I can't believe I'm doing this but.....

[Deadlokd]

I'd like to request some smilies. Specifically Discworld smilies, Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Death, Susan, Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat, Agnes/Perdita, Vimes, Carrot, Nobby Nobbs, all of them!

Please. And may the gods forgive me for contributing to the horde.

[livius drusus]

:muahaha:

[Deadlokd]

Yeah, laugh it up laughy girl.

[SharonDee]

Yes, yes! I must have Granny Weatherwax!

And Lord Vetinari!


(BTW, Deadlokd, an excellent thread upon which to pop your smilie beggin' cherry!)

[Watser?]

Yeah, we need them badly, please liv :beg:
Don't let me detain you
:vetinarii:

[Shelli]

:chuckle:

[Watser?]

Ooooooh

And the Librarian!

....Ooook!!
http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=3254&stc=1&d=1199274657

[Leesifer]

YES PLEASE, LIV
:death:

[livius drusus]

None of my usual sources have anything in stock. Looks like this will be a commission. I have the perfect artist in mind too, but his online activities have been a bit irregular lately. :chin:

[Deadlokd]

How do you make smilies? Is it a pixel by pixel job?

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Please. And may the gods forgive me for contributing to the horde.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

http://www.fluxworks.net/misc/horde.png

[livius drusus]

How do you make smilies? Is it a pixel by pixel job?
Primarily. That's how the great geniuses work. There are shortcuts, though. I personally use gradient fills, but that's not really possible with smilies that are meant to look like specific characters. You need to make facial features and accessories one pixel at a time.

[Deadlokd]

Wow. That sounds time consuming. Would "Paint" work for it? Then a GIF animator?

[livius drusus]

Paint can do the trick, yes, although it's a tad unwieldy. Definitely not a quick and easy thing to do. Until you've tried it, you can't imagine how hard it is to make a quality smiley.

Interested in trying your hand at it? If so, I happen to have the motherlode of emoticon tutorials, listed for your convenience in software order: Making Emotes: The Tutorial Master List (http://news.deviantart.com/article/23757/)

[Crumb]

I know you've posted that link before, but now I think I may check out those GIMP tutorials. :yup:

[livius drusus]

Cool! You're a better man than I, Gunga Din. GIMP scared me away permanently the first time I opened it. :afraid:

[Crumb]

:chuckle: I've used it more than any of the other big ones.

[Deadlokd]

I know you've posted that link before, but now I think I may check out those GIMP tutorials. :yup:

All you need is the rubber suit.:D

[Uthgar the Brazen]

I know you've posted that link before, but now I think I may check out those GIMP tutorials. :yup:

All you need is the rubber suit.:D

And a flashlight if you're a Baldwin brother offering to..."assist"...Darryl Hannah.

Wow, the bitter, dark recesses of my brain have vomited forth a horror...

[Crumb]

Not gimp, GIMP. :glare:

[Ensign Steve]

Is that one of those recursive acronym things? Gimp Is My Photo editor, or something?

[Crumb]

No but it has one in it.

GNU Image Manipulation Program

[Ensign Steve]

GNU = GNU, Not Unix?

[Crumb]

GNU's not unix

[Stormlight]

Are you guys speaking in tongues again? Quick, someone alert the church elders!

[Uthgar the Brazen]

GNUUUUUUUUU!
:cow:

[MonCapitan2002]

None of my usual sources have anything in stock. Looks like this will be a commission. I have the perfect artist in mind too, but his online activities have been a bit irregular lately. :chin:
Did you ever get in contact with that artist?

[Deadlokd]

Haha! I made one. Will work on them and get better with time.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/Deadlokd/wavey.gif

ETA: And thread necromancy FTW!

[Pinecone]

A brand new first smilie! :excited:

[Crumb]

Cool, Deadlokd. Looks like you need to work on transparency. :yup:

[Deadlokd]

Yup. I used GIMP, but I couldn't make it make the background transparent. Does anyone know how?

I made a rude one too for another forum I'm on. Wanna see? It's definitely NSFW.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/Deadlokd/horse.gif

[JoeP]

In The GIMP ...
Get the select by colour tool (right click > Select > By color, or Shift-O)
Click anywhere in the white background
Hit delete (or Edit > Clear)
Select the next layer in the layer palette, and select this layer's white background, and delete
You might need to add an alpha channel to the bottom ('background') layer

Then export as a GIF animation, which you obv know how to do

[Watser?]

Yup. I used GIMP, but I couldn't make it make the background transparent. Does anyone know how?

I made a rude one too for another forum I'm on. Wanna see? It's definitely NSFW.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/Deadlokd/horse.gif

:chuckle:

:joecool:

[Ensign Steve]

:laugh: I love the animation in the rude one. Excellent job!

[Deadlokd]

Thanks Joe. I'm very new to this, as in I downloaded GIMP two days ago. So, can you tell me what an alpha channel is? I've seen it there, but no comprende senor.

[JoeP]

There's probably a better explanation, but ...

Images are made up of arrays of pixels. (Even "vector" images, once they're rendered.)

Each pixel has a red, green and blue component. Since you can extract all the red from an image, and display or manipulate it separately, it makes sense to call it a channel. Each component is typically an 8 bit value, but could be more or less.

The one thing that's missing from this is the ability to describe transparency. That's where the alpha channel comes in - it's another component, another value for each pixel of the image. This allows parts of an image to have different levels of transparency, including partial transparency. Which is very cool. Except that JPEGs don't support transparency and GIFs don't support partial transparency - PNGs are the way to go.

And since each layer in an image editing program is effectively an image, you can use alpha channels (in each layer), or masks, to control how much of the lower layers you see.