Monday, June 25, 2012

How To Make Animated GIFs: a Brief Tutorial

Dudes and dudettes of internetville,

In my spare time, I'm making a lot of looping gifs these days.  I've been hearing from lots of folks who want to know how I'm making these little moving images.  Making them has been so much fun, so I figured I'd try and share a little of what I know.  Keep in mind that this is, of course, just ONE WAY of making animated gifs, so it's hardly authoritative or exhaustive.  Mostly it's just a working method that I've discovered--and it's bound to change over time.  I'll update again when I figure out some new things.  "Like" my page on Facebook to check out when I'm putting stuff like this up.  Also, feel free to drop a line and ask questions about whatever.


Until then, on to the show!
In-process line drawing of Usopp-kun

 














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31 comments:

  1. Morgan Rhys GibbonsJune 25, 2012 at 1:16 PM

    Oshiete kurete, domo!
    Chou arigatai zo!

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  2. chazJune 25, 2012 at 2:30 PM

    Thanks, really detailed! You're animation is great. I used another tutorial you did a while back to create a couple of gifs from animation I've done. Not as cool but certainly fun to do.

    http://chazamation.com/2011/09/29/gauntlet-gets-gifs/

    http://chazamation.com/2012/04/28/capetastic/

    Thanks for sharing your precious secrets!

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  3. Brittany McCarthyJune 25, 2012 at 2:36 PM

    Great tutorial, thanks so much for posting! Now I wanna try making my own!! :D

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  4. Frankie SwanJune 25, 2012 at 2:40 PM

    THANK U SIR!!!!

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  5. UnknownJune 25, 2012 at 5:28 PM

    THANK YOU SO MUCH! Am trying this out right now

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  6. Alê MartinsJune 25, 2012 at 5:35 PM

    Thanks for sharing Anthony!!! Amazing work! >.<

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  7. Lord PancreasJune 25, 2012 at 6:56 PM

    Great tutorial, but for image sequences you want to use PNG, not JPG. PNG is lossless and compresses cartoons very well. JPG is lossy and is x]better-suited for photos.

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  8. DomeeJune 25, 2012 at 8:00 PM

    Wowowow~ love your blog so much! :D Thanks for this awesome tutorial! I've always wondered how to make them drawings move :T

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  9. Anthony HoldenJune 25, 2012 at 9:14 PM

    Thanks for your kind words everyone!

    Lord Pancreas, thanks for the tip on the PNG--I'm all over that next time I make a GIF!!!

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  10. Victor MauryJune 25, 2012 at 10:42 PM

    Oh wow, thanks a bunch! I've been wanting to make one like this ever since I saw yours :>

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  11. L RossiJune 25, 2012 at 11:47 PM

    Agreed on the PNGs n.n
    Also, when you go into Photoshop it's easier to create your document and then, Layer > Video Layer > New Video Layer From File.
    Your images will be in one Video Layer (as opposed to loads of individual frames), and you won't have to line the images up. You can convert the layer back to individual layers if you want in the Animation Window settings > Flatten Frames into Layers.
    Look forward to the next GIF!

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  12. RamyaJune 26, 2012 at 7:26 AM

    I're really been looking for a nice tutorial like this! :) Thank you!
    Also, another thing that I am trying out, is to use the Animation Timeline in Photoshop. ( I notice you are using Frame Animation) which I have no clue how to use,(sorry!) but the timeline animation works really well too.( its on the Extended Version of PS)
    And if you don't want to colour in Flash (me!) then you can export the animation from there as a JPG/PNG sequence, and take into Photoshop.
    When you import any sequence it automatically asks you what frame rate you want it to be, and you can always edit this in the document settings within the animation palette. Put a new blank video layer on top of this and you can paint frames on a timeline just like Flash.It has onion skinning as well.
    Sorry if this is information that is already available (probably) but just how I was trying it out. :)

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  13. BostontranslationJune 26, 2012 at 7:37 AM

    You are a sage, a gentleman and a scholar and a cowboy and an alien...

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  14. Jeff Maka MerghartJune 26, 2012 at 9:19 AM

    oh my gahd... now I'll never get my anims done :P I'll be making gifs all day!! Great tips and, as usual, great art! Your stuff is terrific!

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  15. nerestaJune 26, 2012 at 4:06 PM

    Thank you! Useful thing! )

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  16. JaisonJune 26, 2012 at 10:34 PM

    Thank you for this detailed tutorial. I was really useful.You could have shown the animated pic also. Blogspot blogs does not support gif directly.I upload gif animations to photobucket and add the url to my blogger blog, then it worked.

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  17. RobJune 28, 2012 at 4:32 AM

    very kind of you! gotta give it a try now i guess :D

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  18. Dangermanumber6June 30, 2012 at 6:23 PM

    The JASC Paint Shop Pro 9 comes with a fairly decent gif animator and I'm pretty sure version 9 is freeware because after 9 it was bought by Corel & JASC released it for free. You can do morph animations with it too. I've never had photoshop and am not sure what flash program the author's using, but I alays made them with the animator bundled with 9. It's 8 years old(2004) but it still works on win7 on down and it's fairly easy.

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  19. Dangermanumber6June 30, 2012 at 6:33 PM

    https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/1786050012/1404729088_m_reasonably_small.gif
    This is my twitter avatar made with animation shop 3 that comes bundled with paint shop 9. I compressed it as much as possible to load quickly so it's a bit grainy.

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  20. mattJuly 1, 2012 at 6:57 PM

    dude u are awesome.. going to go through this later... and your blog too

    Lately i have been loving hand drawn gifs and loops and the sprites from old school (and new) japanese video games

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  21. jayaramJuly 3, 2012 at 2:30 PM

    Thats Awesome!

    now I really wanna make my own gif's!

    need to learn the basics first

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  22. TABIA LEESJuly 3, 2012 at 3:45 PM

    I love you so much it hurts sometimes.

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  23. dddddddJuly 4, 2012 at 9:55 AM

    thank you sir for this tut! you are so kind! i'm a newbie of sorts and i want to try this in the near future! yay for one piece ;)

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  24. Adam Tamte VolkerJuly 12, 2012 at 9:32 AM

    awesome! I can't wait to get my hands dirty trying this stuff out.

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  25. chazAugust 7, 2012 at 7:35 AM

    Hey Anthony, using your process again, I finished another gif. It's on my homepage. Thanks for empowering us with you knowledge! http://chazamation.com/

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  26. SugumarjeDecember 9, 2012 at 4:32 AM

    Good one... Ha ha ha Stay with Your Job :D...

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  27. Sase AnticDecember 22, 2012 at 5:19 PM

    Thanks a lot for sharing this tutorial on making animated GIFs!

    ReplyDelete
  28. samiAugust 29, 2013 at 1:22 AM

    great information.I would like to see more posts like this.thanks

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  29. NakkurusSeptember 20, 2013 at 11:17 AM

    Nice.I will try :)

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  30. web video productionOctober 9, 2013 at 12:48 AM

    Your post have the information that is helpful and informative. great tips . I would like you to keep up the good work.thanks

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  31. beanJuly 26, 2014 at 12:07 PM

    This is a little bit late (sorry) but one way to get around the tricky/messy Flash exporting nonsense is to use a program called Swivel (from Newgrounds!) to give you nicer video files from your .swf files, since you can customize every setting before converting to a video (even add an alpha channel so you can have a transparent background) then import them as usual into Photoshop!

    ReplyDelete

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