• Animations Thread
    86 replies, posted
Some of you may be wondering "Oh hay, I saw someone make an animated picture! How do I do that?" and the answer is simple. Put the frames together in a sequence. "How does I do that Joshua?" I'll get to that in a bit. There are two widely known ways on making an animation. APNGs and GIFs. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/a2c000whataregifs.png[/img] Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format introduced in 1987 by [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe]CompuServe[/url]. Before there were PNGs, there were GIFs. GIFs allow a single image to 256 distinct colors. Now, where does animation come in? Well you see, GIFs were allowed to be animated, although in black and white until they released an update allowing color and frame delays. "Cool, so uh, I just opened up MS Paint and I made a picture then saved it as GIF. How come it isn't animated man?" MS Paint isn't able to actually create animated GIFs. However, you can draw the frames in it. You must compile it in another program. Easy to use programs would be: [url=http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/]UnFREEz[/url] A free program able to make animated GIFs using other GIFs. Did I mention free? [url=http://www.gamani.com/]GIF Movie Gear[/url] While not free, I must say that this is one helpful program and is the one I currently use to make animations. I do believe it creates Icons, cursors, Animated GIFs, APNGs, all that good shit. [url=http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/?promoid=BPDEE]Adobe Flash[/url] Really really [B]really[/B] expensive for a computer program and has been used to create hundreds of thousands of animations and games. (Don't touch the GIF thing though, it creates ugly animations, but you can use it.) [url=http://www.stickpageportal.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54512]This modded version of Pivot[/url] By Darkdemon, it blends 2.5.5 and 3 together. Use it to make GIFs too. (FREE) [url=http://www.makeagif.com/]MakeAGIF.com[/url] THANK KRYTEN FOR REMINDING ME OF THIS. This is an online GIF maker and is free. Limited frames though. Use these to animate in MS Paint, now onto APNGs. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/44ba00whatareapngs.png[/img] [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/7f4000apngtest.png[/img] That above, is an APNG. Now, if you have yet to guess. If it says "Nope, No APNG here" it means your browser doesn't support it. If it says "Yes. APNG." it obviously means, yes, your browser supports it. Only few browsers support it however and I'm not sure which. Now, APNGs are an unofficial extension to PNGs. APNG means Animated Portable Graphics Network. Now, I don't know how to really explain APNGs so onto the link. [url=https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5519]APNG Edit[/url] An addon for Firefox. Uh. Yeah, really easy to use also. So uh, I guess that concludes our APNG section. [B]Tips and tricks[/B] While there is no feature for onion skinning. You can draw in another color then erase the earlier one [url=http://www.cubeupload.com/files/2d4c004.png]Example[/url] [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/870c001.png[/img] [img]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/251301/smoothing%20tip.png[/img] [b]Post your Animations.[/b] Yes, that's right, post them. If you need any help with anything, I'd be glad to help you (and possibly add onto this post) so yeah. Post away.
That's a nice APNG program there. Just downloaded it and i'm getting to work. Animation coming up real soon. [editline]02:40PM[/editline] [URL=http://www.cubeupload.com][IMG]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/4db400armstest.png[/IMG][/URL] Just a quick arms test, never animated before so... [editline]02:41PM[/editline] is there any way to make the frames faster?
Is there anything I could do to make my IE support APNG's?
[QUOTE=Maximo13;20209989]Is there anything I could do to make my IE support APNG's?[/QUOTE] Unfortunately no. [editline]08:00AM[/editline] [QUOTE=Evil-Muffin;20209717] is there any way to make the frames faster?[/QUOTE] The MS thing stands for Miliseconds. The lower the number the faster it will be.
Danke
Added a tip. If you guys could think of any tips. I'd be happy to add them.
The faster the frame rate, The smoother the animation becomes.
[QUOTE=krten_2x 4b;20210552]The faster the frame rate, The smoother the animation becomes.[/QUOTE] Not really, while it does play a factor in it, you have to make it actually look right. Some things are made for slower frame rates while some are for higher
Is there an advantage of apng over gif? gif works in all browsers so if you are encouraging apng then I'm assuming theres a reason for it.
