I think you've already talked about this before but I couldn't find the post on your Tumblr, so I was just wondering what your process was for making animated gifs. Like what methods you use to make them, what software you use, etc? Also, what parts do you find most fun or difficult or challenging? I've started making some animated gis, and while I don't know if I'll ever be nearly as prolific as you are, I was interested in learning more about them.
Oh hey! Thank you!! I don’t think I’ve ever gone through the process of how I make gifs in detail before, mainly because I don’t use Photoshop so I just assume my advice won’t be helpful to anybody. I don’t know how helpful this will be to you, but I’ve done a little step by step walkthrough of how I make a gif with a few general pointers thrown in. I was gonna try and keep it brief but it turned out much longer…..sorry.
I’ve put what I find most difficult and fun at the end, so you can just skip to that if you want.
As for the rest, here goes….
So, background: I taught myself how to make gifs using Serif Photoplus X2 because we used their products in highschool. Then a few years later, I updated to Photoplus X7 (made hardly any difference though). Serif doesn’t even make the Photoplus range anymore (they still sell X8 but it’s rubbish and crashes a lot, and their new product Affinity doesn’t even let you make gifs!). I’ve tried to use Photoshop in the past and everyone says it’s better, but I’m stuck in my ways like the stubborn old woman I am.
Anyways, when I want to make a gif I start off by capturing screenshots for the frames. I’ve always used GOM Player and their “Burst Capture” option to do this. GOM Player lets you choose the format your images are saved as and where you want the frames saved to. I have a special “captures” folder for temporarily storing the files in. So for example, these are my frames:
A good general tip for making gifs with any software is to use the best quality video you can find. Most of the stuff I make is with 1080p or 720p quality. I find it helps when it comes to colouring and making the gif look clearer.
Once I have my captures, I copy them into my animation “canvas” (or SPP file) which has a base colouring I’ve already made on it. It’s kind of like a PSD on Photoshop. I select my captures and drag them onto the canvas which looks like this:
The canvas is 1080p, the same as the captures but everything will be resized later. I originally captured 100 screenshots here, but I’ve decided to use only 40 in the end because I want to make a 540px width gif. If I used all 100 frames for a 540px gif it would end up being way over the 3mb limit and it wouldn’t work on Tumblr.
Now this is where the time consuming work comes in for me. Once my captures have been copied into the SPP file, they actually become layers which I have to turn into gif frames (if that makes sense). So at the moment they look like this
But I don’t have any actual frames yet at the bottom of the screen. So what I do next is go to the layers tab at the top of the screen and click “hide layers”, making them all invisible
Then basically what I do next is create a frame at the bottom and assign an individual capture to it by clicking the little grey square (making it visible again). So as you can see, my first frame is for my first capture/layer. The next frame will be the capture/layer on top of that.
So yeah, that means I create each frame individually. It’s veeery time consuming but you get quicker at it the more you do it (it’s also faster to do on a laptop touch pad rather than a mouse.).
Once I’ve created all my frames, I reselect the colouring layers at the top so they’re visible on every frame. It should look like this
Next, you need to crop your gif and resize it. I want my gif to be 540px by 270px so I put 54.00 and 27.00 into the crop feature to get it accurate. This allows me to crop the canvas into the right dimensions.
Once I’ve cropped the canvas, I then go to the Image tab at the top and click “Image Size…” and set the image size to 540px by 270px. I usually ignore the Print Size bit.
540px is the best size for a full width Tumblr gif, anything bigger or smaller will make your gif look blurry. This gifset is a good guide for making sure Tumblr doesn’t blur or crop your gifs.
My gif is almost ready to be exported. But I want it to look clearer, so I sharpen all the layer/captures (yes, individually again). I have no settings for sharpening, but I find using the standard “Sharpen” effect under the “Effects” tab is enough.
