Mac Gimp Help Request

[John Picard]

Would someone here be kind enough to tutor me in the making of GIFs using GIMP on my Mac? We can keep it confined to PMs and e-mail unless the Mods feel that a thread devoted to such tutelage would benefit many people.

I'd like to be able to make animated avatars.

 

[spinnerlys]

Do these help in any way?

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Simple_Animations/
http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/1664.html
http://www.knowledgesutra.com/forums/topic/20913-how-to-animate-gifs/

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Personally, I'm curious about making GIFs with the GIMP. I know it involves using layers and transparency and stuff. Thanks for the tutorials, spinnerlys!

 

[John Picard]

Thanks, spinnerlys. I'm going to give those a whirl.

Now here's another question -- how do people capture video (ie a few seconds) in order to animate it?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Actually, that's a bit easier, but you'll need video editing software.

Use the video software to trim down to the segment you want, then convert it to an AVI. There are a bunch of tools out there that convert AVIs into GIFs. This utility supports multiple formats for converting videos into GIFs.

 

[spinnerlys]

Thanks, spinnerlys. I'm going to give those a whirl.

Now here's another question -- how do people capture video (ie a few seconds) in order to animate it?

It depends what you want to capture.

Your Mac most likely has an iSight camera built into it, that you can use to capture yourself or something else via QuickTime Player or Photo Booth.
The resulting video should be easily importable into iMovie.

Then you can also capture video from an external source, like a DV/HDV camera via Firewire and iMovie.
To capture analog video (VHS for example) you need something like this.

And you can also capture online video (YouTube, Vimeo) via the Firefox Video Download Helper add-on or the Safari Activity Window or even ClickToFlash.

And QuickTime X (comes with Mac OS X 10.6 - Snow Leopard) can also capture your screen, like ScreenFlow can too.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I could just facepalm myself for linking to a Windows program in a Mac thread. Sorry, JP.

 

[trekkiedane]

I don't know anything about Macs, but I swear by the GIMP when it comes to making avatars -and as this thread demonstrates; there are loads of good tutorials just a simple googeling away.

Good luck getting to know your GIMP

 

[John Picard]

GAH! I tried some manipulation last night and couldn't get it to work. I was trying to fade from one image to another, and GIMP kept complaining about needing different layers, a background, etc. I'm more of a visual and hands-on type person where it helps to have someone show me.