Well..maybe not my last question...

...but, I've noticed in several forums that I've visited that some folks have an animated avatar which was made from a short video clip...(whoever has their avatar from Full Metal Alchemist, for example)

I'm just wondering how that's done? I remember people using short clips of a Halo2 demo as an avatar, and always wondered how they pulled it off.

The one I'm wanting to do would be a short clip of Spike Spiegel trying to go up that flight of stairs in the Cowboy Bebop episode, 'Mushroom Samba'.

Thanks for everything!

I didn't make mine, so sorry, but I have an idea if making a movie is anything like programming...

you just put the movie equivelent of an "if then" statement "if this movie ends, then start over again"

Programs like ImageReady (which is packaged with Photoshop) will allow you to open video files. From there it's a simple matter of saving to .GIF format (.JPG is not capable of animation).

I did Sliverthorn's avatar that way. I extracted the file from the MW2 CD, opened it with Bink (or something similar), saved the file to a .AVI (any video file will work I believe), then opened it with ImageReady.

After a little bit of cleaning up some resizing, and a little bit of looping (in a failed attempt to make it seamless) I just had to save it into a .GIF file, upload it, then send it to him so he could set it as his avatar.



I actually did a bunch like this, one was a Mad Dog (err... Vulture) for Gwyd over at MWL, but then they removed the ability to have custom avatars. I had a Nova (Blackhawk) for a while, but the seam between the loop was bugging me, so I removed it.

Edit: One thing I forgot to say, is you have to have some sort of way to get access to the video clip in the first place in order to do anything with it. How you do that varies, I've never had to find a way to actually create the footage, so I can't help much there.

sprite ripping. hope this helps a little. Oh and have fun.

Drat...when you mentioned ImageReady, I knew I was in trouble.

Something else I can't afford!

(that's what I get for being just a working guy.)

Dang, I don't have paintshop pro.

Does anybody know if the unupgraded version will still be able to record animations?

Animation Shop is the easiest for me.

Yes, Paint Shop Pro and their animation program, Animation Shop works just as well. In fact, it might even work better for more complicated things, I just never liked the program myself.

Not to worry, folks...I finally figured out that what I needed was a video capture utility. Animation Shop works, but what I needed was something that would allow me to snag frames from an existing video file. Found a trial program just last night that will do exactly what I'm after! Had a bit of fun capturing frames from an episode of Love Hina that I have...heeheehee (if you've seen the anime version of Love Hina, you understand the there...)

Which episode? I've seen the entire series, and the specials too

Episode 2, 'Arrow Signs'...specifically, the moment where our hero Keitaro gets caught in that fireball that comes from the kitchen...there are moments in online gaming where I feel just like that moment!

I liked the first epsiode so much, I got hold of all the episodes, and the Christmas and Spring specials!

A couple of other favorites would be Episodes 8 and 12...very funny stuff!

I have yet to get copies of the 'Love Hina Again' shows; if the earlier was any indication, they oughta be just as good!