full cut? how to make an animation?

[hgeek23]

Im not exactly sure what it's called--it looks like its of a scene. I have 30ish drawings from the same scene of what appears to be a showdown between Pegasus and Kaiba in YuGiOh. I picked it up in Japan. It would be of them dueling each other and there is a sketch of a dungeon-y background and a few sketches of both characters' heads, with one of each character fully drawn ini. Both have a large circle around A1 but one also has an E3 circled followed by END, while the other has B3 circled. The rest of the sketches are heads of the characters in slightly different motions and a few of just hair or a red box in the middle of paper.

Question--i've framed the two main pictures side by side--they look great.
1) What do i do with the rest though?
2) Any way to tell what episode/where in an episode it would be from?
3) How do I make a gif file of moving pictures like i see on rubberslug?

Thanks!
AJ

[sensei]

Im not exactly sure what it's called--it looks like its of a scene. I have 30ish drawings from the same scene of what appears to be a showdown between Pegasus and Kaiba in YuGiOh. [...] Question--i've framed the two main pictures side by side--they look great.
1) What do i do with the rest though?

You could incur Betarians' endless wrath by breaking up the cut and selling individual images on eBay. Or you could put the less good images into semi-permanent storage by putting them into archival polypro bags with a sheet or two of MicroChamber paper. Or you could make a stab at displaying them as an animation, which is what I see you'd like to do. (See below)

2) Any way to tell what episode/where in an episode it would be from?

Often sketch sets come with a layout that has this information on top. As YuGiOh is made by Toei, which uses a distinctive way of giving this, you should see the episode number first (preceded with a "#" mark, or often just rubber-stamped on the layout in big numerals). Then there will be two numbers separated with a dash, like "12-7." That's the number of the scene and cut. In Toei's system, they divide the episode up into scenes (roughly, the action that takes place in the same setting) and within these into cuts (sequences that use the same point of view, like "shots" in a live-action movie).

There are generally about 35-40 scenes in a typical Toei episode. (Other studios don't use the scene system and count the cuts in one sequence from the start, so 275-325 cuts make a typical episode). So if the first number is under 17, look before the eyecatch and over 17 look after the eyecatch.

Or go to a YuGiOh wiki and see if it gives a list of episodes when these two characters face off. A lot of times you'll be able to fit together the description with what your sketches show.

3) How do I make a gif file of moving pictures like i see on rubberslug?

You'll need animation software. I use "Jasc Animation Shop 3," which is cheap ($19.98 for a download; some people have found it for free) and very easy to use. It has an "animation wizard" that does most of the work for you, but when you have your animation, you can go back and clean it up and play with the speeds. Then scan your sketches. Partial sketches you'll need to paste together using whatever image editing program you have -- some will let you copy and paste the partials as transparent layers which reduces the cleanup you need to do. Reduce them to a manageable size, run the animation wizard on them, and see what you get.

RS won't let you upload animated gifs at present. So you'll need to store animations on an external site (I use Photobucket) and use html markup to import them. I put this in the first line of the description and upload a single pixel as the "large image," or otherwise I get a "missing image" icon on top of the page (other people have finessed this in other ways). [/quote]

Thanks!

Thanks for showing interest in displaying art like this to advantage. Some people just toss the partials But I think it's helpful to future chroniclers of the art form to save as much as is feasible, if only in "cold storage."

[Joost]

I've made this 30 page water sequence also with Jasc Animation Shop 3, its a nifty, easy to use program
http://senseighibli.rubberslug.com/gall ... mID=117977

In the old days it was included with Paint Shop Pro, before the program was bought by Corel.

[pixie_princess]

Im not exactly sure what it's called--it looks like its of a scene. I have 30ish drawings from the same scene of what appears to be a showdown between Pegasus and Kaiba in YuGiOh. I picked it up in Japan.

Question--i've framed the two main pictures side by side--they look great.
1) What do i do with the rest though?
2) Any way to tell what episode/where in an episode it would be from?
3) How do I make a gif file of moving pictures like i see on rubberslug?

Thanks!
AJ

1) I'd bag the rest with archival materials and keep it. Quite a few people like to keep cuts / sequences like that complete. Some purely because they are interested in the animation process. Others like to keep things together because it is all part of the scene and it seems like a cardinal sin to throw it away

2) I have some Toei sequences/cuts from Sailor Moon. There usually seems to be a layout page. The layout page shows how the 1st cel lines up on the background and is drawn inside a tv screen type box. This image (in sketch form) is usually "scratched out" with a pencil going over it so that it isn't confused for genga/douga... This layout page typically has a number at the top that signifies the episode as well as sometimes the name of the show.

Example:
http://galexia.rubberslug.com/gallery/i ... emID=82219

If there are no markings on the set other than the "a1" and so forth, then you need to narrow it down based on episodes where those two characters come in conflict and watch those.

3) To make gif files you first need to first organize the sketches based on their numerical order. Then you either scan your sketches or photographed them. Scanning them is a heck of a lot easier. When you save them, make sure you label them with the same numbering that it has on the top of the sheet. Once you have everything scanned, you need to import it into your preferred program. I like my old version of phototoshop.

(cut and pasted the next part from a previous post in the 07 beta awards thread)

4) Then I clean it up in Adobe Photoshop (currently running Elements). I do each sketch in the setup in its own layer. I line up the registration holes at the top. I make them slightly transparent to do this.

Part of the clean up process involves blanking out the while background (usually marked by X's when its in doubt between characters).
Another part is making sure the lines are darkened.

I keep a majority of the notes the animator made on the sketches.

5) When all this is complete, I make sure that instances where I am supposed to merge layers (hand/eye/mouth) are done on the appropriate layers.

6) I resize the image to a smaller size, to shorten the download time.

7) After all this, I save this file under a new name, and keep it as a psd file with all the layers intact/still seperate -this means there are no "partial" layers. Mouth layers are merged with Faces that are supposed to have that mouth layer.

I open this file in Gimp. ( A great free tool it's open source I think to aid in the creation of motion gifs ) Double check to make sure that they are in the correct order.

9) Go to filters --> Animation --> choose "Optimize for Gif"

10) I save it as a Gif file.

11) I chose the animation setting.

There is a step I may have missed in Gimp. But I think that is pretty much all there is to it. Hope it helps.

An example of an animated gif made with photoshop and gimp:

http://galexia.rubberslug.com/gallery/i ... mID=212740

Upload the gif file to an online storage place like photobucket. Then link to it on the cel's / sketches' page (in the description area)