animatedgif – Page 8

Automating autocomplete Gifs

google_autocomplete

I saw an autocomplete poem on tumblr today which reminded me of Illustrating Odd Autocompletes | Bionic Teaching and the ds106 assignment that came out of it. Illustrating Odd Autocompletes.
On another post, Internet Ephemera – Sociology Edition Tom Woodward has a flickr slide show of some autocompletes, which made me think of creating an animated gif.
A bit of thought and I realised that this could be automated with a few bits and pieces. The main one being Gifsicle. Gifsicle is a command line tool for creating animated gifs, I used it in Simple Glitch and Movie2Gif.

This time I though I could use it in combination with AppleScript and Safari to produce some simple gifs.
Here is the script:
autocomplete-gif-applescript

It just asks for a bit of text and used that to create gifs by running through the alphabet, eg give it I love” and you get, I love a, I love b, etc. The final animated gif is saved on the desktop, in this example called i-love.gif

I just run this from the apple script editor. As the script uses System Events to ‘type’ you need to turn on access for assistive devices and applications for the Script Editor if you are using OS 10.9 (
OS X Mavericks: Enable access for assistive devices and applications)

You do need to have installed Gifsicle first too.
I’ve hard coded the crop into the script, if Safari is not filling the screen (not full screen) you would have to edit the script for that too.

I guess it has taken me a wee while to figure this out, but I can now produce as many autocomplete gifs as I like.
ds106

lots more

Update, 01.01.14 Social Media is even more, now using the google search box rather than the safari location bar.

Simple Glitch update

city
Click the image for some sounds.

A while ago I made a simple way to add sounds to gif I though it might add something to a glitch-gif, there are plenty of glitch sounds over on freesounds.
p_glitches1.wav by pulse00, Creative Commons — Sampling Plus 1.0

I’ve updated the glitch app a bit, adding some better find and replace options and fixing a bug or two. Get the new version: simple glitch download

New GIFaCHROME technology in development

hand-gifAchrome

Layercake, is a developing technology for the GIFaCHROME camera. Layercake is not quite ready for release but we have a few test images which give some idea of the affordances of the new subsystem. Layercake allows your images to take a jump out of the frame. Currently it is not known if Layercake is a lens or film format.

facegifaChrome

Technical Specs

Layercake is based on a very simple concept, adding another layer over the film stock. At its simplest a Layercake image consists of three main layers.

The traditional gif layer. Unlike regular GIFaCHROME images this extends under the frame layer..
An extended GIFaCHROME frame. This borrows from the Polaroid print and is an extra transparent, or white frame surrounding. This is a shared layer, shared across all frames.
The external layer. On each frame a section of the extended gif layer is copied above the frame layer. This layer can have an optional drop shadow.

As an aid to creating Layercake images the frame layer is hidden, or added at the end of processing. There is often a guide layer which is hidden before the final gif-printing.

Currently Layercake images are developed using fireworks processing, it is envisaged that this could easily be converted to GIMP or photoshop style workflows.

More examples and technical details are expected to follow.

Pioneering use of GIFaChrome

Recently discovered in the back of a dusty drawer is compelling evidence of the early adoption of the GIFaChrome format by pioneering female photographers.

These women were not discouraged by the predominant male view that the photographic image should be static or that the gif format was not suitable for serious subjects.

The rare filmstrip present here hints that the format was used around the world. Already archeoloGIFts are on the look out for other caches of this rare film. The film can at first glance be easily mistaken for other formats, overlooked or discarded.

Modern GIFaChrome artist Rochelle Lockridge who has done much to popularise the format was unavailable for comment at time of writing, her work on the recent history of the GIFaChrome Camera is essential reading for those interested in the format. We hope to have a triple-troll-quote from Rochelle later today.

Maze of DS106

This started as a daily create, Create a Ghostly Portrait of Someone Who Is Participating in ds106. I added Tina to Seth’s wonderful In Case of Fire Move to the Nearest Exit which was a response to the daily create: Draw something on fire.

THe first version, peek a Tina was static, but I quickly got the idea that Tina could use her ninja skills in the Escher world. I posted this to google+. Seeing Janet’s ghost, based on a wall painting go me started adding more characters and posted: Maze of DS106 A bit of a work in progress.
Since then I’ve added a few more. There are now 10 ds106 participants in the mix.

Some credits, all cc as far as I could see. I did use a flickr user icon for Seth and Janet’s google plus icon.

Ghostly Selfie | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Vivi_Nottingham11 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
RockyLou Ripped from Reality! | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Haunted Melbourne Sunset | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
I knew there was something creepy about that fog | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
The ds106 99: #47 d&ds106 Monster Manual—Cogdog | bavatuesdays

The process was not very complicated basically a lot of layers. Only one or two slightly tricky bits were I copied railings to make a character appear behind them. Most of the images have changes in opacity and blend.