Once I’ve sharpened everything, I get to the colouring and exporting which is the biggest challenge for me. Photoplus’ options for exporting gifs are limited, so the only decent export options are these
“Web-safe” and “Ordered” makes the gif look like this
“Optimized” and “None” makes it look like this. Okay, but the background looks low quality and patchy
“Optimized” and “Error Diffusion” is the only one that to me, looks the best quality. That’s probably why it produces the bigger file size too (the gif below is 2.78mb)
But there’s other downsides to Error Diffusion which I’m still trying to figure out to this day. Like how it makes parts of the gif “glitch” (that’s the only way I can describe it) or look extra fuzzy. The only way you can fix it is by playing around with the colouring. And by “playing” I mean adjusting and previewing until you want gouge ur eyes out :)
I think that’s why I like giffing The Terror so much, because the film they used has a grainy texture to it, making it easier to hide all my Error Diffusion sins. Though there’s been many times I’ve posted something and hoped no one’s noticed all the mistakes.
Some general tips for colouring
Unless you’re going for a certain effect, emphasise on the colours that are already in the shot. In my gif above for example, I turned up the blues and cyans.
Use Levels or Curves instead of Brightness and Contrast.
Zoom in on your gif to spot any Error Diffusion glitches.
Be mindful about whitewashing POC, especially if you’re following the pastel gif trend.
Look at how other people colour their gifs and use PSDs for reference but don’t rely on them too much.
Colouring can increase or decrease the gif file size. If you need to get below 3mb, try toning down super vibrant colours. If the shot you’re giffing is dark, make it a bit darker. If it’s light, make it a bit lighter.
If all else fails, just make the gif black and white.
Reading all this back makes how I make gifs look like a nightmare lmao. But I’ve been doing it this way since like, 2012 and i love it. I started out making very bad Star Wars and Lady Gaga gifs but as time has gone on and I’ve gotten better, I’ve found I enjoy making things for smaller fandoms much more. I like that if I want a certain set or edit on my blog, I can just go and make it (with varying degrees of success) instead of waiting for someone else to do it.
You appreciate the work that goes into making a movie or show when you make gifs too. Like, you notice subtle little things in the actors performances or something the cinematography is trying to convey. You get to revisit a scene in detail and then share it with everybody else and if you’re lucky, watch them scream in the tags get some nice comments.
There’s lots of other stuff I like about making gifs but I’ve rambled on far too much so I’m just gonna shut up for now. But I think I’ve covered all the important stuff. I don’t know how much of a help I’ve been (there’s still stuff I don’t understand myself) but if there’s anything else you want to know just drop me a message. Good luck with your own gifs!! I’m sure you can do a much better job than me!
"It doesn't look like a graveyard," Rancor said, just loud enough to be heard over the ambient background noise. The top on the landspeeder was down, as they cruised along a road through woodland; still, they were driving slowly enough that there wasn't much wind. Around them, trees of various kinds and heights stood, some in clusters, some more spaced out, sunlight banding down between them and dancing across the sparse grasses and undergrowth anytime a breeze stirred. At the base of each was what looked like a rock, but Bail had said those were actually memory stones; that some had carvings in them, while others had a holographic projector embedded, each devoted to the person that the tree stood above.
"A lot changed after the civil war," Bail answered, as he handled the driving. "Some families still keep tombs and catacombs, but mostly everyone these days would rather either be cremated or be put in a memory park. Though, my wife's family and my own keep our dead on our estates."
It all sort of floated over Rancor's head; the idea of burial, of estates. Of families, even. He understood brotherhood, but the concept of parents and children, of cousins and aunts and uncles, was beyond him; he had no frame of reference for that. Even when he was small, the only real nurturing he got was from older brothers or agemates.
"Do we even belong here?" he asked, the question slipping out without him meaning to voice it, caught on a current of exhaustion and some bewilderment.
"On Alderaan? Why wouldn't you?" Bail asked back, glancing over with furrowed brows.
Rancor tried to think of why they wouldn't, but it wouldn't form up in his head. Everything was a mess. A contained one, right now, but a mess. "I don't know. We were made on Kamino, but we're not Kaminoan. We came from a Mandalorian, but he wasn't legally a Mandalorian anymore. What does that make any of us?"
"Hard question." If there was one thing -- there were several, but if he only had to pick one -- that Rancor really appreciated about Bail Organa, it was that the man didn't flinch away or try to cover things over with pretty words. "The only real answer you've got is what you all make for yourselves. And what you're willing to accept from us, if you want it. But if there's somewhere else-- if you don't want your brother here, then I'll try my hardest to help you get him where you do want him."
