This is what I have so far



it scrolled alot smoother before I uploaded it. I obviously need to as just the frames per second and the frame rate.

but other then that, I need some criticism.

\m/

i hate that font, but overall it looks cool

Good deal.

Yeah, lose the Copperplate.

Do you even have any songs?

We've had songs for months. Just no recordings, which are coming very soon.

Well...you should probably be asking for peoples opinions on your recordings when you get them and not your banners and logos and what not. I can't be the only person on this board who thinks you guys are overhyping this band a bit, I just want to hear some music dude.

i just got informed Keith Mutiny is indeed a member of this band.

so there you have it Lamp, this band will indeed be awesome.

yea, but they dont have any music, man!
FUCK!

keith mutiny

mark fucking richards

Niccolai

c'mon how could they not, i mean have you seen Nico drawing skills shits outta control.

Lamp said:

I'm not trying to overhype, I just don't have a job or anythign to do during the day. This is the only way to keep myself buisy and resist killing.

We can't wait to have our demo recorded so we can show you guys. once we get Keith up to speed lyrically, Joshtruction is recording our demo.

So there will hopefully be rough audio within the next few weeks.

bands full of a bunch of fuckin fags

Awesome. (to Nicc)

KeithMutiny said:

its true ive seen it.

Is any of the lyrical content pertaining to some of the case studies of Dr. Bass and/or the inner workings of the actual Body Farm?

... yes, I'm a nerd.

i do belive body farm will be the most A.D.D. band in all of history.

KeithMutiny said:

im not in this band.

Granny_Monster said:

good question.

i have no comment, but i will be performing as a legitimate MASS EMT when we play shows, so thats fun.

To tell you the truth I don't like it.

People need to start learning how to optimize banners. If you're gonna design a banner with that much animation go flash. No one wants to wait for a 1mb gif banner to load. When designing gif banners keep it under atleast 5 frames.

Here's what you can do to optimize it like crazy:

- Don't make the logo scroll as smoothly as it does, cut some frames off. This will make the logo go faster yes but it'll probably cut off atleast 30% of the size.
- Lose the fading for "The Body Farm" and "myspace.com/thebodyfarmma" and make them 1 frame each.
- When exporting considering how many shades of grey there are I'd say go less than 128 colors.

The banner looks cool, I'm not trying to bash, this is merely to help you design a more effective banner. When you're done I'm guessing you'll have no less than 15 frames. It's still alot of frames but it's better than the 200+ frames I'm guessing are in that banner already.

Thanks Steve, these are the kinds of tips i'm going for.

I'm new to this program and Gif making in general, So i'll keep at it.

I could make a flash banner for it, but I'd like to keep it as simple as i can.

Granny_Monster said:

In addition to my own personal distaste for sluts and crack whores, many of the lyrics will be inspired by the actual Body Farm, as well as the novels " Death's Acre" and "Stiff".

Oh yes, there will be pwnage.

yea, the fading is pretty meh to me

KeithMutiny said:

Really? Nice, congrats!

Niccolai said:

Nice! Two of my favorite books, especially Stiff

moes just mad cause the body farm has a black drummer.

hehe.

Niccolai said:

What are you using to design the gif? I use Adobe ImageReady. Here's some of my examples:

Roughly 21kb


25kb


18kb


27 kb (unfinished and stopped working on)

How do you set a backround like that?

Archaeon said:

You talking to me?

yes sir

Archaeon said:

It's all layering mainly. I usually start off designing the background on it's own seperate layer. From there in Adobe ImageReady in the Animation window you keep the background visible at all times and for each from you turn on and off which layer you wish to view on that frame. For instance the OTB banner has the BG visible at all times and what I simply did was made each layer I want visible on each frame. So the frame that says "OF THE BETRAYED" the only 2 layers that are visible are the background layer and the "OF THE BETRAYED" text layer.

If the sounds a little confusing let me know.

KeithMutiny said:


yea, now our bands will never be able to play together
it'll be like that scene in Not Another Teen Movie

mOe said:

im outta the loop and never saw that awesome movie....what happens tell me what happens.

FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST WONT SOMEONE TELL ME

SteveOTB said:

Thanks dude

"I know, that shit is whack..."

SteveOTB said:


I'm using jasc animation shop.

It's pretty basic, but it works well enough for what I need it for. I've never used an animation program before. I have alot of experience with flash though.

here is the updated version:

i agree with everything steveOTB said about the banner. the overall scrolling of the logo doesn't bother me that much though. only other thing is that it should say "myspace.com/thebodyfarmma" rather than "myspace/thebodyfarmma." if it was not for my own band, i'd think it was just lazy, haha.

to granny monster:

some of the lyrics are inspired by the actual body farm, but more on the overall idea of the body farm. i've also twisted the perspective of it a bit in a song actually called "the body farm." yeah, we're gonna be one of those bands.

the overall lyrical themes we've worked with so far are problems of the human condition. every now and then we'll have a fun, gory death metal song, such as "unloved and degloved," a ballad about nick's aforementioned hatred to sluts and crackwhores.

mark fucking richards said:

God damn it Mark, I was trying to be revolutionary.

Niccolai said:

Much better Niccolai. The file size is still big but you managed to cut it down by like 75% and it still has all the important information you need. With faster internet connections these days people might wait for the 200kb banner but the 1mb banner was overkill. Good job, keep it up.

I still say drop the Copperplate.

mark fucking richards said:

Awesome, I can't wait to hear what you guys come out with!

sinistas said:

me too

It just hit me now when everyone was talking about "Copperplate". I say the font looks fine because ledigible. Granted it looks cheesy but you can't have text so messy to the point where you can't read it if you're trying to show people your name and myspace address. I like using generic fonts on alot of my work and just using my typography skills to give it a little flavor.

Mark also has a ledgible body farm logo that i'm probably going to put up there and replace the copperplate.

Steve, I ended up with 18 frames I believe. It was like 178 before.


any tips on reducing file size a little bit more? I want it under 90k so I can have aaron put it in the RTTP banner space once there's an EP to buy.

Niccolai said:

How many colors are you exporting it as? 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2?

Well I kow it isn't colors 2-32 because the quality is decent on it. If it's at 128 try 64 with these settings:

Format: Gif
Reduction: Perceptual
Colors: 64
Web Snap: 0% (the more you raise it the lower the quality gets but the file size as well)
Method: No Dither

See how that works out for you Niccolai. By the way 18 frames MUCH better than 178. Fool around those the export settings. Even if you go a little lower on the quality as long as it looks decent, ledigible, and gets your idea across then that's all that matters.

Most of those options aren't in animation shops gif optimizer, but I did what I could and reduced the colors to 32 without any quality loss.

It's right at about 110 k now.



and I cut the myspace URL frame, seeing as the image is going to link to our myspace anyway.