INTRODUCTION

This tutorial will cover most of the details on how to create an animated forums signature, Mu Online style.
To start off, we will need the following software. Grab a copy of these and install them before you proceed
with this tutorial.

The Project files used in this tutorial are available at:

http://tarrent.googlecode.com/files/AnimatedSig_01.rar (45.8MB)

1. FRAPS
http://www.fraps.com

2. VIDEO AVATAR
http://www.geovid.com/video_avatar/

3. EASY GIF ANIMATOR

http://www.blumentals.net/egifan/

4. PHOTOSHOP CS3
http://www.adobe.com/

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
PRINTSCREEN

Animated GIF files are made up of 2 or more sequential images. We would want our forums signature to
have our in-game characters, so we will have to take their screenshots. The traditional way of getting them
is by pressing the Prinscreen button at a very rapid rate (1millisecond interval is highly recommended). But
pressing printscreen at that rate is tiring and most people could not seem to do it properly, which results to
highly-paced screenshots frames. The resulting GIF file from improper printscreen would look slow.

Because of the troubles caused by printscreen (for inexperienced users), we will not use printscreen to get
screenshots. Instead we will make use of Fraps, Video Avatar and Easy Gif Animator. This will make life
easier for all of us. :)
Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0
tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
SET UP FRAPS

Fraps is a commercial software for capturing in-game videos. Go to the Movies Tab, and set the video
You can use any version, but we will be using version 2.9.4 capture settings similar to the settings
througout this tutorial. The latest versions could be shown here.
downloaded at http://www.fraps.com/download.php. If you
don't have a registered version of Fraps, that's alright. The SCREEN SIZE
trial version's watermark won't be included in the signature Full-Size
when we crop out our mu character later.
RECORD SOUND
Uncheck (do not record sound)

FPS
set to 60 fps

NOTE:
Be sure to set FPS to 60. This will make
Fraps capture 60 frames per second.
The more frames the better because
they will be reduced in number when we
load the video in Video Avatar.

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
SET UP FRAPS

A word of caution. Movies saved by Fraps are HUGE avi files. A

30 second video would be around 2GB or more, so take caution
when capturing videos and do not leave Fraps movie capture
running longer than it has to.

Time your video so that it takes only about 6 seconds or less. Do

not make your character perform long, complex animation stunts.
A single emoticon or two skills exhibition is enough, but its up to
you.

FRAPS CONTROL

Fraps can also take screenshots, but we will only be using its
video capture. The default general controls for Fraps video
capture are as follows:

F9 – start/stop video capture

The yellow no. on your screen will turn red. This
indicates that the video is being recorded.
F10 – screenshot
F12 – toggle number's position on screen

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
CROP CHARACTER IN VIDEO AVATAR
Video Avatar is a cool software that creates animated GIFs
from movies. You can single out certain areas in a movie,
supposing you do not want the whole screen to be part of your
GIF. You can also specify the length of the GIF's animation.
This time we will be needing a fully
registered (or cracked) version of Video
Avatar. The following tutorial will discuss
in detail how to save the movie you
have taken earlier in Fraps into a
cropped animated GIF file.
After this, you will surely be satisfied
because you have created a GIF file of
your mu character. But Video Avatar
offers no image editing tools, so the
output we will have is just a plain,
unadorned animated GIF.
We will further edit this GIF inside
Photoshop so you may add your own
fancy titles, borders, decorations and
anything else you might think of.
Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0
tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
CROP CHARACTER IN VIDEO AVATAR

LOAD THE FRAPS VIDEO

Load the video you have saved

in Fraps into Video Avatar and
copy these settings except for
GIF size.

For this tutorial, load video.avi

inside the Project Files folder.

It is really important that you

have set your Fraps FPS to 60.
You will see a summary of your
video's FPS in Video Avatar's
Source Video details.

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
CROP CHARACTER IN VIDEO AVATAR

GIF SIZE

Go to the Preview panel and set your animated GIF's target

height and width. This could be any size. Our forum rules and
regulations says that it should not be larger than 400x144
pixels.

