BTS : Avatar Creations

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Nice idea. I am getting bored with the meteorite effect. I have tried timing it with the banner switching, but no luck. Animations are fickle.

I'll get to that in a couple of days, and we'll see what we can work out. You do need to upgrade your animation skills a bit.

Right now, I think my sig banner is something I'll keep for a while, having spent hours trying to figure it out. I'll explain in the next post.

(Zarn, you'll appreciate this, being a Gimp user. I upgraded to 2.8.4 in the past week, and I'm getting used to the single window mode. I like it, and I'm trying to figure out the new features.)

File size for signature images are limited to 50kb. Yep, not a lot of room to work with. It takes a bit of creativity to fit everything under the size limit.

My current sig banner is actually four images, three frames each, (feel free to download each of them, and open them in Gimp, to see how they are set up), and the total size is 46kb.

I wanted to have a sig banner that switched back and forth, and I have something workable, with a 6 second pause.

Image 1 is 12.65kb, image 2 is 11.74kb, image 3 is 9.86kb, and image 4 is 11.75kb. Works out to exactly 46kb, a mere 4kb under the limit.

Since I'm still learning Gimp, I used the path tool to cut out the wolf howling at the moon on a full sized image, scaled it, and reversed the image, and used that as my starting point, filling in the landscape in between. I made another layer to hold bfft's rounded graphics, and duplicated the layers, then used the smudge tool with a right directed smudge to give the snap in appearance. Timing for the rounded images is 6 seconds for the first, 6.5 for the second, 7 for the third, and 7.5 for the fourth. To make the original background appear all at once, I reversed the time delay on the third frame.

What a bunch of gobbly-gook, but I am slowly learning, and perhaps getting a tad better.

reply to post by SloAnPainful


No worries, and thanks for the compliment.

loving your avatar, looks awesome.

Thanks alot everyone for all avatars, this place rocks.

reply to post by Druid42


I like the blur transition on your sig. Pretty cool effect

What a bunch of gobbly-gook, but I am slowly learning, and perhaps getting a tad better.

I consider myself transitioning from "newbie" to "apprentice" in GIMP. so I know what you're going through. Every time I learn something new it's like... whoa... why didn't I learn that a year ago.

EDIT: You should leave the banners up there a bit longer to give folks a chance to read and click. They vanish too quickly.

EDIT 2: The order changes every time I hit refresh. And it looks like you have 4 images over a background sig... how the heck did you do that?

reply to post by dragonrising


Got to say I like what they did with your avatar!

wow!

reply to post by Druid42


Druid wtf happened to your avy and background?



-SAP-

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

reply to post by SloAnPainful


There's an animated gif there, but it looks like it's not rendering for you. What browser are you using?

I'll double check it, but I think it's your browser. Let me know.

reply to post by Zarniwoop

Every time I learn something new it's like... whoa... why didn't I learn that a year ago.

I agree.

EDIT: You should leave the banners up there a bit longer to give folks a chance to read and click. They vanish too quickly.

You can still click on them, but ok, maybe I'll change the timing a bit. It's set at six seconds, (err, 6000 milliseconds should be 6 seconds, as 1000 ms = 1 sec) so maybe I'll bump it up a bit more.

EDIT 2: The order changes every time I hit refresh. And it looks like you have 4 images over a background sig... how the heck did you do that?

The background was chopped in four parts. Here's the first section:


and the last:


It's actually 4 gifs made to look like a background.

It should refresh every time a page reloads, say, when you star a post, or load a new page. Hitting the actual refresh button clears your browser's static memory, and resets the timing back to zero.

Originally posted by SloAnPainful
reply to post by Druid42

 

Druid wtf happened to your avy and background?

-SAP-

I am seeing the same thing you are, if it were a conventional background/avatar I would say he doesn't have his transparency on. I am on chrome, however I could see his full image until yesterday evening. Something isn't right somewhere.

reply to post by Iamschist


How about now? I removed the animated avatar, and switched back to a plain transparent avvy.

It was causing interference. There appears to be a limit to how much animated bling you can add in.

reply to post by Druid42



Firefox 19.0.2

Happens to me, too. As well, your signature is all out of timing The far left tile is exactly opposite the rest.

ETA: the avatar is whole again.

Originally posted by Druid42
reply to post by Iamschist

 

How about now? I removed the animated avatar, and switched back to a plain transparent avvy.

It was causing interference. There appears to be a limit to how much animated bling you can add in.

Yes I can see you now! Not knowing anything about it, my sense is your right, I had one of those little 'didn't download' boxes showing before, over by the wolf's left ear, as you face the image. Strange. Great you learned something though. I enjoy how all of you are challenged by different aspects of the ATS guidelines and limits as you go, and how you don't let that stop you, but rise to the challenge.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Rendered in Opera 12.14:


Rendered in Firefox 12.0:


Obviously there's an issue. I use Opera as my default browser, but any coding should be cross platform. Looks like I'll have to take it down until I figure out a better way.

It's something about the images being hosted on balanced servers, and anywhere on ATS where I've left a post is requesting the image to be displayed, and the timing is getting screwed up as the images are being pulled in from different locations. That's 4,956 image requests, times 4 images. 19,824 image requests total, multiplied by every person refreshing a page where I've posted, and the numbers quickly climb. (That's the extreme end. In all actuality, it's only people viewing the pages I've posted on, which probably isn't as high.)

Now, it's quite understandable why the size limits are in place. Even though my sig line is only 46kb, the animation will be almost impossible to load equally everywhere, and keep the timing consistent. There's no good way to get all four images to pull in at the same time, save hitting the "refresh" button to get them to reload evenly. Starring a post doesn't refresh the complete contents of a page, and disturbs the timing as well.

Nice idea, just not very feasible.

(At least I learned a new trick!)

ETA: Back to the the "normal" four link signature line.

reply to post by Druid42


You're getting ahead of the "clever curve", which as we all know can cause ripples in the space/time continuum.

You are therefore assigned one demerit.

reply to post by Zarniwoop


I'll give up being clever if you delete that picture.

(Then again, I may save it as a Halloween Avatar. Go as Groucho this year.)

reply to post by Druid42


Don't make me give you a second demerit. I haven't even thought of what that might be, but I'm pretty creative

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan

LOVE IT!!!