New Emotes? (Page 23)

Gayle04
Gayle04: sure will
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Vashta_Nerada
Vashta_Nerada: infinity
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Thosny 
Thosny: Corwin, how about giving us, the people of Wire, a hint as to what program you use (or could be used)to create an icon and in what format/size they should be... We could have contests. We could have submissions.
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Owlbert Einstein
Owlbert Einstein: 1. :curtsey:
2. :fistbump:
3: :fingerguns:
4: :strokeschin:
5: :tiphat:
6: :lipquiver:
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Corwin
Corwin: Sure, Thosny. If anybody wants to try their hand at this, I'd be happy to point you in the right direction as to how I create them. Although becoming a wiz at digital animation isn't a skill that I'd imagine anybody will just pick up overnight.

I'll give you a little history:

Back in highschool I used to create these little animated shorts that I'd pen into the corners of my schoolbooks that you flipped with your thumb. Those were a big hit with my classmates back then, and my defiled textbooks were traded back and forth among the students, my fans eager to see my latest creations. So I suppose I've always been kind of an animator at heart.

In 1980 I got my first computer; a Microsoft TRS-80 CoCo upgraded to a whopping 32K RAM and a 1MB floppy-drive (that was cutting edge back then). I programed simple video games of my own creation using an advanced version of BASIC language. The resolution on those old clunkers was only a few hundred pixels to a side, so making the most out of each pixel to create animated game characters that were pleasing to the eye within that limited space was an art-form in itself (and very similar to these modern-day emoticons ). And animating those little guys was like taking my schoolbook page-corner-flip-cartoons and doing it digitally with pixels. Lot's of fun.

I became rather good at it, but after a few years of that I became bored with it, as computer technology at that time was slow and limited... I gave up on computers and focused on my music career. I figured in a decade or so computer tech would get up to speed and be more useful.

In the 1990s computers caught my interest again, and I discovered Adobe Photoshop. It combined well with my love of photography, but I became even more fascinated with using the photo-enhancing tools as a paint-brush and canvas. Digital camera tech also needed to get up to speed and become more affordable, so in the meantime I spent a decade or so honing my skills as a digital artist. I became a master at creating digital paintings that looked like photographs, and upgrading to the newest version of Adobe Photoshop whenever it came along.
In the early 2000s decent DSLR cameras became more affordable and I jumped into photography with both feet and focused more on the photography side, but already an old hat at using the photo-enhancing tools. I flipped it around and created photographs that looked like paintings.

How does this all relate to creating emoteys you might ask?.... Well... guess which program I use to create them? ... That's right... Adobe Photoshop.

It wasn't until Wireclub that I really gave emoteys much thought, but a few years ago I downloaded a few of them and digitally "dissected" them to see what made them tick...
... they're animated GIF files.
And when I looked closely at them I was like "Ah, HELL, this is just like those little animated video game characters I used to make with my old TRS-80 CoCo when I was a teen. I can do this! "
I knew I had GIF tools in my Adobe programs that I hadn't previously used, and after decades of toying around with Photoshop, learning new tricks with it was a piece of cake for me. ......... So began Corwin's emotey hobby.
---------------------------------

So... the nitty-gritty for creating emoteys., and Corwin will take you to school...

... I use an older version of Adobe Photoshop Elements, version 5.0.
The newer versions are designed to be more "user friendly" with a lot of "one-click" tools for dummies, but not much else, whereas the older versions have so many great tools... the reason for this is that Adobe wants you to pay the big $$ for their CS (Creative Suite) programs if you want to be an artist, and the dummies can buy crappy new Photoshop versions for easy one-click photo enhancing and upload-to-the-web tools. So you can pay big bucks or CS, or hunt for an older Photoshop version online.

I have newer photo-enhancing programs that I use for certain tools, like Adobe Lightroom 5.0, but that's more of a "photo-developing" program to tweak things like contrast and colour, and only really useful for photography... so for my "canvas" and brush tools and a whole cornucopia of other useful tools I always turn to my trusty old Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0.

I start with a "template", which is a blank PSD file... depending on how elaborate an emotey I wish to create it could range from:
23 x 23 pixels --->
to something like 77 x 42 pixels --->

The animation is done by creating "layers" in the PSD file... that "ummm" emotey takes only several frames, but the "ufo" took almost 30 frames to achieve that effect.
For the "uniform" appearance of my emoteys I also had to create a sort of "scrapbook" of bits and pieces that I could drag and paste onto each frame (a larger template stored on a separate PSD file)... things like a blank round head, eyeballs in different positions, hands and arms, mouth expressions... stuff like that.

