How to make ani avi?

[HilaryDuff]

I'm just wondering if theres any avi help things out there i can read up on to tell me waht programs i need and shit

plz someone help think it would be alot of fun

[Unbroken]

Well lets see ..... the programs I use are:
VideoMach (to put the bmps together into an avi/video clip)
VirtualDub (to compress music into your avi)
Adobe Photoshop (to make all those little designs and logos and crap)
Adobe Premiere (to put the wholeeeeeee thing together into one finished piece of work)

but the main site that you can get A LOT of information off of is http://www.planetfortress.com/hlmp/hlmp2-beta/tutorials.asp ... hope this helps....

[Ignatz]

you know, you don't even need to use VideoMach at all if you have Premiere. You can use Photoshop to batch process .bmp's into JPEGs to save HD space, and then import the JPEGs directly into Premiere so you don't lose image quality in VidMach. here's how i do it:

1. record .bmp sequences from HL
2. place all .bmp's from that session into a folder (i call mine clip folder 1), and also create a seperate, empty folder (clip folder 2).
3. In Photoshop, create a new action for processing files.
- in PS, select Window>Actions to open the Actions palette.
- open any image file. Doesn't matter what; you'll discard this
file after writing the action.
- in the Actions palette, click the folder icon at the bottom to
create a new action. I call mine "800x600 jpeg."
- In the Actions palette, click the little round "record" button to
begin recording your action. Everything you do to the image file
you opened will now be recorded.
- In PS, now select Image>Image Size. set image to 800x600.
- In PS, select Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast. Set
Brightness to around 20 and Contrast to around 30. Use your
personal preference.
- Now select Save As... Just save to your desktop. Select
JPEG, full quality (12).
- In the Actions palette, click the square Stop button to stop
recording the action.
- Throw away the file you just saved.
- Now you're ready to batch process your .bmp files. In PS,
select File>Automate>Batch... In the Batch dialog box, choose
first choose the action you just created, set Source to the folder
which contains the .bmps, set Destination to your empty folder,
and click "Override Action Save As Commands." Click OK and
PS will start processing.
- This process can take a while. Last night I was shooting clips,
I shot about 5,500 bmps. I have a pretty good comp (P4 2.8,
768MB) and it took PS about 90-100 mins to process them.
but they take up only about 1/6 the HD space, and at full image
quality.
4. Discard the .bmp files, erasing many gigs from your hard
drive. Go to the processed folder, take out the JPEGs, and
organize them into separate folders by clip. Name the folders
with a short description of the clip; "2fort O scout jukes HW" or
"sd2 D solly kill run," etc.
5. Now, when you're in Premiere, ready to assemble and edit
your video, go to Import Files and open the folder of the clip you
want to bring in. Select the first JPEG and click the box at the
bottom that says "JPEG sequence." hit OK and wa la, you have
a full image-quality clip ready to use.

[[FDG]Sundae]

To teach yourself the basics, go to HLMP and read their guide section. It teaches everything you could possibly want to know for Premiere, mainly, which is the best program to use for simplicity's sake.


http://www.planetfortress.com/hlmp/hlmp2-beta/news.asp

Then click the "Guides" section. It's slow, but worth it.


GL!

~Sundae

[Unbroken]

Yeah stick with mine and Sundae's advices, Smack is trying to get a little bit too complicated there for someone who is trying to make their first AVI, lol. :P

[Ignatz]

sorry, i was aiming the advice at whoever might read this, not just noobs. several people have asked me in the past how to batch process in PS, so i just laid it all out.

[Unbroken]

i'm trying to think if it would be easier to simple compile the bmps in videomach or go through that whole process in PS....

[Ignatz]

well, most of "that whole process" you just need to do once. after that youve got the PS action and folders set up for use anytime.
but anyway, i was just explaining how i do it, and the benefit in my mind is that the less times you compress your footage, the better the overall quality is in the end. i always keep my files at full image quality until the final step, when i use VirtualDub to compress my audio and video and optimize my file size.

[[FDG]Sundae]

Definitely agree with you on that Smack - always keep AVI footage at uncompressed level until final compression, and just to add, DON'T LET PREMIERE DO THE COMPRESSION. VirtualDub = much better final size/quality in the end for some reason.

GREAT IDEA on the JPG Batch conversion!!! I never thought of that!!



~Sundae

[Unbroken]

yeah i think i'll have to try that out sometime

[advocate]

i worked but ran into an error. I think it was because im reading BMPS off my brothers computer, doing the batch process, and saving them on my computer. It also might be a fily type problem.

the error message i get says: could not save as "imagenameit'stryingtosave" because the file could not be found.

[CancerousMcNipple]

It means you have too many bitmaps to convert to an avi.

Try turning it into 2 seperate clips.

[Ignatz]

mcnipple, i think i disagree with that, it sounds more like there's a delay reading from the other comp which is causing the error.
Try copying the bmps over to your comp first, then run the batch. then you can discard the copied bmps.

[KnockKnock]

I use video mach and vegas video

[CancerousMcNipple]

Originally posted by Smack
mcnipple, i think i disagree with that, it sounds more like there's a delay reading from the other comp which is causing the error.
Try copying the bmps over to your comp first, then run the batch. then you can discard the copied bmps.

I dunno, I got that error and seperating it into 2 different clips fixed it :/