loadingreadyrun.com

I'm curious about your method to see close it is to mine.

My method:
mplayer -vo png, to extract the video as individual frames
Some shell fanciness involving the {a..b..c} to select out the frames we want and drop the framerate
mogrify to crop and resize
gimp to assemble, drop to 255 colours, optimise and save as a gif

I use gimp instead of convert to build the gif as it means the gif has a single palette over the whole image, while convert gives a separate palette per frame. So the one from convert looks better, but the one from gimp optimises and compresses a lot better.

Graham

Dominic Appleguard wrote:It's good.

Here's a smaller one (100x100) that you can use as your avatar:



So my method is close to what phlip said, but I'll elaborate:

1) It would be much easier to extract the video frames using a script, but I don't do that because I'm stupid. Instead, I boot up the video using Media Player Classic. I go to the first frame I want, and hit Alt+I to save it as a png. Then I hit Ctrl+Right to advance one or more frames (my "tilting out" and "creepy Graham" gifs are both 15fps, half the video's framerate) and repeat. I can do this keystroke combo quickly.

2) Open GIMP, "Open as Layers" the image files.

3) Image->Canvas Size to crop the image appropriately. For the Sunglasses gif, this means cropping it to 255x255, with an offset of [-320,-72] (I worked off of the 720p video).

4) (Optional) Filters->Animation->Optimize for GIF. This will open the resulting image in a new window. In the Layers panel, there are now comments next to each layer specifying the delay on each frame. If you want this to be non-uniform (such as Vigafre holding on the first frame of Graham hatless), you can change this now.

5) Image->Scale Image to resize the image as appropriate. For the avatar version above I made it 100x100.

6) (Optional) Image->Mode->Indexed. Here you should select "Generate optimum palette; Maximum number of colors: 255". If you'd like you can also dither the image, which will increase file size, but reduce color banding (link). (I just discovered this option today)

7) Save image with a .gif extension. Select "Save as animation". Check "Loop forever", and put in the appropriate frame delay. If the framerate of the video was 30fps (most LRR videos are), then if you skipped no frames your delay will be 33ms. If you skipped one frame for every frame you saved, it will be 66ms.

Post the result!

Guess I'll repost my method in case it has changed a bit:

1) If necessary, convert video file to a .mov file.

2) Open file in Adobe ImageReady, select section of video and choose frame skip amount.

3) Resize and crop image. Set frame length.

4) Add text if desired.

5) Save optimized file.


However, I just tested saving the ImageReady file as a .psd file and doing the optimization in GIMP, which didn't produce the result I was hoping. However however, at least I know I can do it.

UNHchabo wrote:If the framerate of the video was 30fps (most LRR videos are), then if you skipped no frames your delay will be 33ms. If you skipped one frame for every frame you saved, it will be 66ms.

Huh, I was wondering why the values I was using (no skip: 30 ms, 1 skip: 70 ms, 2 skip: 100 ms, etc.) were working so nicely. I honestly was just guessing.

Chabo: you get better results if you crop/scale/etc first, then drop to Indexed, then optimise for GIF. Doing the optimise after its already indexed increases the odds that a pixel is the same colour in consecutive frames, and can be optimised away. Also, play with the different dithering options... which one looks the best and which one compresses the best will vary depending on the video. Usually undithered will compress best but look worst, but sometimes it looks good enough to be worth the smaller file size.

Thanks for the tutorials everybody. I can almost make gifs now. To celebrate, Rainbow Dash will chug some whiskey.

I have an odd request.



Can you cut out this ring on this and place it on a proper black background.

Then animate it rotates Clockwise at moderate speed. Ring stays in the same space but spins.

And have the words OM NOM NOM in the middle rotating the opposite direction.
Perhaps the format could be:

OM
NOM
NOM

Inspired by Ditto's Feed Dump transcripts in the wiki thread.



ETA:



The timing seems off on this one and I don't know why.

Two from this week's Loading Time:

Anybody feel like gifing this?

For some reason, I really want a gif of Beej saying "DID SOMEONE SAY 'BALLS'?" from Feed Dump.

I don't know why, but I might find a terrible reason to use it someday.

I still can't get these things to run smoothly, clearly freeware is not the way to go. Oh well



Either that, or my artistic skills are comparable to that of a donkey with a chisel

Of course, I don't know what freeware you're using, but this thread on reddit has some pretty good stuff. I've used the Video to Gif Converter listed on there and it works pretty well.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gif/comments/uh ... to_edit_a/

Two requests from the latest Friday Nights episode:

Can I please please please get a gif of the moment Alex puts down the Magic Unhinged pack? "All bets are off" with the zoom in to the pack? I would be most grateful

Also Alex's "And now we fight!"

Oh man, I humbly request someone of gif prowess to gif the "Why can't I hold all these answers?" from the recent Friday Nights. Please?

(For reference, it happens at 4:17)

Could someone do Graham's creepy turn and smile in the stinger of the Sim City loading time?

Cheers!

phlip wrote:

Oh my goodness I love this so much. His goofy grin makes me smile every time I see it! I can't help it.

Cheers phlip! <3

Graham gifs are taking over this damn forum.

He's a very gifable man.

Phlip, could you check your "creepy Graham turn" gif's url? It's done derped.

He's probably run out of bandwidth. It's usually better to save your own copy and link to that.