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    Skorpion9x posted an update in the group Group logo of Anime Animated Avatars WorkshopAnime Animated Avatars Workshop: 5 years ago

    Here’s one that I made years ago, from Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora. I don’t remember what program I used to make this.
    http://i.imgur.com/gDrxq.gif

    I still happened to have the frame images, so I recreated it with GIMP. It doesn’t look as good, but the file size is smaller.
    http://i.imgur.com/CBG4u.gif

    I’m not sure if there’s any way to change the quality of the image in GIMP.

    • Profile picture of Dai_Loli
      Dai_Loli replied 5 years ago

      There has to be a way to optimize the images, kinda like how Photoshop has ”Save Optimized as…”. If GIMP is any respectable copy of Photoshop, it has this option somewhere. Although I’ll admit I never saw a program with a better system for optimizing images alright.

      First I hear of this anime, but the girl’s kinda cute :D

    • Profile picture of Dai_Loli
      Dai_Loli replied 5 years ago

      Btw, that second image is still too big for MSN XD

      When you take the snapshots for your GIFs, do you clean up the frames manually before booting up GIMP? I find that deleting the frames that are doubles of other frames helps a ton in making smaller gifs, especially since easily half, or even two-thirds of every image sequence is consisted of duplicate frames.

      • Profile picture of Skor
        Skor replied 5 years ago

        There is an option to ”Optimize for gif” or something, which makes the file size slightly smaller. I used it and it only made the file 3kb smaller lol.

        Regarding the quality of gifs from GIMP, I did some research and may have found out why the GIMP one doesn’t look as good as the other one. I learned that gif animations can have a 256 color palette for each frame. However, GIMP creates them with a 256 color palette for the entire animation, instead of a different palette for each frame. This is probably what caused the loss of quality in the new one, as well as the smaller file size.

        So far the animations I’ve made with GIMP look all right, but this might become a problem if I ever make something more complex that has more colors overall.

        • Profile picture of Skor
          Skor replied 5 years ago

          To answer your other question, I import all screenshots directly into GIMP and I make the changes directly to them there. This is mostly just scaling and cropping. I don’t usually have any duplicate screenshots that need to be deleted. Each screenshot I take is generally a different frame of the original animation.

          • Profile picture of Dai_Loli
            Dai_Loli replied 5 years ago

            Let me congratulate you on an avatar well done (y)

            First post answer: Yes, that’s the way Imageready does it, and, well, IMO it’s the best, since of course having 256 colors PER frame would rape you file size-wise.
            This is why it’s sometimes so heart-wrenching to do gifs under 200k; you have to either remove sequences from the animation, lower the colors like hell or play with compression to add some noise that looks horrible when badly done.

            Second post answer: I find that hard to believe; animes never use a format where every single frame is animated, except in very rare cases: I *always* see duplicates in mine that I need to get rid of first.

            This might mean your computer is missing out on some frames when you screencap them: It used to happen with my old computer as well, it just wouldn’t be able to cope with animes in, say, 720p, and would miss tons of frames. But with the one I have now, I have every single frame.

            I guess it’s not a problem on your end, though, since that still means you aren’t getting doubles hehe.

            Look at me, going off about gif making… Sorry for being such an elitist, lol, I’m just trying to help your technique if I can so we can get more stuff from you :D

            • Profile picture of Skor
              Skor replied 5 years ago

              When I take the screencaps, I pause the player and skip frames until it actually changes. I don’t take another screencap if the current frame is exactly the same as the last one.

              • Profile picture of Dai_Loli
                Dai_Loli replied 5 years ago

                O shi-
                You’re doing this *manually*? :O
                I urgently need to tell you the way I do it. It’s probably a lot easier and faster. Here’s a copy paste from something I wrote for a guy who wanted tips as well:

                I use the CCCP codec pack (http://www.cccp-project.net/), which includes a little something called ”ffdshow”. Once I start any anime (yes, mkv works), it’ll automatically display two little icons in the tray; a blue and a red one. I right click the red one, then select ”ffdshow video decoder” to reach the window where you can take screenshots of whatever you’re watching.
                Now, if you want to make a gif:
                – Check ”Grab”
                – Click ”Every Frame”
                – Make a folder where your frames will be sent, and then select it in the ”Path” box.
                – After everything’s set, press the ”Grab Now” button and Apply.
                – While keeping this window opened, resume your anime, and it’ll save every single frame into that folder until you pause it again.
                – Once you’re done, make sure you uncheck ”Grab” otherwise it’ll keep saving pics the next time you resume.
                Once I have all my frames, I go into the folder and clean up; delete the frames I don’t need, and the frames that are duplicates (it’s amusing to see how many shortcuts the animators take when you make gifs that way XD).
                Once I’m done, I boot up ImageReady, ”File / Import / Folder as frames”, select your folder with the images and it’ll import them all. Make sure your ”Animation” window is opened. From then on, I crop the part of the image I want, resize it, remove some more frames to make it fit within 200k once optimized, mess around with compression in the ”Optimize” window and eventually save it. It can get complicated if you want to do other stuffs like make looping gifs or moving only a part of the gif to the sides, but that comes with experience.
                Make sure you give MSN a test run if you’re trying to make an MSN avatar; it generally won’t accept gifs that are more than ~195k for some odd reason.

                • Profile picture of Skor
                  Skor replied 5 years ago

                  Thanks for the tips. I didn’t know you could do that with ffdshow. I’ve noticed the tray icons when I watch videos, but never really clicked on them or anything. It seems the trade-off from manually taking the screenshots is cleaning up the duplicate frames. Considering that, I don’t think it would save that much time. In fact, I actually think I would prefer to just manually take the screenshots than going through and finding all the duplicates to delete. Personal preference I guess.

                  Regarding MSN, I actually don’t even use it. I’m just making gifs for fun; I don’t have any plan to use them anywhere myself. If they work in MSN for people who use it, then that’s great :).

                  • Profile picture of Dai_Loli
                    Dai_Loli replied 5 years ago

                    Haha, alright, I suppose you have some way to turn every screencap into a file without posting it in Paint or something every time and going ’save as’? In that case I can see it being relatively similar in time needed. :)

                    As for MSN gifs, that’s cool; entirely your call and I’ll definitely be looking forward to your works whether they’re MSN-ready or not. Worst case, I’ll take my personal favorites and MSNize them myself ;P

                    • Profile picture of Skor
                      Skor replied 5 years ago

                      I actually use Fraps to take the screenshots rofl. It saves the images into the folder I specify with one key press. So I just press that key, then press the right arrow key to skip frames, and repeat until I get all the images I need. The video player I use (MPC) has a function to save screen caps too, but I couldn’t get it to work right. That’s why I use Fraps.


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