cmountford

23rd May 2002 06:37 UTC

avatar compression (UnConeD: please help)
I've been trying to get an avatar to work, but it's still way too big. UnConeD, how did you get such a nice-looking one & manage to have it stay under the size limit? I've reduced the animated .gif size to 50 pixels by 50 pixels, but it's still waaaay to big. I tried cutting out half the frames, but still way too big (and doesn't look too good, either). So what do I do?

Any other advice the forum has as to how to get it to a small enough file size is welcome. The smallest file size I've managed to make is 469 KB.

C. Mountford

goebish

23rd May 2002 06:49 UTC

maximum size
Try to get a software like gif optimizer, I think the max size of your avatar should be 10Kb...I think that your actual problem isn't caused by the size(50x50), but by the number of frame you have, I think you can't have more than 4 or 5...Imagine how browsing this forum would be slow if everybody get 400+Kb avatars :igor:

Jaheckelsafar

23rd May 2002 07:59 UTC

You might try colour reduction.

UnConeD

23rd May 2002 12:04 UTC

I used Animation Shop (the companion to Paint Shop Pro, www.jasc.com). It comes with a GIF animation optimizer.
Reducing the colours to smaller palettes helps a lot. I also had to remove certain frames which had too much colour variation, in order to make the lower colour version still acceptable.

I also removed one row/column of pixels at a time until it was okay.
In any case, it took me a while to get it right... it's 19.5KB :)

Atmo

23rd May 2002 16:53 UTC

Max size is 20kb.

Attach it here and i'll have a look at it. I've been using animation shop for a while now and should be able to get it under 20kb as long as its not more than 20 frames or so.

cmountford

23rd May 2002 23:53 UTC

too many frames
I was wanting to use the attached preset for my avatar, but the file sizes are just waaay too many frames for it to work. My inital number of captured frames is 100, and then I'd usually go in & delete every other frame. That would still be *far* too many frames for any compression that I'm aware of to be able to get down to that file size. I was hoping to get 1 revolution of the AVS text during the avatar, but that's just way too many frames. Perhaps this is impossible, but maybe not.

The only way to make there be less frames in my initial avi capture would be to cause the text to rotate more quickly so it takes fewer frames before it makes one revolution.

I don't fully understand a few aspects of the preset (such as this one), and even though I could probably figure it out if I took about a week just analyzing the preset, I prefer being taught by an expert, so I don't jump to the wrong conclusions if I teach myself. (btw: I'm still trying to figure out how to get the horizontal segment of the A to line up and details like that.)

UnConeD: Could you please explain how the rotation in the preset works and maybe give me some tips as to how to do a capture & have it make a revolution. If this isn't practical, then I guess I'll have to come up with something else for the avatar.

I'm using a still image picture temporarily for my avatar (at least until I can figure out how to get the frame # down some). Once I get the number of frames down a little bit, then I'll attach the .gif file. Right now, I'm not satisfied with the quality of the maximum compression in the .gif file, and it's still 600 KB.

FYI: This was a modification to UnConeD's intro preset in his Whacko AVS Pack II. Just wanted to give credit to the person who did most of the thinking to come up with this idea (UnConeD even helped me to try and figure out how to modify the preset *he* came up with--so twice the credit for UnConeD:))

UnConeD

24th May 2002 01:27 UTC

If I were you, I'd try a simpler preset... my avatar has a very low amount of frames (I think 20-25) and as I said, I had to go through a lot of trouble to get it under 20KB too.

By the way it seems the 'V' is rotating in the opposite direction than 'A S'?
I'm not sure what you mean by 'explain how the rotation works', but it's just your every-day rotation through a specified angle. The only difference is that I wrap the angle between -PI/2 and PI/2 so that the text always shows its frontside (and is never mirrored).

And as far as creating the actual letters nicely, you need to find the correct equations for line segments and curves. Curves are not easy, but line segments are:

if you want to draw a line from (a,b) to (c,d), express it as:

(a,b) to ( a+(c-a), b+(d-b) )

Thus, when n=2, your line becomes: (a+i*(c-a), b+i*(d-b))

You can convert the same idea into 3D.

cmountford

24th May 2002 05:43 UTC

thanks
:) Thank you for your help on my preset! Now I'll be able to start tinkering with the preset to fix it.

Well, I guess I'll use something else for my avatar. What do you guys think about me using one of my latest revisions to my LOTR preset (there's 2 in my latest zip file available in my LOTR link in my sig)? It would either be the The eye fire.2 or The eye fire.2 bug fix (or something like that; I don't remember the exact name).

That should give a little bit cooler effect, and then I could add in text with a video file editing program I have to make it a little more interesting.

Thanks again for all your help. I'll start checking out some of the programs & ideas you posted right away & will get back with you as soon as I have a pretty good start on making my avatar.

cmountford

29th May 2002 06:03 UTC

Yay!!!
It's not quite as colorful as I'd hoped, but it's at least something. It's not nearly as good as it looks for real, and I'll improve it as I get a chance, but I just *had* to tell somebody about this. :D

It's still not finished, but at least it's a start...Yay! I'm happy!!!

Atmo

29th May 2002 08:26 UTC

:up:

Looks good to me, the little jump where it goes back to the start could be fixed up pretty easy too.