Rabbit had never seen Alderaan while alive, but Rancor was sure, more sure than he was of anything, that his brother would have loved it here. He would have wanted to go wander around Aldera and try restaurants and maybe go to concerts or whatever else natural born people did for fun. He would have wanted to be with his twin and go and fill up on experiences, like he had every other time they'd managed to stop somewhere with freedom to move. Rancor never thought of himself as stodgy or anything, but Rabbit was always the one who liked to surge ahead; he would have here, too.
In a way, he did.
Rancor was shocked to find that he was all cried out for the moment. Instead, he shook his head and watched the land move by them, as the spaces between trees became wider. "Here's good. I can come and visit him, right? And I know-- I know that he'll-- he'll be safe here."
A well-off Core world, rich in history and in value. No one would challenge that.
"Yeah, he will be." There was a beat, then Bail said, "We're getting closer to the edge of this park. If you don't see a spot here, there's another one that's on the other side of the river."
As oddly peaceful as it was, just driving like they had all the time in the galaxy, there wasn't much time left for Bail to be with them for this. And Rancor wanted Bail there. He thought it was probably stupid, and he knew Bail was just being kind, but it was nice to pretend that they had-- if not a father, than the closest thing Rancor had ever known to one.
In the more open spaces, the birds flitted between trees. When Rancor spotted the brown shapes browsing through the grass, he sat up straighter. And as they passed, a few rabbits stood on their back legs, ears up and pointed forward, alert.
It was almost too cliché, but it made Rancor smile just a little bit -- a miracle, if there was one -- as he remembered his brother complaining about not wanting to be named after something cute.
unspeakablehorror replied to your audio post “idk man I’m just trying to write something cool for once”
At the same time it has a kind of weighty feel, like something important is happening.
Hey thanks! I really appreciate the feedback, I still have a lot to learn. I’m totally self taught when it comes to all this stuff so it’s really helpful to hear what others think!
Hi, I know you said there were no rules except to respect the dnw for writing the prompts, but I just wanted to clarify--does that mean that we can turn prompts in after April, such as in May? Is that acceptable for this prompt fill? And will they still be reblogged to the Jedifest page if we do? Just wanted to know because while I could turn in something by April 30th, I think I could do a much better job if I turned it in later. This month has been much more unconducive to my (part 1, cont)
(part 2) This month has been much more unconducive to my free time than expected. Also, if there is any kind of 'closing date' or dates for this, what is it?
Hi!
We won’t be doing any more AlienApril related stuff after April (and we haven’t done anything for the past few days, sorry about that!), but you’re more than welcome to turn in prompt fills after the event has officially ended.
There’s no definitive “closing date” for the treats, but we won’t check the tags regularly, so make sure to tag us if you fulfill one of the prompts, then we’ll reblog it :)
@unspeakablehorror replied to your post: Wow, you're so right on the Ghost Crew. Back when...
One of my sideplots in Cut Strings is going to be about Boba Fett being raised by another clone. Step one of course was getting him out of Republic high security. prison (and why do they put minors in here??!!!), which I have already done.
It’s in ch 31 section 5 if you want to see it and skip all the non-Boba Fett parts, haha
Also, very much agree that Rebels just hasn’t made very good narrative choices. I love variety of characters that show up, but they waste any real potential they could have.
Innteresting. I’ll bookmark it for later perusal, thanks! And yeah, Disney XD is no longer part of the cable package I have, so I have a legitimate excuse for not watching the final season and seeing how wrong they get things. Though I’ll probably find other ways to catch certain eps, depending on what they do. It’s too bad their “creative” team isn’t as creative as they think they are. Or, perhaps, they’re creative in the wrong way. LOL!
unspeakablehorror replied to your post “ajax-daughter-of-telamon replied to your post “I would never have...”
Even six numbers is extremely unrealistic given that the number of people who fought in WW 2 was in the tens of millions--so no side would have stood a chance with numbers in the hundred thousands as implied by the numbering scheme used for the clones. I'd think that a major intergalactic war would require even larger numbers? But then Star Wars frequently does stuff like this.
Truth. I imagine the number conventions got weirder as the war went on.
