Here's a short tutorial to learn how to make static video game GIFs :pimp:
To begin you will need… a video taken in-game, a static shot and ideally featuring a loop (this is not strictly necessary, but to start I advise you to limit yourself to this type of case).
To do this, you have several options :
During the recording, it's like in photography, pay attention to the framing, the position of the element you are going to animate, and if you have a loop, take several iterations as a precaution so you have a choice of loop in post-production.
The example we'll use here is from Cyberpunk 2077. In this game, you have three options: in photo mode, many elements of the scenery continue to move, but sometimes it glitches, so it's best to hide the HUD (the camera still moves a little, but it should be invisible in the GIF). There are also freecams available for the game, although I haven't used any myself yet.
For this tutorial, we'll create this GIF together :
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I personally use Photoshop for everything, but you might be able to do all these steps in other software: you'll need video editing software and GIF editing software. My version of Photoshop is the latest one through Adobe's subscription service ($10/month); if you have an older version, you probably won't have the video editing capabilities, but the rest should remain the same.
Once downloaded, launch Photoshop and drag & drop the video into it (if it asks you to create a document on launch, skip the procedure and open the software without an initial document).
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What interests us here is video editing; we're going to cut the file to keep only a single loop, which we'll then re-import as a GIF. And we'll use the following tools :
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With all that, navigate the video, position the cursor (manually or with pause) and cut it just before the animation and just after; you should have the following timeline :
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Select the section on the left and delete it (via the Delete key on the keyboard), do the same with the section on the right.
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We can now export the resulting video :
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And this sign should appear :
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It's important to have the best possible quality, so keep the resolution and quality at maximum. You might need to change the frame rate to 30 instead of 60 (because Photoshop complains about 60, a software limitation).
Export everything, verify that the resulting video is indeed the loop we want to animate, and you can close the original video in Photoshop (don't save, otherwise it will overwrite your source video).
We're now going to re-import the generated video into Photoshop as layers :
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And we will have this :
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We'll import from start to finish (our previous step already allowed us to select what we wanted using more precise and practical tools than those available here), and we'll proceed iteratively: we won't limit the number of images and then confirm.
In our case, the animation is short enough that Photoshop won't display any error messages. If you have a longer one, it might tell you that the file will be too large (don't worry, continue) or that it exceeds 500 images. In that case, it's not good; cancel and limit it to 2 images. If it's still too large, limit it to 3, and so on.
So here we are in Photoshop's GIF editing section :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
We'll start by removing the unnecessary images at the beginning and end of the animation. To do this, click on the thumbnails until the animation (here, the advertisement) starts moving. In my case, it starts moving at frame 12, so I select frames 1 through 11. And above all, don't use the Delete key; use the menu to delete them.
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Do the same for the end (you can use the recording to find the part where it stops moving); for me, it's frames 165 to 179 (end).
Now we have a loop, but since the rest of the image isn't static, it won't look very nice because it won't loop properly. So, we'll duplicate a layer of the animation (layers work like in real life; it's a stack, and you can see through transparent parts if they exist). Open the Layers panel and select the first frame of the animation, and we'll have this :
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As you can see, layer 12 is visible and the rest is invisible; layers 1 through 11 correspond to the frames we deleted.
Right-click on layer 12 and duplicate it :
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[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
You can see that by default the copy is also visible, even if you select another frame (and that's what we want).
Grab the copy and position it at the top of the stack (by placing it at the top of the stack, it should scroll automatically; it's time-consuming, but I've never taken the time to write a script or anything) and you should have this :
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At this stage, you should no longer see any animation (click play to check). This is normal; our copy is now on top of all the other layers representing the animation, and we're going to fix that.
First, we'll take this opportunity to remove the various HUD remnants that are on the image :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Select the copied layer (in any frame), and using the "Local Healing Brush" tool (Photoshop even shows you a video of how it works if you hover with the cursor) remove the various HUDs that remain (use the navigation zoom to see more clearly) by simply passing the tool over them.
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
You can change the size (thickness) of the tool by right-clicking anywhere on the image, or use other tools like the "clone stamp" if the first tool proves too limited. This isn't a graphic design tutorial, so I won't go into more detail here.
Besides, a rough approach is perfectly adequate here; no one will notice that some pixels are out of place in these areas of the image.
Now we'll select the part of the image we want to show (for the animation). With the copied layer still selected, add a mask :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And you should have this, i.e., the mask of the copied layer (the white thing) selected :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
The mask is simple: white = opaque, and black = transparent. We'll draw black on it to make the poster animation appear.
