Insimenator.org

Well, several people have asked me about how to make avatars, and I've finally got a mini tutorial sort of put together. This is just to illustrate how to animate the avatars. I'll put together one to show you how to add all the fun borders and stuff a bit later on. But for now, here's how to make animated avatars.


For this tutorial, I'm using Photoshop 7, but I know Gimp has this ability as well, and is actually easier to do. :) This tutorial also assumes that you have three frames completed that you want to use for your avatar.


To start off with, create a new file in Photoshop, and make the size 100 pixels wide and tall.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie1.png)


Open your completed frame files, and make sure that they've been resized to 100 pixels by 100 pixels. Copy each one, and paste it into the new avatar file. In the example, I've merged one layer with original background, but it doesn't really matter how you do it, as long as each picture is it's own layer.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie2.png)

Now click the button at the bottom of the main tool bar/box, to switch the file over to Adobe Image Ready.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie3.png)

This is basically it's going to look like this.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie4-1.png)


Click the little duplicate frame button to make the total number of frames you want your avatar to have.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie5.png)

Now, click each frame, and deselect any frames that you don't want to show. Do this for each frame.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie6.png)

Now, on each frame, you need to change the frame delay time. Click the delay time under the frame to change it. Click other and then enter 1.5 seconds and hit ok. I set all mine to 1.5 seconds, but you can fiddle with the time if you want. Make sure to change this on each frame. At this point, you can click play on the preview screen, and you can see the avatar animation to make sure you like it.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie7.png)

Now you're going to save your avatar. Go to the file menu, and click Save Optimized As...

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/avvie8.png)

It will automatically save as a .gif file, and you want to leave it as that so it will preserve the animations. Save it wherever you like and then you're done! Upload and have fun!!

Here's how the test one came out.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Kielen/Photo%20Edited/Tutorials/test.gif)

Thanks so much for the tutorial Kielen!  It's very cool that you can do that in photoshop, I had no idea. :D

Hopefully I'll be using it in my contest when it comes out in August...

That is if my contest is approved.  *poke*  ;)

LOL!! It is, doll. I'm adding it today. :) I'll add a tutorial for fancier ones too. I just haven't made any lately.

<------ Played with it the other day, still trying to remember how to do some text effects but I'm sure it'll come back to me out of nowhere when I'm doing something completely unrelated hehe.

Ok...so I'm starting on some for MotS, so I'll track what I do so I can put those up too. :)

Excellent Kielen!  I love learning new things. ;)  

Thanks so much for adding my contest. :D

Kielen....Im trying to make avi's and I have gimp as of today.

Im still a little confused on the tutorial for photoshop7, which i tryed to dl but couldnt because of the file it self. It keeps opening up in the Rarzip file and not in a Winzip file.
And my time has ran out on the Rarzip. How can I dl it in Winzip?

How do you make avi's with Gimp?

Sweetpea, Rar doesn't really run out.  That message pops up, but you can just close the message and still use WinRar.  Unless they've changed something very recently.

~ Syn

Thanks but it takes me to the Rar window and it wont let me load it. Im I doing something wrong?

Sweetpea, I'll see if I can download Gimp today and make a Gimp specific tutorial for you. If I remember correctly, it's actually easier with Gimp. It's been a while since I used it. :P

Thank's Kielen. That would be wonderful.

I have been reading but there is alot to read. It would take me longer to figure it out by reading it all. I just want to get to the point, you know what I mean?

Instead of double clicking a RAR file, you right click it and choose "Expand here."

sweetpea4040 if you google 'cyd gif studio pro' you can download a trial of it.

It's a program to make GIFs - all you do is click 'New Wizard' in the file menu, and then follow the instructions [e.g. select the size of the GIF to make, choose the pictures to put in as the frames] and it makes it into an animated GIF for you. Then you just have to save it! It's quite simple and the GIFs are pretty good quality!

The trial gives you 20 uses of the program [i.e. if you open the program, you can make an unlimited amount of GIFs, but once you've closed the program you have used 1 of your 20 uses.] - but this should be enough for quite awhile :)


Here's a quick summary of how to use it:

Click New Wizard:

(http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm74/Trepie22/NewWizard.jpg)


Select the size you want your avatar to be - you should select the size your images currently are because the built-in rescaling option of this program is not very good:

(http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm74/Trepie22/100x100.jpg)


Choose where you want your frames to be positioned in the avatar. Usually you should choose Center - and stay away from the scale image down to fit option; it severely reduces the quality of your images. If you're going to resize your pictures do it in GIMP not here!

(http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm74/Trepie22/CenterinFrame.jpg)


Choose the kind of animation you want your avatar to have - most people use infinite loop, so if you want that click infinity. You also need to set the time delay between frame change - here it is set to change every 1 second.

(http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm74/Trepie22/Loop.jpg)


Here you choose what images you want as your frames - I've put the Little Stars banner first, and then one of the applicants headshots on a coloured background with their entry's name. You can then preview the animation if you wish.

(http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm74/Trepie22/ImagesPreview.jpg)


Once you've done that click Finish and your avatar will have been made - now all you have to do is save it! [File > Save as ...]

Wow I did it. I just have to put some text and other to get it the way I want. YAY.  How do I post it to a thread? I have one that I did put I cant get it to post:-(

Awesome! Thanks Trepie!! I'm sorry I wasn't able to get something put for you yet, sweetpea. I've been insanely busy this week. I'll try again next week.

I got it Kielen I just need to know how to post when Im done.

<-----as you can see here to ya left.

SweetPea do you have a photobucket account?
Upload the avies there and then copy and paste them as you would a picture.

Yes I do have a Photobucket account and I tryed that and it wouldnt let me copy and paste like a picture.

Thanks for helping I will try it again.

Kielen - does Gimp have the Adobe ImageReady button, or is it a plugin that I need to download?  I don't have Photoshop, I do have Photodraw, its an old version, and the Gimp.

Thanks!

Think I'm going to need to know about making avi's on Gimp aswell. Is it similar process to photoshop?

thank you sooo much for these tutorials