Mini-Movie Tutorial
Jan. 31st, 2006 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guest_ageHere is the mini-movie icon tutorial that I promised to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eckerlilas. With it, you'll be making this: 
. If you are interested in learning to make mini-movies, then this might help you. Uses IR for the animation.
If you want to follow this tutorial with MY images, you can find my image sequence here. If you follow this tutorial and use those images, you'll get the same icon as I have. If you do that, please credit me for at least the tutorial, since you are copying my work. If you make an icon out of your images, then no credit is required.
Okay, the first thing you’ll need is a sequence of images to use for your mini-movie. The best program I have found for this is VirtualDub. Once you’ve got your image sequence, choose a background picture for your icon and make a base. I’m going to assume that you know how to make an icon, so we’re going to skip that and move into the mini-movie portion. For the record, this is what my base looks like:
NOTE BEFORE YOU BEGIN: If your image sequence is larger than 500px wide, you will need to resize your image to 500px before you begin. The reason for this is that PSP only allows you to make custom brushes 500x500px, so you won't be able to do step 1 or 2 unless you resize them first.
1. Open the first image in your sequence. Choose the portion you want to make a mini-movie with. I usually go with a square shape. Once you have selected that portion, go to selection > invert selection. Now everything but the mini-movie portion is selected. Make a new layer, and fill in the non-mini-movie part with black. Go to selection > invert selection again. Now your mini-movie part is selected. Fill that in with white. Select the entire image and go to your brushes. At the bottom of the brush menu is a button that looks like this:
that allows you to create your own brushes. Do that and name it something that you’ll remember. The reason I had you do this is that now, every time you crop each frame of your mini-movie, you’re always sure to get the exact same portion.
2. Now, for every frame, you’ll want to apply that brush, and then crop out the portion of the picture that is left. Paste it as a new image, then resize it to 50x50 pixels. Now, copy that and paste it as a new layer on your base.
3. At this point, you can do whatever you want, really. I like to have a border around the mini-movie part, so I use the paintbrush tool to draw a 1px border. This is optional if you don’t want a border or anything else.
4. Now, once you have done this for each frame, open up your Adobe Image Ready.
5. Open each frame by going to File > Open. Once you have all the frames open, click on frame #2. On your animation toolbar, there’s a little arrow on the top right of it. Click that. A menu pops out. Click on “copy frame”. You can now close frame #2. Copy Frame:
6. Click back to frame #1. Click on the arrow on the animation toolbar, and click “paste frame”. Click on “paste after selection.” Here's what that looks like:
7. Continue copying/pasting each frame onto frame 1 in this manner. Make sure you do it in order. It won’t work if you put them in 4, 7, 3 order, obviously. Make sure you’re doing it 1, 2, 3, etc.
8. Once you have pasted all the frames, go to that animation menu thing we’ve been using and go to select all. Under each frame is a thing that says “0 sec”. This is the time delay. Normal movies/tv shows move at 24 frames per second, which works out to a time delay that is really long and involves a lot of decimals that the computer will just end up rounding anyway. The best setting I’ve found for mine is .1 sec per frame. This is close to normal speed, but slow enough to still look good in a 50x50 square. Here's that:
9. This step is optional, I just don’t like the way things look if you go straight from the last frame to the first frame with no pause. If you want to do this step, then that’s up to you. It’s your icon! Select just the last frame and change the time delay to 1 second. This makes the icon pause on the last frame before starting over.
10. Now, press play and watch your icon. If it’s how you want it, go to this:
and change the format to GIF. Now go to file > save optimized as, and then save your icon!
11. Check the file size of your icon. If it’s under 40 KB, you’re done. If it’s larger, start cutting out frames. Re-save it after each change until you find that it is under 40 KB. Mine is 36.1, so I’m great.
Some tips that I’ve found help save space:
· Notice how mine has like…an 8 px border on the left and bottom sides? There’s a reason for that. I’ve found that using a lot of solid colors like that helps save space so you can have more frames. In general, the more solid color chunks like that you use, the smaller your icon will be. I still have a great picture, my mini-movie part is great, and I got 15 frames in only 36.1 KB. That’s pretty good.
· Also, the smaller your mini-movie portion is, the more frames you can have. For example, in this mini-movie:
I have 20 frames, and in this one: 
I have 22. If you’ll notice, both of those are well under 40KB, the “LJ size”, because they are not very wide or very tall. In general, the smaller you make your mini-movie, the more frames you can have. It really depends on what you’re looking for out of your icon.
