How I break down the trailers

[Foddzy]

A few people have asked what I use to make the animated .gifs, I'm not an expert at this by any means, in fact I'm totally self taught so there are probably better ways of doing this. Here is what I use, all freely available software (pirating is stealing folks, consider contributing to the authors of free software if you have the dough):

 

First I had to convert the videos to .avi format, for the first three trailers I used Stoik video converter to do the .wmv files. For the .flv short trailers I used Super converter. I made sure to use uncompressed/stream conversion so there was no loss of quality. This results in some pretty large .avi files.

 

I then use the fabulous VirtualDub to load the .avi and do frame-by-frame analysis, sometimes I will use the filters available in VirtualDub. (Incidentally if you want to compress your .avi files, downloading the FFDshow package and using h.264 compression in VirtualDub is a very very good way to go (you may have to download the h.264 codec separately, I forget)).

 

I use IrfanView to take screenshots (lossless .png format) of VirtualDub in action. Then I use IrfanView to do a batch process of converting/cropping/resizing the .png screenshots into .gif files.

 

Lastly, I drop the .gif files into UnFreeze animated .gif maker to form the animations.

 

I mainly use Photobucket for image hosting.

 

There are a lot of little tricks involved in the above, if I get a chance I can make a more in depth tutorial if you guys want, but like I said there are probably better ways of doing this.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2008 by Foddzy

[Vanillainy]

Or, like me:

 

Rip it from YouTube, convert the .flv to .mpeg and edit in Imageready.

 

Which I find easy, doesn't take too long either.

[Foddzy]

Or, like me:

 

Rip it from YouTube, convert the .flv to .mpeg and edit in Imageready.

 

Which I find easy, doesn't take too long either.

Well, AFAIK Imageready is a part of Adobe Photoshop CS3 which goes for a minimum of US$649. The tools I use are freely available. Also, I'd suggest using raw uncompressed footage for higher quality animations. For doing breakdowns using uncompressed footage is essential (anything off Youtube is going to suffer from a large amount of image degradation).

 

Once I got the workflow down, it became quite speedy and easy, I can make an animation in a few minutes.

[gamefarter]

Man, that seems like a lot of work. I haven't even heard of most of that stuff. Pretty involved. But, you obviously got the workflow thing worked out becuase I can attest to how fast you can make these. You are a great asset to these forums, and I have seen most if not all of the animations in your OP, here in the forums. Keep up the good work, and thanks for your help with my Posts.

[Foddzy]

Yea I love how the guy came on the forums telling me I had too much time on my hands when it probably took me less time to make that sig than it did for him to make his post. A wise man once said "always combine the pleasureable with the practical when possible", its a lot of fun making these and I've learned a lot too.

[ryankendall]

i couldn't care less

[Outer Haven]

I'm confused on what to do once you put the .avi into VirtualDub. I have it in there but from there I'm lost. Also, VirtualDub has a stupid ass watermark on it.

[Foddzy]

Hmm, VirtualDub shouldn't put a watermark on it. I'd guess that the watermark is from wherever you got the trailer download from. I'm sorry but I don't remember where I got the non-watermark trailer downloads for the first 3 trailers from, maybe from the Rockstar site or Gametrailers? I think that I got the new short trailers downloaded from Planet GTA: http://planetgrandtheftauto.gamespy.com/ , I'm not certain though. If you post a request for the trailer downloads on the main GTAForums GTA IV forum I'm sure someone would give you a link, but do a search there first and see if someone already posted links to them. Its not good to get them from a place like YouTube because they will be heavily compressed and look like crap, you want the uncompressed originals.

 

You can do the frame-by-frame analysis in VirtualDub using the slider (I genrally scroll through the trailer using my mouse wheel). You can also right click on the video pane to make it bigger. Use IrfanView to capture screenshots of VirtualDub while VD is in the foreground. To put IrfanView into screenshot capture mode click Options, then click Screenshot/Capture (or simply press the "C" key while IrfanView is in the foreground, that is the default hotkey to start capture mode), to take a screenshot press the screenshot hotkey while VirtualDub is in the foreground, it will save to whatever directory is specified in the IrfanView capture dialog. Also, I changed the IrfanView screenshot key from the default of ctrl-F11 to just F11 to make it easier.

 

Good luck and let me know if you guys have any more questions.

[motorider420]

Your method is awesome! Keep it up!!!

[Graven]

Why are You making simple thing so hard?

 

You don´t need to convert videos to .avi to open them in VirtualDub.

You install additional codec for the format You want to open, and it opens. Additional codecs go to VirtualDub´s plugins folder.

Can be found from here:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Virtualdub

 

Or use ffdshow, it asks VirtualDub folder upon installation.

 

Another fast method: use AviDemux.

Download MP4 version of the video (downloadhelper add-on or any way You prefer), edit and crop in AviDemux, save as gif.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Graven