!)

[Signature]

<font face="comic sans ms" color="#577ac6">Thank you for the compliments everybody.

The basics of the artwork are not all mine, I admit, but I did make a lot of detailed changes.

I found the original gif, which immediately made me think of Dark Star, got inspired, and then rooted around all the programs in my computer and on the Internet trying to find out what would do what.
I ended up using a combination of MS Paint, www.gifworks.com, and Adobe ImageReady.

Then I seperated the frames, zoomed in, added to, got rid of, and/or edited each pixel that needed work, in order to get the whole thing to move and blend the way I wanted it to when finished.

I created my own Dark Star background, (for the bottom layer).
I made Darkwing stand alone, tidied him up and reposed him a bit from the original, (another layer).
I made the spaces between the clouds transparent, then rounded and shadowed them a little more, (for the third layer).
Then I kicked out the frames that, in my opinion, made Darkwing look too jumpy, set him on the background for some of the frames, set the clouds over all (except for that one frame where the background stands alone), and timed it for a smooth appearance.

I learned so much, had a wonderful time doing it, and I'm excited to learn more.

Gram, you can download the monkey, or you can start from scratch, or you can find any number of animated or non-animated gifs on the Web to edit and combine as you wish.
You can use just one layer, (one picture that changes slightly from frame to frame), or you can overlap seperate layers like I did, (2 of my layers change slightly from frame to frame, but my background layer remains stable).
I found the layers easier to work with here, as I wanted to reuse them sometimes, but that may not always be the case.

I've done some outrageous and very strange PowerPoint presentations, (just for my own amusement), and although this did remind me of PowerPoint a little bit, I don't believe I've come across the same sort of effects.
Then again, I wasn't using the MS Gif Animator, but I think I might go ahead and give it a try.</font>

[eddie5659]

Hiya

Well, I love Dark Star's avatar. Well done, Signature.

I would like to create one but have no Adobe. Costs too much. The one I would like is Coyote, from Roadrunner and Coyote (cartoon). I suppose what I would like to achieve is good old coyote falling or getting burnt to a crisp, like it happens inthe cartoons.

One day, I'll afford the programs and go for it. One of my favorite cartoons so far is this. Its very apt for me at TSG.

http://www.brown.edu/Students/Zeta_D...ges/heaven.jpg

See Ya

eddie

[Gram123]

Okay,
I've followed some bits of the advice given here (!) and created a (very) basic animated GIF, based on the the monkey from the Gorillaz artwork.
However, I have a few problems with it:

1) It's a bit basic - I'd like to jazz it up a little. The monkey opens his eyes and chatters a little and then the sequence is reversed so he returns to his original sleepy-eyed state.

2) It's 89 x 76 pixels

3) It's 57Kb

I guess if I could shrink it down to the 50 x 50 size, it would be smaller in (Kb) size, too. I tried to shrink the images in MS Paint, but it lost a lot of resolution. I'm not sure about the black background either. Maybe if I could make the background trasnparent that would also reduce (Kb) size?
I was wondering if someone would volunteer to take a look at it, and maybe shrink it for me in a different program? Or at least give me a little advice?

Thanks in advance!
Gram

[eddie5659]

Hiya

Gram: Did you just use the GIF program that is mentioned here in order to produce it? If so, I might have a go now, but I think I need a photo editing suite. What I mean is, can I produce my animated gif with Paint and the GIF program?

Regards

eddie

[Gram123]

Eddie - Yep.
I nicked the original picture from the official Gorillaz website, dragged it into Paint and edited it a bit at a time. I saved each edit and then inserted them in sequence into the GIF editor.

You don't need Adobe, although I think Paint may not be the ideal program, but it does work.

Gram

[eddie5659]

Great

I'll check on the maximum size and hopefully....

This GIF editor. Its online. Is that right?

Thanks

eddie

[eddie5659]

Blimey, this is gonna be hard...

I want to make him walk then something to happen to him. How on earth.....??

I have to move his arms and legs. I assume, as I have never used Paint before, that as you save each bit, you can add a leg here and there..

Regards

eddie

[Gram123]

Eddie - no, you download it to your HD. The gifworks site that can help you edit it or add different effects is online.

Anyone thinking of helping me - I don't need as much as help as I did earlier. I used the site that signature used: www.gifworks.com and have 'transparified' the background of my GIF, so it's no longer black. I used the same program to reduce the size to 50 x 43, and it's now below the 20Kb limit. However, it has still lost a lot of quality through the shrinking.
Is there anything I can do to improve the pic quality?
I'll upload it onto TSG and use it as my avatar so you can see it.
The larger picture looks much better, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Gram