Two Years Ago, or More Precisely...

In 2002 I was visiting one of my favorite stores the Anime Cafe to pick up some manga and ironically enough anime, when one of the clerks told me to look at this:

My introduction to sprite comics made from graphics ripped from games. I had never heard of this but I was immediately hooked. I had to know where these came from. Up to that point all I was doing was fanfiction in the hopes that one day I would get MiSTed. I had always wanted to do comics based on my favorite video games like Mega Man and Final Fantasy. Maybe even mix in my favorite anime like Tenchi Muyo and Sailor Moon.

Sprites opened up a whole new universe for me. I can now do the stories I always wanted to do but couldn't because of my total inability to draw. First I had to find where all these sprites came from. After many an MSN search. (Google wasn't much of a factor then.) Following links and suggestions on forums I found myself here:

Panelmonkey.org, The People's Sprites. I was in heaven. All those game rip and public domain sprites all for my use. They even had the legendary Dr. Wily sprite made by Deccus.

From 2002 to 2009 it was my number one place to go for sprites. 2009. We all know what happened. I don't need to get into it because I know about as much as you do.

I started making a daily pilgrimage to The People's Sprites that soon turned into every other day. Then once a week. Every other week. Once a month. Every other month. To about a couple times a year. Finally when ever I saw a link on someone's site I happen to come across.

In May of 2014 I was raiding the Internet Archive for sprites from dead sites to include in my sprite site, The Sprite Cemetery. I was on The People's Sprites trying to figure out how to mass download all the sprites when it occurred to me, I should check to see if panlemonkey.org is back. It wasn't, but this ad from GoDaddy was there:

(Oh how I despise GoDaddy. That's a story for another time.)

I couldn't resist so I looked into it. You can get a free account. That's a good selling point. It hooked me. To hire a negotiator was $70. There's a lot I could do with seventy dollars. That's a mighty fine couple or pizzas or five gallons of gas. I thought “What the hell, why not? The opportunity is too great to pass up. Think about all those sites still linked to panelmonkey.org. All that SEO could be mine. What's the worse that could happen? The owner says no and I'm out $70.”

After a week or so I get an email from GoDaddy saying there hasn't been a response and they are trying again. A few weeks later with no response I pretty much gave up.

Anime Mine: Liz Thompson 1.

Turn a Video into an Animated Gif.

Programs you must have:

GIMP- GNU Image Manipulation Program

https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

GAP- Gimp Animation Package

http://photocomix-resources.deviantart.com/art/GAP-2-6-for-Gimp-2-6-Windows-135464357

Additional programs you may want:

DVD Ripping software of your choice. (I prefer DVD Shrink.)

Freemake Video Convertor.

Export Layers plugin for GIMP

http://registry.gimp.org/node/28268

A GIF making program you like. Gimp does the job, but I like JASC Animation Shop better.

 

I have been working on the self inflicted wound that is Anime Mine for a couple of years now. I've grown fond of making animated GIFs instead of just posting stills. (They sometimes get a like.) For an upcoming post I want to show case a moving image of Tamami from Angel Tales.

 

Normally I would use VLC and take snapshots every frame. This is exceptionally tedious. Unfortunately I have yet to find a program that can easily make an animated GIF from video, or just extract the frames I need. I have found a process that is long, almost as tedious as VLC, in fact can be very frustrating, but does work.

 

I already have the DVDs ripped. Now to import the episode to Freemake Video Converter to isolate the exact scene that I want. You only want to deal with the frames you need, not the tens of thousands that will be made if you don't edit it down.

Drag and drop the episode into Freemake and click the scissors to the left.

 

 

Now we have the video editor. For expediency I won't go through all the controls. In fact I'll skip to the scene.

 

 

Now to import to GIMP.

Click on Video and then Split Video into Frames. Next click on Extract Videorange.

 

 

 

That will pop out and extended view. Take the slider marked in red and slide it all the way to the right. Then don't touch anything else on the right side. It's buggy and will mess up if you do. Under the slider is a number. That is how many frames are in this clip. You need to input that number in the "To Frame" box. Next check "Create only one multilayer Image." Then click okay.

 

I don't really like the way animated GIFs look when made with GIMP, so I'll export all the layers as separate images. Go to File and Export Layers, click the button oddly named “Export Layers,” take the slider for Compression level to zero and hit export.

 

(Looks like a bad frame, now is a good time to take it out.)

 

Now I will fire up JASC Animation Shop to make the animated GIF, but this has gone on long enough and I'll save that tutorial for another time.

Not so fast.

I guess I still have a few things on my chest. Stay tuned.

The Grand Experiment Finally...

...Comes to an end. You've seen this before. When someone quits doing whatever is they are doing  one of many reasons are given. Mine is a little different, I got it out of my system. I'm all talked out. Sure there are tons of stuff I never got around to saying, but that can keep by me. I've said what I've needed to say, I don't need to say much more.

I'm not abandoning the blog. I will check in once in awhile to see how things are going. Respond to a comment that might come in once, maybe twice a year.

I'm still going to occupy my own little corner way down in the deepest, darkest, dankest, dorkest parts of the internet. Ravy Comics is going nowhere anytime soon. I've begun production on the 2015 run of comics. No idea where that's going to take me.

I did get a couple of things out of this. I think my writing has improved. I think about what is I'm trying to say, what I need to say, what I want to say, think twice and thrice about actually saying it. Search Engine Optimization is the other big lesson I learned. I can talk about whatever I want, but if I want people coming to my sites, well, I think I need to talk more about Rosenkreuzstilette, Rosario Vampire, Zook the Hero Z, and Discworld Noir. Thanks to them for all the inadvertent SEO.

Thank you to all that came here for the reasons that you did. 

Remember: Spill chucks wont cats gamma.