Sig/Avatar tutorials by the makers [Index in First Post]

[felix]

@ Ka-san
> "Hey everyone, just wondering where you guys got all your renders/extractions from to make sigs with."

I like to extract it myself T_T if necesary.
If I just got & used it pre-made I feel it would look cheap*. (to me at least)
I use an avatar and sig to feel I'm making a nice looking post not for people to stare at it, so you see why the chepness-factor is important for me.

* No offence intended to people that use them.

> "I tried to extract an image myself but her hair was so..... T.T"

Let me guess you tried it the hard way.. manually picking at each strand T__T

- Hint - When you have hair you can apply the same
calculated 2 click approuch you would use for seperating
text from paper.

[Theclow]

I've always wonders how do you guys make those awesome BG's(Backgrounds) for your sigs?

[KriegUlf]

hello, i need some help with Avatar making... i have found a very cool animé, but i can't use VD because it's an .mkv file... i have read the "Read Me" post where there supposedly was a solution to this problem, but i couldn't make it work... anyone have any suggestions??

i'm grateful for your time and hope that i'm not too bothersome....

thanks in advance! // KriegUlf

[KriegUlf]

i'm sorry if i'm stupid or anything, but how do i get a border on the round edge sig i just made?? the border ends up like rectangular shape, but shouldn't it like have rounded corners like the sig itself??? i'm probably just stupid or something, but i don't get it....

i hope that you'll be so kind to help a newbie like me out, i'll give you a dot in heaven...

[felix]

#1. Need more details for the first part..
#2. Say you made a round edge sig. If it's finished then (making sure there's no background layer) merge everything down, then Ctrl + Click on the thumbnail of the layer. You should now have a selection in the shape of your round edge sig. Use it to make your rounded border.

@ Theclow
> "I've always wonders how do you guys make those awesome BG's(Backgrounds) for your sigs?"

I think the secret is practice and imagination..

[Deathkillz]

well seen as ive been asked by a few who doesnt understand the art of resizing without streaching the source here is just something quick ~

and ratios are easy enough to understand...there isnt a set rule as to what ratio you do but instead you should just go with whatever it comes in from the image ~
heres an example ~

firstly make a new canvas ~



next bring up your image ~



obviously its too big so you need to resize it (okey just pretend that its been extracted)

go to image>>> image size and the box should pop up ~



heres the important bit when resizing ~ you have to make sure that the "constrain proportion" box is checked when changing one of the values ~ in this case seen as my sig is 400pix wide i will make the image 250 pix wide...



notice the change in size and all that is left is to just drag the image into the other empty canvas...there you are done :3



all you need is a BG to fit ^_^

[KriegUlf]

i think the whole problem is that my sig is that it's done on the background layer...

and for the avatar question i had... the text in the warning window that pops up when i try to do it like the tutorial said is exactly the same as before i created the video.avs file... i think i need expert help to get it to work...

[KiNA]

Originally Posted by Theclow

I've always wonders how do you guys make those awesome BG's(Backgrounds) for your sigs?

1st post .. H section .. all tutorial by me

Honestly, there's a lot of way ...as BC said, its only limited to your imagination and experience...

[felix]

@ Krieg
> i think the whole problem is that my sig is that it's done on the background layer...

* DoubleClick the BackGround Layer
* Hit Ok
-- BackGround Layer has been converted to standard layer.
There now it's a normal one.. all fixed

> and for the avatar question i had... the text in the warning window that pops up when i try to do it like the tutorial said is exactly the same as before i created the video.avs file... i think i need expert help to get it to work...

Or you could give us better input. As in, write the exact error messege or key-words from the error message. You post is somewhat criptic, no offence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Adds Dethie's tutorial, to section E.
* Grabs "...the art of resizing without streaching..." from post, as tutorial title.
* Forgets to rep.. remembers ~eventually..

[KriegUlf]

the error message reads as follows:
"Avisynth open failure:
DirectShowSource: Could not open as video or audio.

Video returned: "DirectShowSource: Couldn't open file: (this is where the path and filename should be)"
The file can not be played, unsupported format.

Audio returned: "DirectShowSource: Couldn't open file:
(this is where the path and filename should be)"
The file can not be played, unsupported format.

(this is where the path to Video.Avs should be)"

can you make use of any of this?? thanks in advance!

//KriegUlf

[felix]

My guess is that you made a typo, probably an intentional one.

Ex. For say, reading Green's tutorial you see that where ~presumably threre would be spaces there are underscores (as in " _ ") , thinking like that one might copy paste the correct path and then replace the spaces with underscores, resulting in a stupid path. (green's file actually had underscores) Tring to open the resulting file will result in the exact error messege you described.

Thats just one simple scenario..

[KriegUlf]

but if there is underscores in the filename? what do i do then?? sorry for being a pain in the a**...

[felix]

You place it there with underscores.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Spaces and underscores are characters, they are both valid.
Just copy paste the path from the address bar, as you are able to select it, add a "\" and then copy paste in there the filename with the extention, should work then.

If you don't see the extention of the file (very likely scenario) open the folder of the file,

* in the menu bar, select Tools
Note: In Vista you need to press Alt to see the menu bar.
* then Folder Options
* in the View tab make sure the "Hide extentions of known file types" option is unchecked. (by default it's checked)

[KriegUlf]

it still doesn't work... i appreciate all the help you've provided Cats, but i think i should give up... i'll stick to .avi files from now on...

[Kaede_Primula]

Uggu~ does anyone have the color scheme of ToHeart2? I'm a n0ob and planning on making a TH2 sig but I need the color scheme on my text, think you guys can help?

Spoiler:

or do I use sth like a Rainbow color? If so, care to teach me please? I just need it badly Auu~

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by Kaede_Primula

Uggu~ does anyone have the color scheme of ToHeart2? I'm a n0ob and planning on making a TH2 sig but I need the color scheme on my text, think you guys can help?

You are asking how to make that color pattern right? I am hardly the best when it comes to these things, but here goes anyway...



In Photoshop CS...

You need to use the Eyedropper tool to pick the colors from the source pic you have there. Then with the Gradient tool you start to add the colors in the same order on your text. You also need to pick the correct angle for the gradient to look similar to the original.

And that's pretty much it. the rest is just a simple stroke on two layers.

I am probably missing some details and there's probably a better way to do it, but that's how I made the example you see here.

[Kaede_Primula]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

You need to use the Eyedropper tool to pick the colors from the source pic you have there. Then with the Gradient tool you start to add the colors in the same order on your text. You also need to pick the correct angle for the gradient to look similar to the original.

And that's pretty much it. the rest is just a simple stroke on two layers.

I am probably missing some details and there's probably a better way to do it, but that's how I made the example you see here.

oh shoot! I should've added the text I was going to use thank you very much Daniel E.! I'm going to try my best to follow what you instructed I'll be back later


edit:
okay, I just remembered something very Important...

Spoiler:

I don't know how to use the "Gradient Tool"

i'll try to search if there's a tut for it on the index

[felix]

Play around with it, it's faster, easier and more fun then reading tech stuff about it.
You could also search for a tutorial that uses it, so you have something to work with..
-----------------------------
I postes a few sites in the first post.

[bigdave]

Heyas guys can someone show me how to do this

Spoiler:

I mean how to make it so that half the pic is inside the behind layer and the other half is coming out of it. Thx for the help in advance!

[Crystal_Method]

This is like my first animated gif, so I'm pretty nooby at it. All I need to know is how to make my already optimized gif even smaller in size without using any more of the lossy (I went up to like 97 on lossy to get bellow 50 bytes and it looked like crap). It's currently at 100.3k...