How to make special gif-images

Alpha

As some of you in the roleplay section have noticed, I sometimes use gifs with portals to make my ships arrive.

image https://i.imgur.com/3DPjfmz.gif

It has been a popular request ( read: @Amazing_Goob asked me ) to make this a guide. So let me explain how I do this stuff.

First, you need to get this program.

image https://i.imgur.com/vAVYc3s.png

Most of the newer windows computers already have it installed, but it's free to download if you don't have it.

Alright, follow my steps closely.

Step 1. Make a screenshot in Cosmoteer. (Hide the UI with Ctrl + Shift + U ) (Make the screenshot with Ctrl + Alt + C)

image https://i.imgur.com/I05wDGr.png

Step 2. Open the screenshot with the Photos app. Choose the pencil & brush icon. Select "add 3D-effects"

image https://i.imgur.com/QIPSaR6.jpg

Step 3. Be creative & add some effects. You can now add multiple effects, choose where they will be, how large they will be & how long they will last.

image https://i.imgur.com/ehj33uJ.jpg

Step 4. Search an mp4 to gif converter on the internet, follow the steps there. Tada, your gif is done!

image https://i.imgur.com/nwE24Cy.gif

image https://i.imgur.com/H6DbY2a.gif

Step 5. Show your gifs here!

Catelyn

Alpha Nederlands?

Amazing_Goob

Alpha Is there a way to add your own effects?

Amazing_Goob

Alpha Here's one: (It's terrible quality though)
image https://i.imgur.com/CrI8ffZ.gif

Ultranova

Alpha Well

image https://i.imgur.com/Lj5D1U9.gif

I tried

Alpha

Catelyn Ik spreek Nederlands, maar woon in België. Niet ver weg dus 🙂.

(For those who don't understand this gibberish: I speak Dutch, but I live in Belgium. Not that far away 🙂. )

Catelyn

Alpha Gibberish?
Excuseer mij wat de fuck.

bluurgh

Alpha ik ook lol

Alpha

Catelyn Omdat Nederlands er raar uitziet voor mensen die de taal niet spreken. Gibberish is een uitdrukking. Wikipedia geeft hier een duidelijk antwoord op.

Catelyn

Alpha Ik, I was making a joke.

Walt

This is cool, I had no idea the Photos app could do effects like that.

Alpha

Walt I figured it out when making videos for school. It actually works quite well with Cosmoteer.

Alpha

Amazing_Goob I don't know. If you find out how, please let me know. 🙂

Alpha

Amazing_Goob As the video is only 5 seconds long, you sometimes are able to get a better framerate. It just depends on the website, & the settings.

Amazing_Goob

Alpha Not the framerate; It's all grainy.

Alpha

Amazing_Goob
Yeah, it loses some quality sadly. l have the same problem.

If anyone knows a good converter from mp4 to gif, we need you!

Cosmopyr

Alpha Its how GIFs themselves are compressed, the only way to get good quality GIFs are to upscale and dither

mleise

Alpha For reasons unknown, the internet community revived a graphics format from the 80s in 2010 that was known back then for replacing black-and-white only graphics with up to 256 colors. (You can use a different color palette for each frame though.)

The effects look great non-the-less. Microsoft has a lot of hidden gems behind their bland app tiles. I like the fire and explosion one on that red ship. Can you apply the same effects to different screenshots? Then you could actually "jump" your ship in or display a damaged ship after an explosion.

Catelyn

image https://i.imgur.com/bawejnd.gif
my second faction's initial fleet charging up FTL

Alpha

mleise
Yes, you can make a video with those screenshots, determining how long each screenshot will be displayed.

When you apply the effect, it's applied to the entire video, not to the screenshot. (You can make it apply to one or more screenshots by altering the duration and/or timing of the effect.)