May 1, 2013
Quickly make an animated GIF of anything. GifCam is a free, portable app for Windows that provides you with a simple frame. Resize and position it, then hit record - everything that happens within that frame will be recorded. It's the easiest way to create your own GIF of just about anything — from desktop demonstrations to clips from any video, online or off. If you love creating GIFs, but wish the process was quicker, you need to check this app out.
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April 5, 2013
The GIF image format is one of the staples of the Internet, allowing for animations to be shared with other people who aren’t standing in the same room as you. It’s one of the oldest image formats to have become mainstream, but it’s still used regularly even today and creative people are pioneering new uses for GIFs, such as the cinemagraph. A cinemagraph is a GIF that is mostly a still image with one small section being animated.
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March 20, 2013
Google brings two new search filters to its image search tools, making it almost impossible to not find what you're looking for. The new filters can help you find animated GIFs, which are almost as old as the Web but surprisingly popular nonetheless, as well as images with a transparent background, which are useful for various design projects and a wide variety of other purposes.
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March 14, 2013
YouTube has become the new home for original content creators, with many forging exciting new careers for themselves by making videos which are watched by millions of people. In the same way that reality television has managed to find stars lurking among the masses, YouTube (as well as its various alternatives) has offered an opportunity for talented people to find an online audience. One genre that demonstrates this trend extremely well is animation.
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March 7, 2013
Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. Most of the listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe here....
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March 7, 2013
Cinemagraphs blend selective animation and a static image to create a unique looping scene, popularised using Photoshop to adapt famous film scenes into contemplative GIFs a few years ago. Since the concept is so promising, app developers have pounced on the idea after the original release of Cinemagram. There's now a new contender for the throne in the form of Echograph, an app which on first glance is remarkably similar.
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February 20, 2013
GIFs are commonplace across the Web, but it's sometimes hard to find the right one for the right situation. Thankfully a new dedicated search engine just for GIFs has arrived. Its name is Giphy and it's being touted as the place to "Search the best GIFs in the world." But does it live up to the hype? Let's "Search in a Giphy" to find out.
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December 10, 2012
Beeple is the name by which graphic artist, 3D animator, musician, director and all-round skilled practitioner of visual awesomeness, Mike Winkelmann of Wisconsin, USA. Mike is pretty well-versed in a range of software including Cinema 4D and Illustrator, industry-standard stuff for creating beautiful static and motion graphics. His work is a treat for the senses, and you can learn from example.
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November 27, 2012
Reaction GIFs are a crucial part of Internet communication that help provide emotion where mere text cannot. Many people may say that they are over-used and tacky. However, where punctuation can make the difference between "Yes." and "Yes!", reaction GIFs help with the areas in-between. Without them, conversation online would be quite dull, and besides that, it offers more choices in dialogue as opposed to the tiny selection that typical English has.
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October 2, 2012
For some reason, animated GIFs have become all the rage. At first, I couldn’t understand what was so appealing about these silent video wannabes. Later on, I gave in a little and admitted that while they’re not very useful, animated GIFs are sure fun to make with a webcam. Only lately, after receiving some really nice animated GIFs of my cats made by a friend, did I realize that animated GIFs don’t have to be silly. They can actually be extremely cool.
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September 17, 2012
Do you remember when a company called Macromedia introduced their rich web plugin, Flash? Back then, Flash was an exciting new prospect. It introduced the ability to animate, using frame-by-frame and using motion-tweening, add sound, buttons and interactions all from a relatively approachable interface. The early Internet, or "Web 1.0" if I dare use that term, exploded with nonsensical, bizarre and downright impressive animations.
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August 7, 2012
You too must have enjoyed a comic or two. You too must have dreamt up comic book characters of your own. If Stan Lee could create an entire universe of super-humans, our childhood imaginations could too. Maybe then we only had our foggy flights of fancy. Now, we have a legion of comic book tools. So let’s see how you can create your own web comics with free tools, and also its more digitalized cousin – the Internet meme.
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July 21, 2012
Remember that old game in which each person would write a line without seeing the previous line, thus creating a cool and funny story? A joint Google and Tate Modern project brings this exact concept into animation. The new project is called This Exquisite Forest, and features seed animations from seven renowned artists from Tate’s collection. Seed animations are the grounds on which users like you and I can build further animations and create a beautiful story.
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July 16, 2012
Live action adaptations of video games are usually pretty dire. The original Street Fighter film is a fine example of a the motion picture industry getting it wrong and even recent, modern adaptations like Doom and Max Payne are lacking in both style and substance. I've always felt that this type of animated film is aimed at the enthusiast rather than the average movie goer.
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May 21, 2012
I have a confession to make. I’ve never made an animated GIF in my life until today. Not only did I never make one, I also never found them very appealing, unless the subject matter was amusing (i.e. not a person making faces) and the GIF itself really well made. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled onto PsykoGif, and discovered that making animated GIFs is not only fun, it’s actually a challenge!
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