Creating Animated GIF from Movie Clips
By: kambodianboi

By massive request, I decided to make this tutorial. Its really simple, nothing fancy.

Step 1:
Open up Windows Movie Maker, and once it loads, go to Import video, to import your video. It will import any movie type, as long you have a codec for it.

Step 2:
Once the Browse window opens, browse for your movie file, and UNCHECK the Create clips for video files. Then click Import.

Step 3:
Once you imported the movie file, it will show up in your library. Best to play the video to be sure it works properly with Windows Movie Maker.

Step 4:
While you play the movie preview, there is a button at the near bottom right, its highlighted below. You can click it to cut scenes that you want to use.

Step 5:
Once you cut a scene, it will create a new scene from where you cutted at. Basic you have to cut twice, to the middle scene you want.

Step 6:
Once you have cut a few scene, you can play each scene to make sure they are correct. The picture blow shows the scene I cutted, and will use for the animated avatar. Now drag it to the timeline, so you can later export it.

Step 7:
Once you drag it to the timeline, it will snap on and stay there. You can drag all your cutted scene and play the timeline to see if you like it.


Step 8:
Once you got all the scene order out and previewed it, then finally you like the way it looks. Go to File, Save Movie File...

Step 9:
A window will pop up and just follow the next few snapshot as guides.

Step 10:

Step 11:
As for this part, it has to be DV-AVI (uncompress AVI).

Step 12:
Once you selected to the figure above, click Next and it will save your movie file to the selected location.

Step 13:
Once its done, you can check the preview button to see how it came out. Or you can uncheck it to just finish up.

Step 14:
Now, Open up Adobe ImageReady. And go to File, Open.

Step 15:
The Browse window will open, which will let you select you media file. Make sure the File of Type is set on AVI for easier browsing.

Step 16:
Once you selected your AVI file and click Open, it will open this window. Select Limit to Every 2nd Frame, you can increase it for smaller, but possibly fast GIF creation.

Step 17:
Now, once you finish importing, some files can take a long time, but just wait. As you can see it huge, so we will have to resize it to a proper size.

Step 18:
Go to Image, Image size.

Step 19:
Once the window opens resize it to its proper size, I like 120px, since it comes out perfectly fine. Make sure it looks near or exactly like this.

Step 20:
After you resize it, and preview the animate, by clicking the Play button on the animation window. You are set.

Go to File, Save Optimized As

Step 21:
Make sure it configuration looks like this, that should be in default.

Step 22:
Finally, you will end up with this, or something like this, not that your using the same movie file



I hope this tutorial worked for you.

-Kambodianboi

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Very nice, where was this yesterday when I embarked upon my five program avi-gif adventure? Lol. I was thinking about writing a tut for this for people who don't have PS. It's a lot more in depth. Also you may want to add a section about how to pull files off a DVD and use those to make a gif. I used IsoBuster to extract the vob files containing the scene I wanted, Winavi to convert it to avi, then followed your process, except I used 123 avi to gif converter, as I don't have PS. Great tut!

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you also have to make sure you have anough codecs for the windows movie maker to be able to play the source video. I dunno how many times I try to use this and find out that movie maker won't recognize the video I'm trying to use.

.....and at the same time all my other media players will play the video in question. Weird.

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Nice job Kam, looks a lot simpler than the way I do it, LOL.. but hey I taught myself and figured it out so I was pretty pleased with my own effort
I will give yours a try though on a different avatar.. thanks

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Top work Kam, I'll try this

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Thanks guys, I might do some more, on how to do other things with these two.

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Xbox 360 - 2 Games - 2 Controllers - 120GB Elite - Dead
PS3 - 23 BD Games - 13 PSN Games - 9 Controllers - 320GB - Alive
Wii - 6 Games - 4 Wiimotes - Alive
PC - Overkill - 3DMark06 [13896]- God like :]

Gaming Generations | XnogarD Production - Soon!!!

oh sorry kamboodionboi, I requested this and didn't even check it (been away for a while) and thanks, a great guide! I'll be trying it out now and will let you know what happens.

btw, where can I find a download for Adobe ImageReady?

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It is bundled with Photoshop...check the Adobe site for a trial version here: http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/main.html

yeah thanks tech, I just thought of that as well when I was looking at the screenshots.

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There are ways to do this without Photoshop, but they're more difficult. PS compresses the size of the gif as Kam mentioned. That means you can convert a longer clip to a gif. You can also pull clips out of DVD's you have, if you want to convert them to gifs. I'm going to post a mini tut on that tonight.

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