Member titles/levels

[Zeke]

You're still head and shoulders ahead of my movie posters, Arzosah. (Admittedly, I made them years and years ago on a crummy monitor.)

Of course, if you wanted to improve it, I'm sure you could find a volunteer to help you out. We've got some good image designers around here.

[AKAArzosah]

I remember those!

It's all well and good to be skilled at photo manipulation, but there's only so much you can do with Microsoft Paint. I'm too cheap to buy anything that's actually good.

[Zeke]

Who needs to buy them? There are some excellent free graphics programs. I use Ultimate Paint extensively, and Inkscape is a new acquisition that looks promising. The GIMP is another one that some people swear by; I never put in the time to learn the ropes, so it mostly confused me, but experts can do incredible things with it.

[AKAArzosah]

ULTIMATE PAINT NOW RULES!

Symmetry... awesomeness.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Paint.NET is half decent, though you've got to have Microsoft's .NET software installed to run it.

Someday, I will have lots of money, and on that day I will decide whether to go ahead and buy that dSLR I want, or Photoshop CS2. Because it really is that bloody expensive.

[Asky]

Gimp is a mess. It probably has a lot of Photoshop's functionality, if only I could figure out how to use it...

[Chancellor Valium]

^It's good once you get used to it, but it's that getting-used-to-it that's the problem...

[AKAArzosah]

Okay, now how do I make his head bobble?

[PointyHairedJedi]

Good question. I never figured out how to animate stuff like that, exactly, but in theory the simplest way would be to make frames with the head moving through the right positions to seem as though it were, and then string them together in a program to make a .gif.

[AKAArzosah]

Oh, the simplest way, you say!

Can you break that down into several even simpler ways?

[Sa'ar Chasm]

That depends on whether it's a molecular way or an atomic way.

[ijdgaf]

When making GIF animations in the past, I generally use Microsoft GIF animator.

It's pretty basic, and most of the work I do with it involves copying and pasting in paint.

Basically, you have to create each frame individually and then paste them into the program. So in order to create a bobblehead, you'd have to generate each frame of the unit individually.

Then, with the program you can edit how long each frame stays on the screen. Preview it and tweek it until you've got things the way you want. And then you're done. The only downside is, once you've saved an animated GIF, you can't go back and edit it. You would have to start from scratch.

It's a mild pain in the ass, and the results aren't all *that* impressive. But it's a fun diversion, I guess.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I guess Mr. GAF's title isn't correct any more...

[AKAArzosah]

Well I sucessfully created a pretty decent bobble-head only to find that it's too big (file size) to use on these forums

[AKAArzosah]

Now I can make animations... next step, how do I make a Matrix-like Screensaver for my friend?

[PointyHairedJedi]

I say cheat, and fine one that somebody has done already. I'm sure I've seen some free ones available.

[Nate the Great]

So here's where I found out about the GIF animator. Muchas gracias. Great program.

[Nate the Great]

So my new title IS clever, but I'm wondering if it's a little TOO clever. After all, a Dopefish can only think "Swim, swim, hungry," so it wouldn't have the capability to think anythink else. It's not smart enough. Hence, "Dopefish." But I suppose Zeke thinks I'd make a particularly smart Dopefish. Or, considering that my fish can't even keep three things straight in his mind, a particularly stupid Dopefish. I guess it's your call. (There's a poll, huh? "Does Zeke think Nate the Great would make a smart or a stupid Dopefish? Yes. No.")

P.S. A LONG time ago I wanted to make an avatar that was a cycling list of instructions:

1. How to be an official Dopefish in Three Easy Steps.
2. Swim (Dopefish swims to the right).
3. Swim (Dopefish swims to the left).
4. Hungry (Dopefish looks to camera and opens mouth).
5. Congratulations! You are now an official Dopefish! (Dopefish burps)

Unfortunately, the images would be cut and pasted from a banner from another site, and my spriting skills aren't sufficient enough to do anything beyond cropping and scaling, so the words would've been REALLY tiny on the avatar. Sad, really.

[Alexia]

Originally Posted by PointyHairedJedi

I say cheat, and fine one that somebody has done already. I'm sure I've seen some free ones available.

I'm with pointy on this one

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

P.S. A LONG time ago I wanted to make an avatar that was a cycling list of instructions:

1. How to be an official Dopefish in Three Easy Steps.
2. Swim (Dopefish swims to the right).
3. Swim (Dopefish swims to the left).
4. Hungry (Dopefish looks to camera and opens mouth).
5. Congratulations! You are now an official Dopefish! (Dopefish burps)

Unfortunately, the images would be cut and pasted from a banner from another site, and my spriting skills aren't sufficient enough to do anything beyond cropping and scaling, so the words would've been REALLY tiny on the avatar. Sad, really.

You could try having the words in separate frames:

1. "How to be an official..."
2. "Swim"
3. (Dopefish swims right)
4. "Swim"
5. (left)
6. "Hungry"
7. (hungry Dopefish)
8. "Congratulations!..."

That would tend to increase the filesize, but assuming the parts showing the Dopefish aren't long animations or anything I think you could get away with it.