I'm not encouraging APNG. It's just those are like, the only ones I really know.
I animate my GIFs with Animation Shop 2. Old program, but does it's job well. It comes with Paint Shop Pro 6, which as far as I know, is abandonware. And some content: [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/251301/aeroavatargif.gif[/IMG] My current avatar as GIF (I think it bugs a bit, anybody else notice a small delay before it starts again?). The animation on background is 24 FPS, and background is one third of that. Having this kind of contrast in FPS makes the animation seem fluid even though only part of it is actually high FPS. [IMG]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/251301/slendermen.gif[/IMG] And a Slender man. Raving. I think. It's 4 frames at 12 FPS I believe, forgot the FPS on that one. And I do know that the tie is bugged up and looks lame because I forgot to move it in the very ends of animation. [editline]06:28PM[/editline] And yes, there is reason for APNG: No palette and better antialiasing by allowing 0-255 transparencies in contrast to GIF's 0-1. And facepunch cannot block APNGs from regular users, since they are in normal sense only PNGs, which is why every browser can see their first frame. [editline]06:30PM[/editline] 24-30 is optimal framerate for smoothness. Less than 10 is seen easily as kind of choppy animation unless you have "motion blurs" (or movement smoothing, I'll explain it if someone wants to hear.) and more than 40 and it looks horribly oversped unless done right. And if you do it right, it won't seem too much different than the 24-30 FPS variant.
This one is only seven frames but I like the outcome. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/46e200aks1.gif[/img] This one is around 50 frames, it was pretty easy though because it's mainly just sliding shapes. [img]http://filesmelt.com/downloader/Cannon_Hand3.gif[/img] This one was like 30 frames...I don't know what I was thinking. [img]http://www.cubeupload.com/files/b3ae00whuuuuu.gif[/img] I use Microsoft Gif animator by the way.
I love the shooting in the dark one. Only thing that bugs me is that the muzzle flash changes too much each shot.
Naw, they are actually [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rth7YNtvbn8"]almost same every shot[/URL]. And usually they don't even stand out so much. Haven't seen real gun fire in dark, though, so I can't say how they look in darkness.
NO!
Is there any good site for making GIF's online?
[url]www.makeagif.com[/url] is okay, I guess.
[QUOTE=Stimich;20212322][img]http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3816/gun.gif[/img][/QUOTE] Why did you use the actual Pivot stick figures?
[QUOTE=Joshua-029;20212751]Why did you use the actual Pivot stick figures?[/QUOTE] Why not?
[QUOTE=Stimich;20213071]Why not?[/QUOTE] Because this is the MS Paint section?
[QUOTE=Joshua-029;20213151]Because this is the MS Paint section?[/QUOTE] hmm... FFFFUUUU-
[IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/251301/smoothing%20tip.png[/IMG] Smoothing tip time! :D I'll be making some more tips whenever I can and feel like I should.
May I add that tip to OP?
Sure. And all others I make too, if you feel like it. [editline]08:44PM[/editline] And I broke the slenderman thing. While I were fixing it. [editline]08:45PM[/editline] And I think I fixed it now. [editline]09:06PM[/editline] Hopefully helpful tips? ...I hope so.
Lots of APNG software: [url]http://animatedpng.com/index.php/apngedit/[/url]
how come every time I go to the unFREEz site it changes to "Dell Search Page" and says they couldn't find it even though it showed the webpage for about 2 seconds before changing? it isn't just the link he gave directly going to the webpage through google does it too.
Try [URL="http://www.whitsoftdev.com/files/unfreez.zip"]direct download link[/URL].
Potatochop does GIF animations.
[QUOTE=Fippe;20216441]Try [URL="http://www.whitsoftdev.com/files/unfreez.zip"]direct download link[/URL].[/QUOTE] Thats the site I was talking about.... It automatically puts me into some dell search page after a half second of it being there.
Added a new banner thing for Fippe's Hopefully Helpful Tips
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