Animated avatars

[AgeGap]

How do you animate an avatar? Serious question not the start of a bad joke.

[geni]

You use animated Gif. Basicaly you create a series of Gif frames set how long you want each one to appear and off you go. Can be done in the GIMP.

[petra10]

Paul Hoff's the best man to ask.He's a genius at that sort of thing.

[Miss Anthrope]

Yes, I never have to ask, Paul just magically shows up with something wonderful.

There is no so called not-wub for Paulhoff.

[alfaniner]

Find one. Right click. Save As...

But you didn't hear it from me.

[AgeGap]

Thanks, all.

[PaKu]

is there any way I can stop animated avaters from blinking on my screen? Apart from switching them off altogether? Some of them are so annoying (to me) that I have trouble to read the posts.

[LordoftheLeftHand]

is there any way I can stop animated avaters from blinking on my screen? Apart from switching them off altogether? Some of them are so annoying (to me) that I have trouble to read the posts.

This website describes how to do it, but I've never tried it.

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-stop-gif-image-animations-from.html

LLH

edit to add: seems to work for me

[alfaniner]

Or you could just hit the ESC key.

Not that you'd ever need to do it for my avatar...

[PaKu]

hit ESC... I knew it was something simple!
not for yours though, very cuddly, for a philosopher:)

[G-K-4]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for telling us all how to do that! :)

(That's one appreciation each for alfaniner and LordoftheLeftHand for their answers, and one for PaKu for asking a really good question. I've had the same problem, PaKu. And now I don't.) :D

[Almo]

There are definitely some irritating animated avatars. The worst (of which there are few or none here) are the ones that flash semi-random blocks of color for single frames.

[Illustronic]

Create your own animated gif files with Adobe ImageReady, it is packaged with Photoshop. You can edit existing Gif file, create gif files from all movie files, and it can even select every other frame, or every third, and so on from movie imports. You can change the timing of individual or shift selected frames, delete or duplicate or add frames anywhere in the sequence.

The most intuitive and extensive gif writer out there.

[Worm]

Paint Shop Pro Animation Shop does it as well - it's not a hard process.

Most people don't even notice that my Avatar is animated ... ;)

[Illustronic]

Thanks Worm for the Microsoft side of things. I was about to add that ImageReady and Photoshop can be worked side by side and will display the frames as layers, as well as ImageReady displays the frames in the timeline.

They both are interchangeable in the fact that all the information is reserved in both programs, ImageReady raw files are saved as .psd (Photoshop) files, the animated gif is an ImageReady export.

ImageReady has some of the Photoshop image editing functions, but just some, so I work both side by side. One thing I like is that you can program a gif file to move a set number of rotations and stop, which is useful for web site application so you don't drive people crazy with a forever spinning graphic.

[Worm]

I actually had no idea GIMP could do this - although I'm not surprised. Need to check that out.

[kittynh]

I do have to say I love my avatar

hey a nessie avatar!