The right panel holds a large, static preview of your movie.

You can type in your target size in the Preview or play with the
cropping tool to obtain your size and crop out your character.

ANIMATION SPEED

Go to the Avatar panel and type a save filename for your GIF
in the Output File. Important: Set Frames/Sec to 10. This
dictates how fast or how slow your GIF will be. The output GIF
will render 10 frames per sec, derived from your video which
should be 60 fps from Fraps. If you forgot to make this 60, you
will have a terrible 'laggy-looking' sig. More so, if you will
forget to set Video Avatar's Frames/Sec to 10.

ANIMATION LENGTH

Adjust the Movie Navigator sliders to include only the portions

of the video you want to turn into a GIF.
Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0
tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
CROP CHARACTER IN VIDEO AVATAR

SAVE THE GIF FILE

After you have finished cropping your character and

customizing Video Avatar's settings, press the Save Avatar
button. This will save the the cropped portion of your video
into an animated GIF file! ^_^

The rendered GIF file up to this point is bm_simple.gif,

inside the Project Files folder.

Now, the fun part is about to begin. As stated before, what we

needed are screenshots which we will edit in Photoshop. Let's
turn the simple animated GIF we have created into
screenshots or rather, separate jpeg images.

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
EXTRACT SCREENSHOTS USING EASY GIF
Easy GIF Animator is another cool tool for creating animated
GIFs. It also has image editing tools to add text, image effects
and slide transitions to your GIF but we won't discuss them
here. We will use Adobe Photoshop to create these effects,
which looks more fine. We will only use Easy GIF to extract
images from GIFs.
We will also need a fully registered (or
cracked) version of Easy GIF Animator
because we won't be able to extract the
images from the GIF if only the trial
version is used.
LOAD THE SIMPLE GIF
Load the GIF we have created in Video
Avatar (bm_simple.gif) into Easy GIF
by pressing File then Open.
You will notice that bm_simple.gif has
23 animation frames. We need to
extract these into separate jpeg images.
Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0
tarrent 30-Aug-2010
1. getting screenshots
EXTRACT SCREENSHOTS USING EASY GIF

EXTRACT JPEG FRAMES

Press File, then Export All Frames. The frames will be

sequentially named as 000...maxFrames-1.jpg. Type 0 for
prefix in the file name and choose the Jpeg Image File (*.jpeg)
in the Save As type, then Save.

(23) jpeg frames from bg_simple.gif will be extracted.

See jpeg.zip inside the Project Files folder.

RECAP

Capture in-game video using Fraps, set at 60 fps. Crop video

and create simple GIF in Video Avatar. Extract image frames
using Easy GIF.

This concludes our Screenshots gathering tutorial. This is less

tiring than pressing the Print screen button simultaneously and
it guarantees a very smooth, seamless and continuous
animated GIF file at evenly-spaced millisecond intervals.

Next, we move on to adding the fancy effects on Photoshop.

But first, we will need to place the GIF in a Photoshop
workspace.

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
2. GIF IN PHOTOSHOP
We will edit our simple GIF in Photoshop because Photoshop offers LOAD FIRST FRAME
finer and a wider variety of image and text effects, and a lot of GIF file
size optimization schemes Load the first image frame from the
extracted jpeg images. (000.jpg)

ANIMATION IN PHOTOSHOP After loading, you will see that it has

only one (1) frame in its Animation
Animation will be used throughout our GIF editing in Photoshop. If the Frame.
Animation Frames isn't visible yet in your workspace, toggle it on by
clicking Window then Animation. Go to the upper right arrow button of
the Animation Frame, and turn
off/uncheck New Layers Visible in
All Frames if it is turned on.

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
 2. GIF IN PHOTOSHOP
OPEN THE OTHER JPEGS

Load the other jpegs into your workspace in a sequential,

organized manner. Press File, Open, then browse to where the
remaining jpegs are. Start selection at 001.jpg, then highlight and
select all the way to the last jpeg, then Open.

