Animated Avatars

Shlomi · 02/13/06, 4:56 PM

Those animated Avatars (Mhedic, Kaubel, Slug, pretty much everyone) are the total bomb. I've seen new ones cropping up recently too. Could anyone tell me how you do them? Pull up Warcraft Studio and frame grab or something?

Cheers for any info.

diospadre · 02/13/06, 5:02 PM

That's how people used to do them, I think someone mentioned that one of the newer versions actually makes the gifs for you, though.

Kaubel · 02/13/06, 5:12 PM

Bad did my avatar.

(Just giving due credit.)

newladin · 02/13/06, 5:16 PM

I want one with myself bubbling then hearthing away to the safe place of IronForge. But, instead of a screen shot of IronForge, it just says Lagforge.

sekdar · 02/13/06, 5:17 PM

WOW Model Viewer

Go there and download WoW model viewer. The program lets you view all game models, including characters with user-defined equipment in any animation.

One of its newer features allows you to make an animated .gif of whatever you are viewing. It takes a bit of experimentation with the output settings to get the desired results, but it's a pretty nifty feature, and quite a step up from manually screenshotting individual frames of animation. You can also change the background color to match whichever forum you wish to use the avatar on. After exporting a .gif, you can mess around with it in something like Adobe Imageready to compress it. Have fun.

Sothebys · 02/13/06, 5:43 PM

Someone already mentioned it but the new WoW Model Viewer owns. You will definitely have to mess around with the options for exporting as it took me a couple tries to get the animation smooth. Good luck.

Ninjar · 02/13/06, 5:51 PM

I made mine about a week or so ago, i cant find a place to host it that doesnt shrink it, and the animation is sloowwwwwwww

subscience · 02/13/06, 5:52 PM

^ Rofl

Hi · 02/13/06, 5:56 PM

I made a handful of them recently. The way I do them is to use wowmodelviewer, and imageready. I do as much as possible in imageready, because it ends up looking better.

• Bad Luck · 02/13/06, 6:01 PM

Hi's are better than mine. :P

I did Kau's and Gurgs, but Brownbread made them seethrough (and fucked up Kau's foot, it wasn't me!).

Ninjar · 02/13/06, 6:04 PM

Heh would it be at all possible for you to make me one real quick? heres a pic of the gear and skin/color etc for the character (try to resist the impulse to WTFpwn me cuz its a NE :P)

Much appreciated if you do decide to take up the task :) (The offhand dagger is dragonfang blade, its at a bad angle)

subscience · 02/13/06, 6:07 PM

Damn Hi, those are really nice.

Shlomi · 02/13/06, 6:19 PM

Thanks for all the info folks, hopefully my avatar is appearing on the side of this post. The export options are pretty basic but I don't have a (legit or otherwise) copy of ImageReady so it'll have to do for now.

Very very cool software, thanks for the pointers.

ex-sheepy · 02/13/06, 7:58 PM

this is me
<------

Thrillho · 02/13/06, 8:01 PM

if there's one thing these forums don't have, it's enough 300 Kb animated gif avatars

Hi · 02/13/06, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by Thrillho,February 13th, 2006 @ 6:01PM

if there's one thing these forums don't have, it's enough 300 Kb animated gif avatars

Hey, I try to keep all of mine small.

• Bad Luck · 02/13/06, 8:10 PM

Yeah Hi's are actually quite reasonable in size.

Umph · 02/13/06, 8:42 PM

raptor.

Shlomi · 02/13/06, 8:43 PM

Originally Posted by Thrillho,February 13th, 2006 @ 7:01PM

if there's one thing these forums don't have, it's enough 300 Kb animated gif avatars

Oops, that's probably directed at me. I'm working on it Right Now I promise ;-)

(I never post anything anyhow, I just lurk, so it's mostly just my own guild on which I'll be inflicting these...)

Shlomi · 02/13/06, 8:45 PM

Originally Posted by ex-Hi!,February 13th, 2006 @ 7:06PM

Hey, I try to keep all of mine small.

Hi, are you exporting from model viewer with default settings? The gifs it outputs are pretty nasty, and even exporting big and scaling down doesn't give me very good sharpness. Is there some kind of trick to getting the export as high quality as possible?

Zellyn · 02/13/06, 9:14 PM

No, you take screen shots and import them to ImageReady, which has a very hand frame by frame system for animation.

Hi · 02/13/06, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by Shlomi,February 13th, 2006 @ 6:45PM

Hi, are you exporting from model viewer with default settings? The gifs it outputs are pretty nasty, and even exporting big and scaling down doesn't give me very good sharpness. Is there some kind of trick to getting the export as high quality as possible?

Yeah, but I'm doing a lot more work in imageready afterwords. It can slim them up quite a bit.

decimus · 02/14/06, 1:37 AM

God, I feel bad for Birdo now. Although I must admit, it is quite funny.

Conando · 02/14/06, 2:15 AM

Originally Posted by sheepy,February 13th, 2006 @ 5:58PM

this is me
<------

Toros · 02/14/06, 2:45 AM

Why are all the alliance animated avatars 250+ kB? For shame.