I hope that helped you guys out!
eckerlilas. With it, you'll be making this: . If you are interested in learning to make mini-movies, then this might help you. Uses IR for the animation.If you want to follow this tutorial with MY images, you can find my image sequence here. If you follow this tutorial and use those images, you'll get the same icon as I have. If you do that, please credit me for at least the tutorial, since you are copying my work. If you make an icon out of your images, then no credit is required.
Okay, the first thing you’ll need is a sequence of images to use for your mini-movie. The best program I have found for this is VirtualDub. Once you’ve got your image sequence, choose a background picture for your icon and make a base. I’m going to assume that you know how to make an icon, so we’re going to skip that and move into the mini-movie portion. For the record, this is what my base looks like:
NOTE BEFORE YOU BEGIN: If your image sequence is larger than 500px wide, you will need to resize your image to 500px before you begin. The reason for this is that PSP only allows you to make custom brushes 500x500px, so you won't be able to do step 1 or 2 unless you resize them first.
1. Open the first image in your sequence. Choose the portion you want to make a mini-movie with. I usually go with a square shape. Once you have selected that portion, go to selection > invert selection. Now everything but the mini-movie portion is selected. Make a new layer, and fill in the non-mini-movie part with black. Go to selection > invert selection again. Now your mini-movie part is selected. Fill that in with white. Select the entire image and go to your brushes. At the bottom of the brush menu is a button that looks like this:
that allows you to create your own brushes. Do that and name it something that you’ll remember. The reason I had you do this is that now, every time you crop each frame of your mini-movie, you’re always sure to get the exact same portion. 2. Now, for every frame, you’ll want to apply that brush, and then crop out the portion of the picture that is left. Paste it as a new image, then resize it to 50x50 pixels. Now, copy that and paste it as a new layer on your base.
3. At this point, you can do whatever you want, really. I like to have a border around the mini-movie part, so I use the paintbrush tool to draw a 1px border. This is optional if you don’t want a border or anything else.
4. Now, once you have done this for each frame, open up your Adobe Image Ready.
5. Open each frame by going to File > Open. Once you have all the frames open, click on frame #2. On your animation toolbar, there’s a little arrow on the top right of it. Click that. A menu pops out. Click on “copy frame”. You can now close frame #2. Copy Frame:
6. Click back to frame #1. Click on the arrow on the animation toolbar, and click “paste frame”. Click on “paste after selection.” Here's what that looks like:
7. Continue copying/pasting each frame onto frame 1 in this manner. Make sure you do it in order. It won’t work if you put them in 4, 7, 3 order, obviously. Make sure you’re doing it 1, 2, 3, etc.
8. Once you have pasted all the frames, go to that animation menu thing we’ve been using and go to select all. Under each frame is a thing that says “0 sec”. This is the time delay. Normal movies/tv shows move at 24 frames per second, which works out to a time delay that is really long and involves a lot of decimals that the computer will just end up rounding anyway. The best setting I’ve found for mine is .1 sec per frame. This is close to normal speed, but slow enough to still look good in a 50x50 square. Here's that:
9. This step is optional, I just don’t like the way things look if you go straight from the last frame to the first frame with no pause. If you want to do this step, then that’s up to you. It’s your icon! Select just the last frame and change the time delay to 1 second. This makes the icon pause on the last frame before starting over.
10. Now, press play and watch your icon. If it’s how you want it, go to this:
and change the format to GIF. Now go to file > save optimized as, and then save your icon!11. Check the file size of your icon. If it’s under 40 KB, you’re done. If it’s larger, start cutting out frames. Re-save it after each change until you find that it is under 40 KB. Mine is 36.1, so I’m great.
Some tips that I’ve found help save space:
· Notice how mine has like…an 8 px border on the left and bottom sides? There’s a reason for that. I’ve found that using a lot of solid colors like that helps save space so you can have more frames. In general, the more solid color chunks like that you use, the smaller your icon will be. I still have a great picture, my mini-movie part is great, and I got 15 frames in only 36.1 KB. That’s pretty good.
· Also, the smaller your mini-movie portion is, the more frames you can have. For example, in this mini-movie:
I have 20 frames, and in this one: I have 22. If you’ll notice, both of those are well under 40KB, the “LJ size”, because they are not very wide or very tall. In general, the smaller you make your mini-movie, the more frames you can have. It really depends on what you’re looking for out of your icon.I hope that helped you guys out!
