Piebald
October 10th 2005, 07:51 PM
This is how I make animated avatars
Please note that when I am taking screenshots PowerDVD's screen will be black. In reality there is a movie there. Unfortunately one cannot take screenshots with the print scrn function and have a video show up. I do not know why.
These are the things that you need.1. Jasc Animation Shop
2. Power DVD
You might be able to use different programs then the above, but those are what I use.
The first thing you want to do is start up Power DVD.
Go to the Scene that you want to grab.
Make sure that PowerDVD is the active window and hit "C". This will grab the frame. However, hitting C also clears your clipboard.
[attachment=1]
Go to Animation shop and hit CTRL+V -- this pastes the screenshot into animation shop. If, however, nothing appears, just repeat the above steps. Remember that hitting C also clears your clipboard. So just go back to PowerDVD and hit C one more time to capture instead of clear.
[attachment=2]
Return to PowerDVD. Now hit "T".. this will make the movie advance by a couple frames. Hit "C" to capture the new advanced frame.
[attachment=3]
Return to Animation Shop. DO NOT PASTE THE SCREENSHOT YOU JUST GRABBED YET. Highlight the frame that is already there and press CTRL+SHIFT+L. This will make the second screenshot appear AFTER the first one. You can also right-click to find this option as shown below.
[attachment=4]
You now basically have a two step animation. Keep repeating these steps until the animation is as long as you like.
Now we are going to do the editing.
Find the part of the animation that you really want. For example, you may want a character's face but not the whole animation. Select the cropping tool and crop the animation. All the frames will crop at the same time, so you don't have to worry about cropping them all
[attachment=5]
[attachment=6]
Now we have the part of the animation that we want rather than the whole scene.
Now we need to resize it so that it works by the TheologyWeb avatar size limitations.
Press SHIFT+S this will cause a dialogue screen to come up. Make sure that the animation is 120x120 or less.
[attachment=7]
Save the Animation. The Animation Must be under 40k in order for it to work.
You will get a dialogue screen that says Animation Quality Versus Output Size. You can adjust how many colors the animation will have. The less colors = the smaller the file. Don't make the colors too scant or your animation will come out ugly or weird.
[attachment=8]
Save the File.
Voila. Animated Avatar!
Please note that when I am taking screenshots PowerDVD's screen will be black. In reality there is a movie there. Unfortunately one cannot take screenshots with the print scrn function and have a video show up. I do not know why.
These are the things that you need.1. Jasc Animation Shop
2. Power DVD
You might be able to use different programs then the above, but those are what I use.
The first thing you want to do is start up Power DVD.
Go to the Scene that you want to grab.
Make sure that PowerDVD is the active window and hit "C". This will grab the frame. However, hitting C also clears your clipboard.
[attachment=1]
Go to Animation shop and hit CTRL+V -- this pastes the screenshot into animation shop. If, however, nothing appears, just repeat the above steps. Remember that hitting C also clears your clipboard. So just go back to PowerDVD and hit C one more time to capture instead of clear.
[attachment=2]
Return to PowerDVD. Now hit "T".. this will make the movie advance by a couple frames. Hit "C" to capture the new advanced frame.
[attachment=3]
Return to Animation Shop. DO NOT PASTE THE SCREENSHOT YOU JUST GRABBED YET. Highlight the frame that is already there and press CTRL+SHIFT+L. This will make the second screenshot appear AFTER the first one. You can also right-click to find this option as shown below.
[attachment=4]
You now basically have a two step animation. Keep repeating these steps until the animation is as long as you like.
Now we are going to do the editing.
Find the part of the animation that you really want. For example, you may want a character's face but not the whole animation. Select the cropping tool and crop the animation. All the frames will crop at the same time, so you don't have to worry about cropping them all
[attachment=5]
[attachment=6]
Now we have the part of the animation that we want rather than the whole scene.
Now we need to resize it so that it works by the TheologyWeb avatar size limitations.
Press SHIFT+S this will cause a dialogue screen to come up. Make sure that the animation is 120x120 or less.
[attachment=7]
Save the Animation. The Animation Must be under 40k in order for it to work.
You will get a dialogue screen that says Animation Quality Versus Output Size. You can adjust how many colors the animation will have. The less colors = the smaller the file. Don't make the colors too scant or your animation will come out ugly or weird.
[attachment=8]
Save the File.
Voila. Animated Avatar!