CREATE FRAMES ON 1ST FRAME

Our goal is to place all 22 jpegs on

top of the 1st jpeg (000.jpg). Create
22 new frames on 000.jpg's
Animation Frames. Its total should
be 23, including itself.

NOTE: Make sure New Layers

Visible in All Frames had been
turned off before creating new
frames.

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
 2. GIF IN PHOTOSHOP
OPEN THE OTHER JPEGS PREVIEW ANIMATION

COPY+PASTE ALL JPEGS TO 1ST FRAME You can toggle the Play/Pause buttons
on the Animation Frame's lower left
Copy and Paste 001.jpg up to 022.jpg to their corresponding panel.
slots in 000.jpg's Animation Frame. For example 022.jpg goes
to the #23 Animation Frame, 021.jpg to #22, 020.jpg to #21 and
so on. Save your work as a .psd file. Refer to the saved bm_simple.psd in
our Project Files folder for this part.
NOTE: Make sure New Layers Visible in All Frames had been
turned off before pasting, else all your efforts will go to waste. ^_^

ANIMATION RATE

You can control your GIF's speed by toggling the Animation

Frame's frame rate. For general purposes, just set it to 0. (No
Delay)

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
2. GIF IN PHOTOSHOP
SAVING YOUR GIF IN PHOTOSHOP

With your saved .psd file open, Press File, then Save for Web
& Devices. Play with the various options in Color, Dither,
Original, Optimize, 2-Up and 4-Up to produce the best
optimized file size for your GIF. If your
GIF takes the size of 3MB or more,
delete some frames then Save for Web
& Devices again. Animated GIF
signatures should only be small in size
(more or less 1.0MB) to save bandiwdth.

Also, do not forget to set the Looping

Options to Forever so that the GIF will
repeat its frames forever.

We really do not need to save the .psd

into an animated GIF, yet. We could put
on some designs, texts and other things
on it before saving.

You could refer to this page later on

after we have tackled: adding simple
designs for our GIF in Photoshop.

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010
3. DESIGNS FOR YOUR SIG
CREATE A .PSD DESIGN TEMPLATE
THE DESIGN
Open any of the extracted jpegs in Photoshop and save it as a
.psd file. Get some stock images; edit and add them to the
template. You could also type in some text, and add Text
Effects on it. I'll leave the rest of creating a more suitable
template to you.
A sample template, template.psd. Is available in the Project
Files folder.
APPLYING THE TEMPLATE TO THE GIF
Open your saved animated GIF psd file.
(bm_simple.psd). Remember the New
Layers Visible in New Frames we have
unchecked earlier? Turn it back on, and
select any Frame from bm_simple.psd's
Animation Frame.
Go back to template.psd. and select all its
layers which you want to be visible on your
animated GIF. Right click on them and
Duplicate to bm_simple.psd.The template
designs will then be duplicated on each and
every animation frame of bm_simple.psd.
Save your animated GIF again, this time
with its elaborate designs. Refer to the
previous page for saving GIFs.
The final output of our animated GIF tutorial
is bm_final.gif, inside the Project Files
folder.
Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0
tarrent 30-Aug-2010
ENDING REMARKS
There are advantages and disadvantages in using Fraps, THE MU ONLINE
Video Avatar and Easy GIF for getting screenshots. First of ANIMATED SIG TUTORIAL
all, the images captured by the manual Printscreen have more
detail and color. If you are paying attention to realistic, actual was brought to you by
tarrent
pixel & color detail in creating sigs, it will be better to press the
30-Aug-2010
Printscreen button instead.

But then again, the differences are very small, unless you will
look at it too closely. I prefer to use the methods described
here because it is much faster, and the gaps per printscreen
are (automatically set to 1 millisecond!) and evenly spaced.

I hope you learned something from this simple tutorial. Go on

and start creating your own Mu Online animated forums
signature right now! ^_^

-tarrent
acetiercel@yahoo.com

Mu Online Animated Signature Tutorial v.1.0.0

tarrent 30-Aug-2010