Select the brush tool and make sure the main (active) color is black (this should happen automatically when you select the mask; if not, double-check that the mask is selected, and if not, click on it to select it).
Then draw delicately on the poster; if you go over the lines, you can also paint over it in white, and you should see the mask change at the same time.
If you are new to masks, you can display it on the image by holding Alt+Shift and clicking on the mask (the white rectangle next to the layer) at the same time. Once the poster is painted, you will see the following :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
The red area represents the transparent area (black). Make sure the red is only visible in the animated section and nowhere else, otherwise your GIF will be very large (and cause other problems).
To hide this, you can click on the mask again while holding Alt+Shift.
To check if everything is okay, you can play the animation from the timeline panel :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Settle comfortably into your chair and enjoy your animation; the hard part is over!
We've been working in full resolution from the start to have maximum flexibility, but producing a GIF this size (3440x1440 here) isn't very practical. So, we're going to resize the image :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Make sure the ratio is locked and select 1000px.
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And so we can now export everything!
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And we have this :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
So pay attention, this is the moment when things get really interesting :
So, regarding the loss, it's very important to do the job correctly. If you leave it at 0, you'll have a nice GIF but an absurdly large file size, so that's not an option. The idea is to increase it as much as possible without any image degradation, and as soon as the image quality starts to degrade, revert to the previous value. We're making something good here, not a meme.
The value varies depending on the image, the animation, etc., so it's a trial-and-error process each time. Also, if you see that the size reduction isn't significant, keep the value low.
For example, here we see that at 0 we're at 3.5 MB, but at 1 we're at 862 KB, and after that we don't gain much, so we stay at 1. But often we need to go much higher, so don't take this as a universal rule.
Since the animated portion of this type of GIF is very limited, it needs to be very small.
And save it!
Now, open the GIF in a browser to check its speed. I happen to find the speed is fine here, but it's often not the case, so here's how to speed up/slow down a GIF
Select all the frames
With a similar value, like 0.04s here for example.
Then we re-export (with the same settings we found before).
And there you have it!
:mofo:
To begin you will need… a video taken in-game, a static shot and ideally featuring a loop (this is not strictly necessary, but to start I advise you to limit yourself to this type of case).
To do this, you have several options :
- If the game's photo mode doesn't capture the game itself (rare, but it happens, and it's the easiest method).
- Directly in-game, but with the entire HUD (or most of it, and it shouldn't be overlaid on the animation) hidden.
- Using a Freecam, which will be accessed via a DLL injector (outside the scope of this discussion, but remember never to do this in a multiplayer game).
During the recording, it's like in photography, pay attention to the framing, the position of the element you are going to animate, and if you have a loop, take several iterations as a precaution so you have a choice of loop in post-production.
The example we'll use here is from Cyberpunk 2077. In this game, you have three options: in photo mode, many elements of the scenery continue to move, but sometimes it glitches, so it's best to hide the HUD (the camera still moves a little, but it should be invisible in the GIF). There are also freecams available for the game, although I haven't used any myself yet.
For this tutorial, we'll create this GIF together :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
I personally use Photoshop for everything, but you might be able to do all these steps in other software: you'll need video editing software and GIF editing software. My version of Photoshop is the latest one through Adobe's subscription service ($10/month); if you have an older version, you probably won't have the video editing capabilities, but the rest should remain the same.
Once downloaded, launch Photoshop and drag & drop the video into it (if it asks you to create a document on launch, skip the procedure and open the software without an initial document).
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
What interests us here is video editing; we're going to cut the file to keep only a single loop, which we'll then re-import as a GIF. And we'll use the following tools :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
- To play the video, use the standard method.
- To trim the video at the cursor level.
- The cursor itself.
- The timeline scale (to facilitate video navigation).
With all that, navigate the video, position the cursor (manually or with pause) and cut it just before the animation and just after; you should have the following timeline :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Select the section on the left and delete it (via the Delete key on the keyboard), do the same with the section on the right.
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
We can now export the resulting video :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And this sign should appear :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
It's important to have the best possible quality, so keep the resolution and quality at maximum. You might need to change the frame rate to 30 instead of 60 (because Photoshop complains about 60, a software limitation).
Export everything, verify that the resulting video is indeed the loop we want to animate, and you can close the original video in Photoshop (don't save, otherwise it will overwrite your source video).
We're now going to re-import the generated video into Photoshop as layers :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And we will have this :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
We'll import from start to finish (our previous step already allowed us to select what we wanted using more precise and practical tools than those available here), and we'll proceed iteratively: we won't limit the number of images and then confirm.
