TASVideos

Tool-assisted console game movies
When human skills are just not enough

Emulator Resources / Making AVI / Logo / Windows

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This page lists a simple method for creating a logo for use with your encodes. It is structured as basic as possible while allowing you the flexibility to make a better logo once more experienced. For details on logo requirements please view the Logo guidelines. For details on emulator specific settings please view Emulator Settings - Windows.

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Requirements

You will need the following:
  • GIMP
  • Virtualdub
  • FFDshow
  • Windows sound recorder
  • static picture or animated gif of your choice (optional)


Getting Necessary Files

  1. Gimp is a robust open source image editor. You can download it here
  2. VirtualDub is an open source video editor. Download it here
  3. FFDshow should always be configured with the settings you need. If you have not installed/configured it yet, view the Emulator Resources/Making AVI/Common/Windows Page
  4. Windows sound recorder is built into windows.
  5. Static picture or Animated gif: download or make your own.


Installation and initial configuration

  1. Gimp: Install
  2. Virtualdub: extract to a folder


Create Initial bmp/gif

Static image

  1. Open Gimp. Navigate file -> New. Specify the correct pixel settings for the platform this logo will be used. Example: NES games are 256 x 224.
  2. Select the bucket fill tool from the toolbox (left pane). It looks like a bucket. Click the 'foreground color' (also on the left pane) and set the color to black. Click on the blank image to give it a black background.
  3. Click on the text tool in the toolbox (looks like a letter A). Select a section of the image to input a header. For example "The homepage of this tool-assisted speedrun is:" In the toolbox change the color by clicking on foreground color. The font options are in the lower part of the toolbox. I usually center align the text.
  4. Create a second text toolbox with the text http://TASvideos.org. Make this text quite large and prominent, I usually place it in the center, and center align it.
  5. Create additional textboxes. I have a 3rd one "Visit there for updates and more information" and a 4th "encoded by: Sp00ky".
  6. Triple check that the text is positioned well and looks legible and clean. Then in the Layers box (right side of the screen) right click a layer and select flatten image.
  7. Select File -> Open as layers and select your static image (animated images will be covered later). If the image is too large, right click on the image in the Layers box and select 'scale layer', and resize it to something more suitable. Move it to the location you would like on the logo, and then right click it in the layers box and select 'merge down.'
  8. File -> Save As. Under select file type choose windows bitmap. Save the file.


Animated gif

  1. Open Gimp. Navigate file -> New. Specify the correct pixel settings for the platform this logo will be used. Example: NES games are 256 x 224.
  2. Select the bucket fill tool from the toolbox (left pane). It looks like a bucket. Click the 'foreground color' (also on the left pane) and set the color to black. Click on the blank image to give it a black background.
  3. Click on the text tool in the toolbox (looks like a letter A). Select a section of the image to input a header. For example "The homepage of this tool-assisted speedrun is:" In the toolbox change the color by clicking on foreground color. The font options are in the lower part of the toolbox. I usually center align the text.
  4. Create a second text toolbox with the text http://TASvideos.org. Make this text quite large and prominent, I usually place it in the center, and center align it.
  5. Create additional textboxes. I have a 3rd one "Visit there for updates and more information" and a 4th "encoded by: Sp00ky".
  6. Triple check that the text is positioned well and looks legible and clean. Then in the Layers box (right side of the screen) right click any text layer and select Flatten image.
  7. Save your logo temporarily as logo.bmp. Select File -> Close the file.
  8. Select File -> Open as layers and select your animated gif.
  9. Select image -> Scale image. Scale the entire thing to an appropriate size (mine is about 70 pixel height.)
  10. Save as resized.gif. Choose 'animation' when prompted.
  11. Reopen your logo.bmp. Chose file -> open as layers and choose resized.gif.
  12. In the layers box click the 'chain' to the left of each layer that is an animation frame until they are all linked.
  13. Select the move tool in the toolbox (looks like several arrows pointing 4 ways. Select the gif in the image box and move it to an appropriate location.
  14. If your gif is transparent, you will have to remove the transparency. Select the background color in the toolbox and set it to black. Right click each layer and select remove alpha channel.
  15. Make one copy of your text layer for each frame of animation by using right click -> duplicate layer.
  16. Merge down each frame of the animation with a copy of the text. To test the animation and make sure it looks good, navigate filters -> animation -> playback.
  17. Once you are happy with how everything looks, Save the entire thing as 'logocomplete.gif' Make sure to specify it is an animation.


Create sound

This step will create a 'blank' sound file to go with the image.

  1. Start -> Run -> sndrec32 (press ok)
  2. Click the record button and record 2 seconds (or more) of audio.
  3. Go to file -> Properties -> Convert now. Enter settings based on the platform the logo will be used with (for example NES is 48khz, 16bit mono. Click ok.
  4. File -> Save as, save the sound file somewhere for the next step.

However, if you are using an operating system that is Windows Vista or higher the sound recorder lacks the feature to export WAV files, in that case, you can use this ZIP folder containing all the necessary WAV files.

Create video logo

This will turn your bitmap/gif + sound file into a video file usable with your capture.

  1. Start VirtualDub. File -> Open video file. select your bitmap or gif and open.
  2. Press Ctrl-a to select all, Ctrl+C to copy all frames, then ctrl+v multiple times until there are 120 frames in the video. If you go over 120 frames delete any extras.
  3. Navigate audio -> Audio from other file. Select the wav file you created.
  4. Video -> Frame rate. Select change frame rate to 60 fps.
  5. Video -> Compression. Select ffdshow video codec.
  6. Under audio make sure direct stream copy is selected. Under video make sure full processing mode is selected.
  7. File -> Save as avi. Name it logo.avi. Congratulations, you now have a logo. Please check with a Administrator to make sure your logo is acceptable before using in an encode.


Other information

For a basic tutorial on creating small animated gifs in gimp, please visit http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Simple_Animations/


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EmulatorResources/MakingAVI/Logo/Windows last edited by flygon on 2009-11-09 03:53:28
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