How Do You Create an Animated Avatar?

[Joesocwork 4]

I've got a couple of ideas for a new avatar based on the latest obsession from my son.  It will either involve a character in continual motion or one character morphing into another one.   So what are the mechanics involved and how would I create such an avatar? 
Thanks!  -JoeSocWork

[Zelgadis 638]

It's basically a matter of finding an animated gif maker that you like. You can get a really complicated one and create a very beautiful moving avatar. Or you can get a simple one and make... a simple avatar. I don't make animated gifs very often, but when I do, I usually use a very simple program called "Gif Fun." Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it's a Mac only program, but if you do some searching, I'm sure you'll find something similar.

ISF

[Micah 16]

I think I see the subliminal message Joe is trying to cast (tell me if I'm right... ) and I support it:

Whatever happened to the days when people created animated avatars for each other? It was a pretty fun time and some of the creations were great! I have some ideas myself but not sure how to create it. *Searches spider web for programs*

[jacqulina 162]

i have a program that makes them you can use a wizard which makes it easier i make simple ones or ones from pics and stuff people send me i have never tried to make my own animated one yet,if you have something to work with i could try or send you the program

[steVie 0]

If you have Photoshop, you can use Image Ready that comes with it to create animations.  It isn't too involved and you can find some great tutorials on http://www.good-tutorials.com/tutorials/photoshop/animation .  Good Luck

[beskhu3epnm 8]

I make many custom avatars/signatures for the NHP team using Photoshop.

I would be willing to take a request if you wanted to via PM.... keeping in mind the following:

The file size is always an issue on ST. I have an animated avatar myself, however cannot use it on this site due to the limitation. I'm sure if I were making it from scratch I could manage something to keep it under the size limit!

Whaddya think??

[Duke87 1,070]

The tricky part is making each of the frames. They need to all be in gif format, and since MS Paint murders gifs you're going to have to save them as png and convert them with something more sophisticated (like GIMP or Photoshop). The other thing, of course, is making the frames properly line up- if you want someone to just blink, you need to take care that the head is in the exact same position in each frame so that only the eyelids "move".

Once you've got all your frames ready to go, animating them is really just a matter of having a program that can do it (and there are several freeware or shareware ones out there). Two things to take note of with this is that the frames need not be evenly spaced- you can have one frame stay on screen twice as long as the previous one, you don't need to put the same frame in twice, and you want to make the animation loop (otherwise it'll just play once and then freeze).

There are two general things about gifs to remember, though:

1) The entire animation can't have more than 256 different colors total

2) The speed at which gifs animate potentially varies from browser to browser and from computer to computer- so just beacuse it seems to animate nicely in your my pictures folder doesn't mean it'll animate nicely when put on the internet- or when someone else looks at it. I myself find that sometimes GIFs animate a bit faster when viewed on pages in Firefox than when viewed off my hard drive in Windows Picture and Fax viewer. I believe this kind of thing happens because the framerate is based on the CPU clocking of the computer and of the viewing program, not on the actual real clock.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Most animation packages have the capability for creating "tweens" that morph one frame into another by generating frames between the two.  If your images are similar, e.g. a start and finish of the same picture, you may be able to employ this technique.

I use ULEADs gif animation package, and it does an excellent job.

[jacqulina 162]

john thats what i use too

[Joesocwork 4]

I've really learmed a lot! Thanks!

Now, anyway to get this guy to gallop?

[purpledaddy 6]

Cool looking avatar but you might want to check the copyright laws!

[BurroDiablo 222]

Well, as long as he's not using the Avatar for Profit i'm sure Columbia Tristar won't mind

As for animating the Avatar... uh, quite a large under taking for doing it by JUST editing the image... I would probably recommend finding a Tristar movie and recording/taking continuous screenshots of the Tristar logo at the the Intro, they you can dump it into ImageReady, cut the video and crop it to fit... then convert it to gif.

I've got some expreriance in ImageReady and i'd have done it for you, unfortunately, I don't have it on my PC at the moment... i've never felt the need to have it although it would be handy.

[autoVino 26]

Originally posted by: Duke87 2) The speed at which gifs animate potentially varies from browser to browser and from computer to computer- so just beacuse it seems to animate nicely in your my pictures folder doesn't mean it'll animate nicely when put on the internet- or when someone else looks at it. I myself find that sometimes GIFs animate a bit faster when viewed on pages in Firefox than when viewed off my hard drive in Windows Picture and Fax viewer. I believe this kind of thing happens because the framerate is based on the CPU clocking of the computer and of the viewing program, not on the actual real clock.quote>

 

maybe... but then again adobe image ready does have an option for timing animated gifs... that is you can set time on the intervals between frames.

As to get the horse to gallop, I would use some photoshopping, but it would probably take a considerable amount of time.  I would use probably around five different frames animating the horse galloping.