In our case, the animation is short enough that Photoshop won't display any error messages. If you have a longer one, it might tell you that the file will be too large (don't worry, continue) or that it exceeds 500 images. In that case, it's not good; cancel and limit it to 2 images. If it's still too large, limit it to 3, and so on.
So here we are in Photoshop's GIF editing section :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
We'll start by removing the unnecessary images at the beginning and end of the animation. To do this, click on the thumbnails until the animation (here, the advertisement) starts moving. In my case, it starts moving at frame 12, so I select frames 1 through 11. And above all, don't use the Delete key; use the menu to delete them.
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Do the same for the end (you can use the recording to find the part where it stops moving); for me, it's frames 165 to 179 (end).
Now we have a loop, but since the rest of the image isn't static, it won't look very nice because it won't loop properly. So, we'll duplicate a layer of the animation (layers work like in real life; it's a stack, and you can see through transparent parts if they exist). Open the Layers panel and select the first frame of the animation, and we'll have this :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
As you can see, layer 12 is visible and the rest is invisible; layers 1 through 11 correspond to the frames we deleted.
Right-click on layer 12 and duplicate it :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
You can see that by default the copy is also visible, even if you select another frame (and that's what we want).
Grab the copy and position it at the top of the stack (by placing it at the top of the stack, it should scroll automatically; it's time-consuming, but I've never taken the time to write a script or anything) and you should have this :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
At this stage, you should no longer see any animation (click play to check). This is normal; our copy is now on top of all the other layers representing the animation, and we're going to fix that.
First, we'll take this opportunity to remove the various HUD remnants that are on the image :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Select the copied layer (in any frame), and using the "Local Healing Brush" tool (Photoshop even shows you a video of how it works if you hover with the cursor) remove the various HUDs that remain (use the navigation zoom to see more clearly) by simply passing the tool over them.
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
You can change the size (thickness) of the tool by right-clicking anywhere on the image, or use other tools like the "clone stamp" if the first tool proves too limited. This isn't a graphic design tutorial, so I won't go into more detail here.
Besides, a rough approach is perfectly adequate here; no one will notice that some pixels are out of place in these areas of the image.
Now we'll select the part of the image we want to show (for the animation). With the copied layer still selected, add a mask :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And you should have this, i.e., the mask of the copied layer (the white thing) selected :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
The mask is simple: white = opaque, and black = transparent. We'll draw black on it to make the poster animation appear.
Select the brush tool and make sure the main (active) color is black (this should happen automatically when you select the mask; if not, double-check that the mask is selected, and if not, click on it to select it).
Then draw delicately on the poster; if you go over the lines, you can also paint over it in white, and you should see the mask change at the same time.
If you are new to masks, you can display it on the image by holding Alt+Shift and clicking on the mask (the white rectangle next to the layer) at the same time. Once the poster is painted, you will see the following :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
The red area represents the transparent area (black). Make sure the red is only visible in the animated section and nowhere else, otherwise your GIF will be very large (and cause other problems).
To hide this, you can click on the mask again while holding Alt+Shift.
To check if everything is okay, you can play the animation from the timeline panel :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Settle comfortably into your chair and enjoy your animation; the hard part is over!
We've been working in full resolution from the start to have maximum flexibility, but producing a GIF this size (3440x1440 here) isn't very practical. So, we're going to resize the image :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Make sure the ratio is locked and select 1000px.
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And so we can now export everything!
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
And we have this :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
So pay attention, this is the moment when things get really interesting :
- The type, the GIF here
- The algorithm, you can try several, choose the one that makes your image look the best; adaptive is generally good.
- The colors, use 256.
- The loss, we'll get to that in a moment.
- The GIF size
- And the navigation features
So, regarding the loss, it's very important to do the job correctly. If you leave it at 0, you'll have a nice GIF but an absurdly large file size, so that's not an option. The idea is to increase it as much as possible without any image degradation, and as soon as the image quality starts to degrade, revert to the previous value. We're making something good here, not a meme.
The value varies depending on the image, the animation, etc., so it's a trial-and-error process each time. Also, if you see that the size reduction isn't significant, keep the value low.
For example, here we see that at 0 we're at 3.5 MB, but at 1 we're at 862 KB, and after that we don't gain much, so we stay at 1. But often we need to go much higher, so don't take this as a universal rule.
Since the animated portion of this type of GIF is very limited, it needs to be very small.
And save it!
Now, open the GIF in a browser to check its speed. I happen to find the speed is fine here, but it's often not the case, so here's how to speed up/slow down a GIF
Select all the frames
With a similar value, like 0.04s here for example.
Then we re-export (with the same settings we found before).
And there you have it!
:mofo: