After I posted Naše Karkulka, AllOneForEveryone asked me how I make gifs for videos I find. So, I thought I'd leave a full explanation here for anyone who wants to know. Also, I use several different free programs and will leave a link to each.
1. Find the video
The first step I do is to try to find a scene for the website. This might seem obvious but where I find the video dictates the next step. It's also a good idea, but not necessary, to look for alternate videos that either have better quality or don't use watermarks. A lot of websites tend to host the same video, the only difference is their watermarks. Because of this, I tend to search cartoon websites, like kisscartoon, for scenes before looking on other websites like Youtube. In the end, I use these websites when looking for my videos for various reasons:
Random Cartoon Site: These sites easiest to navigate and some of them, like kisscartoon, is organized well. However, these sites tend to use watermarks, invasive ads, and registration roadblocks.
Youtube & Archive.com: Has just about everything on it and someone probably posted what you're looking for already. Difficult to navigate and you will be directed to unrelated results.
Dailymotion: This website is more or less a backup option for the two above. Dailymotion never gained as much traction as those websites so its animations are sparse but it does have stuff the others don't.
Also, be aware that some films/animations are going to be difficult to find for a number of reasons. For instance, Naše Karkulka directly translates to Little Red Riding Hood, and search engines are coded to look for newer results. The film is old, dated 1960, and the only video I could find of it was the one AllOneForEveryone told me about that was posted to Dailymotion 14 years ago. The film is rare in America, but it was easier to find when searching a foreign website. I was able to find a clear, but colorless, picture of the movie while looking for its poster in google images. The picture led me to a Czech movie website that seemed to have aired the movie in 2010. I didn't want to attempt navigating this website so I went with the video on Dailymotion.
2. Download the Video
I always try to download the video I'm getting my scenes from. This makes it easier to take screenshots of scenes, number the images, and cut the video when it's time to make a gif. But I'm getting ahead of myself, I use four methods to download videos for the four different types of videos I've run into while searching. Not all of these methods are straightforward, so I'll explain the two complicated ones. I also need to mention I use Firefox and some of these are addons for this browser.
Video DownloadHelper: This addon allows you to download most video formats from many different websites. It's how I download videos from Dailymotion and other websites when my other methods fail. But I try to avoid using it due to conversion...
Easy Youtube Video Downloader Express: As the name implies, this addon allows you to easily download Youtube videos. The only drawback is that you can only download at 720p if you're not registered, again due to conversion...
Twitter Video Downloader: I don't use Twitter but some artists and animation series only post there. If you find something on Twitter you can use this site to download the animation.
Right-Click: Sometimes videos are put onto websites in their native format, i.e as an MP4. When this happens you can just right-click a video and "Save Video As" directly to your computer image.
Now then, I need to explain what's wrong with those two addons and the conversion issue. Basically, a lot of big video websites like Youtube switched to a streaming format back in 2018. Theis format separates the audio and video data into separate packets offsite until it's called by a user. Once called, the site reconstructs the video over the user's wifi, but it's still not in a native format like MP4. This means that Streamed videos can't be downloaded until they've been restored to a native format. So, the issue with the VDH and EYVD add-ons is that while they can do this, they won't do it for free. Again, EYVD will let you convert 720p and lower videos for free. In my opinion, this is perfectly fine and meets the site's needs, so no problem here. But VDH requires a companion app to be installed onto your computer and will place a big QR code on converted videos you downloaded. It will leave other video types alone, so I try to limit my use of that addon.
3. Taking/Renaming Screenshots and Making Gifs
Now that we have the video, we can upload it to a gif-making website. I use a website called ezgif.com to create my gifs because of its many tools. But more on that later, we need to look at the video we downloaded. Before making any gifs we should screenshot the scenes first. I usually take screenshots with VLC Player using its slow-down and frame-by-frame functions. If you use this method, try to take your screenshots in order so that they appear that way in your Pictures folder.
I use a comic viewing program called GonVisor to mass rename my screenshots/gifs. Simply open the program, highlight your images, and drag the first image onto the program. This should place all your images into a list on the right of the program in the order they were taken. If you need to adjust the order, just drag the image title to the right position. Once everything is in order, click on the first image to display it and then right-click its title in the list. You should see an option titled "Rename all files". From here, I usually rename the image "Character_Name-Media_Abbreviation-" and the will auto-number the images in the order they were listed. So, Something like "Wolf-NK-" would turn the first image into "Wolf-Nk-01" and the last image into "Wolf-Nk-58" until all the images are renamed. This program can rename gifs as well but gifs don't play properly on it.
VLC player also has a record feature that we can use to cut up the video so it uploads faster to ezgif.com, but it's only necessary if the file is too big. Once our video is uploaded, you'll be brought to a page with a video player. Skip the video ahead to the beginning of the scene, pause, and click the top "Use Current Position" button. Then do the same thing with the end of the scene using the bottom button and click "Convert to Gif". A gif should now appear below the convert button and you should check to see if the gif is the proper length. If it is, then move on to adjust the gif to a reasonable size while trying to keep the quality intact. I normally keep default settings when making the gif and turn on "optimize for static background" when needed. Then I head over to "Optimize" and set the compression level somewhere between 80 and 95. It saves a good amount of space and doesn't affect the gif's look too much in my opinion. After saving the new optimized gif, you might need to make another gif from the same video. In this case, you need to click the "Go back button" on your browser to return to the previous video player. Otherwise, you'll have to upload the video again.
Also, I would suggest using Gif Viewer if you want to view any gifs you made before posting them. It's open-source and allows you to look at each gif frame-by-frame. If anyone has any questions I try to answer them in a timely manner.
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