To draw with I use a Bamboo pen tablet, so it's more "organic", and a mouse is too tedious for digital art. And with emoteys, working with such a small pixel frame, I tend to draw out my characters and elements one pixel at a time. This also involves a lot of "zooming in and out", as what is viewed up close can look like a jumble of pixels, but when you "stand back" and look at it you see the desired result.... kind of like "abstract painting"... yeah... don't kid yourself... there is "artistry" involved here.

So... you start with your first frame... when it's done, you work on your second frame, and flip back and forth to see if it "flows" seamlessly and in the direction you want to go with it. Then you keep creating further frames, doing the same thing.... over and over... typically returning to previous frames to "tweak" them. Never forgetting to drag each element of a completed frame onto your scrapbook file for later reference or useage (you'll regret it later if you don't; trust me).

Then there's the "time-frame" issue... when your PSD file of all your layered frames are what you think is complete, you save it as a GIF file (be sure to use the 'Save For Web' function), then you can "play" it back and see how it rolls. The saving process lets you decide how fast or slow you want it to flip through frames. You look at all your hard work, and guess what... it SUCKS!
You have to go back and tweak each frame once again, but seeing it in action lets you know where it needs to be tweaked, and the speed of the time-frame will need to be adjusted so that the finished product matches your "vision" of what you had in mind.

Even when that's all done... and you think you're happy with your work... don't be so sure...
... go to bed... you've just spent 10 hours on a 2 second animation and your brain is tired. When you get up the next morning you'll see it with a fresh perspective and you'll know you can do better... so you spend ANOTHER day on it... either tweaking individual frames, or sometimes "ripping it apart and reassembling it from scratch".
And you "have" to do this... if I sent an emotey to the Admins that got uploaded, and then realized later that I could have done better... that shame would stare me in the face every time it was used.
Apparently DaVinci never felt that his Mona Lisa was ever really "finished"... it's part of being an artist... we're never entirely happy with our work, but we just have to say "when" at some point.

I'm very proud of my Wire emoteys... I think there's 13 of them in total, and I'm very proud to see some of them used on a daily basis... but that was a LOT of hard work. And I doubt that anybody ever realized how much work, and "love" I put into them. And not to toot my own horn, but I think they're the finest damn emoteys the internet has ever seen.
<--- I even have an emotey of my own... and to Rod I am grateful for that... it made all that work worthwhile.
--------------------

So... if any of you want to give it a go, the recipe is right up there. ^^^
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AAAAARRRGH
AAAAARRRGH: I'd want an emoji of the wireclub icon, a game controller, and a person looking at his watch and widening his eyes.
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Precious Pea
Precious Pea: A T-Rex emoji ONE that eats trolls OR two T-rex emoji's slapfighting
(Edited by Precious Pea)
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GrassHopper
GrassHopper: Corwin...think Grasshopper...does Jedi mind trick.
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Precious Pea
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JehrBear
(Post deleted by staff 3 years ago)
Precious Pea
Precious Pea: WE need a "Happy Little Vegemite" emote



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guy4fun247
guy4fun247: Is there an emote for jaw on floor or something similar?
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Precious Pea
Precious Pea: @guy Yea we need one of those
(Edited by Precious Pea)
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guy4fun247
guy4fun247: 👍
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y7892get210
y7892get210: I would like to see a foot stomp mad emote with arms crossed
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Dennae
Dennae: guy4fun247: We had one ' :jawdrop: ' but the delete it from the list.
You missed it
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guy4fun247
guy4fun247: Darn it lol
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Precious Pea
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Precious Pea
Precious Pea: NOoooooo Dennae
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two430
two430: where can i find the list of emojis for wire?
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FEISTY_MS_QUEENFEISTY_MS_QUEEN (Wireclub Moderator)
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ImJennie2u
ImJennie2u: how do I get the emotes?
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FEISTY_MS_QUEENFEISTY_MS_QUEEN (Wireclub Moderator)
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ImJennie2u
ImJennie2u: Thank you.
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two430
two430: ive had it for months but ty
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