movie avatars help

[luv1another]

ok guys I see some of you know how to make cool avatars from movies... can someone explain really simply how?
I have animation shop the thing that plays is a dell media expeience DVD hmm do I need a special program to make avatars?

how do I do it ...I want to try and make one even if I do have to do it on the kids computer (this one doesnt play DVDs)

[Dee Dee Warren]

I use CyberDVD to play my DVDs, it has a screen by screen capture toggle. I also use VideoRedo but that program was a bit pricey. You can get CyberDVD cheap on ebay and stuff.

[luv1another]

how about this program does anyone know if its works or what? I found it the other day and was wondering about it.
http://video-avatar.geovid.qarchive.org/

[Pilgrim]

How about a program for Mac that does the same thing?

[Johnny MacManky]

how about this program does anyone know if its works or what? I found it the other day and was wondering about it.
http://video-avatar.geovid.qarchive.org/

Hi Kaz, I downloaded the demo of it recently. I've not really used it much. It seems to do the job. Here's a couple of quickly done (really quickly, all I did was re-size and trim) examples..

Obviously the demo has geo-vid super-imposed. I'll let ya know how it goes if I get round to doing anything more.

[luv1another]

hmm I am not getting how to get the video from playing to somehoe saving someplace so I can do something with it LOL
I can watch my DVD and pause it but how do I save any of it to my computer to use it?

[Johnny MacManky]

hmm I am not getting how to get the video from playing to somehoe saving someplace so I can do something with it LOL
I can watch my DVD and pause it but how do I save any of it to my computer to use it?

Hi Kaz, this is all new to me too! Okay. I've made this wee clip... let's see how it looks, then I'll tell ya how I did it (if it's any good!)

edited to add after pic posted... hrm, it's rather grainy... Okay, unless I really reduce the number of frames, this is as good a pic as I can get within Tweb avatar memory limits using GeoVid. The source clip is pretty good quality, not quite DVD, but close enough... I put it together in Windows Movie Maker from my Video camera.

...to add... Dang, that's the second time the demo's crashed since I started this what, 30 mins ago?

[luv1another]

ok I have a trial of geovid and redo I just dont know how to get the dvd pics from playing in cyberlink (the dvd player installed ) to the avatar thing so I can even start trying to make an avatar

do I have to do screen shots or something or what?

[Xavier]

How about a program for Mac that does the same thing?

Information here:
http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2005/Dec...on_mac_os.html

[Johnny MacManky]

Hi Kaz, I know there are screenshot programs, that's about it. So far I've only tried using stuff from my vid camera, but I don't know how to capture stuff from DVD's.

[luv1another]

hmm someone I know sparky can do it and xena and theo someone tell me what to do

[luv1another]

ok I found a way to download utubes and other flash movies from online to my computer for anyone using firefox
http://www.methodshop.com/mp3/tutorials/youtuberip/

I didnt want it for my ipod so I didnt need to go that far to change the file after its saved on your computer just right click on the file and change it to name.flv after you have done that you can go to http://www.media-convert.com and convert it to a wmv or amv or whatever.

[Glenn P]

I have to sleep now...

But tomorrow I'll write up a tutorial on how to do this and what you'll need, and I'll post it in this thread.

[luv1another]

that would be great theo

[Glenn P]

OK.... here goes.

There are several methods that you can use to do this. The most important peice of software that I use is Animation Shop, which is part of Paint Shop Pro. I got Paint Shop Pro 5 free on a cd that came with a computer magazine - it's why I bought the magazine, since Paint Shop Pro is a really good piece of software.

However, I never used to use animation shop to do this. I used to use a piece of software called Bitsoft 123 AVI to GIF Converter. It takes an .avi clip, and converts it into an animated gif. But it's not free, and you have less control over the result, so I don't recommend it.

METHOD 1

Here's how I usually go about it. To do it this way, you'll need virtualdub, which is a free piece of software used to edit .avi movie files, and animation shop. There's a verion of animation shop available for free here. There's a great free tutorial on using virtualdub here.

Start with an avi clip (if you don't have an avi version of the clip you want to use, see below). Open it in virtualdub, and cut out everything you don't want (i.e. most of the movie). Do that by selecting it and deleting it. Save the resulting short clip as a new file.

If you want to do it at this stage, you can also use the video filters in virtualdub to resize the clip to make it the right size for an avatar (or you can do this later in animation shop). You can also use the "null transform" filter in virtualdub to crop the clip to make it the right shape to make the most of the 213x120 proportions of the new avatars.

OK, now you have an avi clip that looks exactly like you want your new avatar to look. Now it's easy. Open this new clip in Animation shop. You will be given the option of how many fames to import (choose all), and you will be given the option of the sample rate. By "sample rate" I mean, for example, choosing to include one frame for every 3 frames int he original. If you choose to importing one frame for every one frame of the original, the file will be larger. If you only, say, import one frame for every 3 frames fo the original, your file will be smaller, which can be very helpful, although it will be more choppy. But not too choppy. This is the option I usuall yuse.

OK, when it opens it will basically look like a flim strip. It will be a sequence of images, like on a celluloid film. If you haven't yet resized it to make it the right size for TWeb, you can do that under the "Edit" menu. But if you didn't crop it in Virtualdub to give it the right proportions and the image proportions are different from the 213x120 proportions, this will result in a stretched image.

Now you can just save it as a .gif. When you save, Animation shop will give you some quality options. I use 128 colours, as this makes the file fairly small while keeping a decent quality.

And that's it! You now have an avatar. If the file is too large even though it's only 128 colours, then you have to open it in animation shop and remove some more frames, until it's small enough.

METHOD 2

If you don't have an .avi file containing the clip you want, but you have it on DVD, then you can use this method. It is not as good because you have less control over the finished product, but it works. You'll need WinDVD and animation shop. If you don't have WinDVD, you'll need some other program that plays DVDs and can copy frames, that is, copy a screenshot of what is being played, one frame at a time (neither PowerDVD nor Windows Media Player can do this). Yes, it's slow.

Using this method, create a new animation in Animation shop, and copy and paste one frame at a time from the DVD playing shoftware into animation shop. Then when you've got the whole animation sequence you want, resize it and save it as a gif. The disadvantage here is that you can't crop the clip to the right proportions, unless you paste each image into an image editing program, and then crop it then paste it into animation shop - a long process.

METHOD 3

If you don't have an avi clip of the animation you want, but you do have it on DVD, and you also would like to be able to crop it to the right proportions and have all the control you have in method 1, then you'll need a program called DVD shrink, which is free. You'll also need either WinAVI, or another program that can convert .vob files into .avi files.

Use DVD shrink to make a backup of the DVD ovie file - and you can cut out all the content you don't want so you're left with a short clip. I'm not going to try to explain how to use DVD shrink here.

Now you have a short vob clip, use winAVI or any other software that does the same job, to convert this file into an avi file. Now you can use METHOD 1 as described above.


OK, now you have no excuse for not having a groovy avatar!