Tutorial: Making Flash (SWF) Files into Animated Icons Using AS3
You can make an icon like this:
or 
The first thing I did was to search for a converter for a Flash animation file.
I found this easy to use Flash to GIF converter called Magic Swf2Gif.
This is advertised for people who do not have a flash plug in and can convert the file to a GIF but it also helps in converting so you can use it as an icon.
This is a program that will give a free trial for 15 days and then you must purchase it for $15.95. The page I found it on says $36 to buy but I bought it from the program that popped up saying that to get a registration code was $15.95
It is well worth purchasing to make the GIF animations from SWF files.
You can download it here.
I purchased the full version of it because I loved it so much.
The first thing I did to make my Potter Pals animated icon, I found a site that had the Flash animation with an SWF file. I used mozilla as a web browser to save the file.
I found the file here after searching on google for "Potter Pals 1 SWF" and found this page:
http://www.flashplayer.com/animation/potterpuppetpals.html
The file is embedded into an HTML page. Use the SAVE AS web page function to get the entire page. Then the SWF will be saved to your hard drive in the web page folder. You then can use it from that folder.
To save, go to the top of the browser, hit file -> save page as and put it into my documents so you can find it later.
You may have to look in the source codes for the SWF file. Sometimes saving the page may not result in the SWF file being saved to your hard drive. Emailing the swf file to yourself can also work.
The SWF file will not have a program associated with it when you are looking through the "my documents" folder. But it does have the SWF extension. Make sure you don’t have it associated with an HTML extension. The program only recognizes SWF files.
The next thing I did was to open up the program: Magic Swf2Gif.
This is what it looks like when it’s opened for the first time:
You then click on ADD FILES on the left of the picture
And then choose the location of your file. Mine happens to be POTTER2.swf in MY DOCUMENTS directory.
Notice I Have POTTER2.swf in the FILE LIST and a preview of the SWF file to the right. The preview will continue to play without sound for one time.
NOTE: I learned the hard way to not use this SWF. It is a looping SWF and it will generate an error message and freeze. In the folder where it saves the GIFs, you will have over 1000 gifs because of the repeating SWF. Make sure your swf only plays once.
Click on the file ONCE. That will highlight it.
Then click on CONVERT TO GIF
I have not optimized it nor have I changed the size of the file to 100x100. If you change the file size while converting it, it will be so small you can’t read the words or see the characters.
It’s better to edit it in Animation Shop and crop what you don’t need.
Converting. This is the part that will take a while.
It will be saved in the folder called C:\Program Files\Magic Swf2Gif\GifImg\ and this is what you will see while converting:
Once this is finished, you can close out the program and go to Animation Shop.
Click File -> Open and the file name found here: C:\Program Files\Magic Swf2Gif\GifImg\
To open this file, it is large and it will take a while. Be patient. There are tons of frames in these swf files.
You will see this when it’s finished opening:
From Here you choose the part of the animation that you want to cut out and use as the gif file.
Make sure you click on the first box and then move over to the next box using the arrow keys. I keep scrolling over until I find the few frames I want to cut out of the animation. For now don’t worry about size. That can be scaled down later.
Once you find the frames you want to copy, hit SHIFT and then the arrow to select the few frames. Cut the frames from the current animation.
These are the frames I selected.
From here I will edit the frames so that all frames are 100x100 pixels to be used for an icon. I pick the frame that has the most action in the middle or to the side. I usually edit backwards from most action to least action in the animation.
I cropped these frames a little smaller and wound up with an animation this size 378x295.
I want something that will let me size it perfectly to 100x100 so I will play with the cropping until I get something around 295x295 and then size it to 100x100.
In the end I got a graphic to be 288x288.
I then resize it to 100x100
After I ran the optimization wizard : File -> optimization wizard I found that the file size was 65K bytes. Way too big for LJ.
I will delete some frames that are not needed in the animation since Harry and Ron “Bothering Snape” is repetitive.
Finally when you see that the file is less than 40KB, you are ready to save it as a GIF and upload it to your LJ or whatever journal you are using.
Here is the final product:
What I found about this software and editing the gif file, it takes practice. Sometimes I’ve not been happy with the final outcome and would start over again.
These are two others I have made from this program from the End of the World SWF.
If the moderators or anyone else feel as though I left something out, please tell me and I’ll fix the tutorial.
Thanks !
I made the below animation from the Snape is too Sexy SWF file.
This is from the SWF file Snape is too Sexy:
http://www.potterpuppetpals.com/sexy.swf
I was afraid of it crashing the program because it does loop, but the program just takes it to the first part of the white frames.
or The first thing I did was to search for a converter for a Flash animation file.
I found this easy to use Flash to GIF converter called Magic Swf2Gif.
This is advertised for people who do not have a flash plug in and can convert the file to a GIF but it also helps in converting so you can use it as an icon.
This is a program that will give a free trial for 15 days and then you must purchase it for $15.95. The page I found it on says $36 to buy but I bought it from the program that popped up saying that to get a registration code was $15.95
It is well worth purchasing to make the GIF animations from SWF files.
You can download it here.
I purchased the full version of it because I loved it so much.
The first thing I did to make my Potter Pals animated icon, I found a site that had the Flash animation with an SWF file. I used mozilla as a web browser to save the file.
I found the file here after searching on google for "Potter Pals 1 SWF" and found this page:
http://www.flashplayer.com/animation/potterpuppetpals.html
The file is embedded into an HTML page. Use the SAVE AS web page function to get the entire page. Then the SWF will be saved to your hard drive in the web page folder. You then can use it from that folder.
To save, go to the top of the browser, hit file -> save page as and put it into my documents so you can find it later.
You may have to look in the source codes for the SWF file. Sometimes saving the page may not result in the SWF file being saved to your hard drive. Emailing the swf file to yourself can also work.
The SWF file will not have a program associated with it when you are looking through the "my documents" folder. But it does have the SWF extension. Make sure you don’t have it associated with an HTML extension. The program only recognizes SWF files.
The next thing I did was to open up the program: Magic Swf2Gif.
This is what it looks like when it’s opened for the first time:
You then click on ADD FILES on the left of the picture
And then choose the location of your file. Mine happens to be POTTER2.swf in MY DOCUMENTS directory.
Notice I Have POTTER2.swf in the FILE LIST and a preview of the SWF file to the right. The preview will continue to play without sound for one time.
NOTE: I learned the hard way to not use this SWF. It is a looping SWF and it will generate an error message and freeze. In the folder where it saves the GIFs, you will have over 1000 gifs because of the repeating SWF. Make sure your swf only plays once.
Click on the file ONCE. That will highlight it.
Then click on CONVERT TO GIF
I have not optimized it nor have I changed the size of the file to 100x100. If you change the file size while converting it, it will be so small you can’t read the words or see the characters.
It’s better to edit it in Animation Shop and crop what you don’t need.
Converting. This is the part that will take a while.
It will be saved in the folder called C:\Program Files\Magic Swf2Gif\GifImg\ and this is what you will see while converting:
Once this is finished, you can close out the program and go to Animation Shop.
Click File -> Open and the file name found here: C:\Program Files\Magic Swf2Gif\GifImg\
To open this file, it is large and it will take a while. Be patient. There are tons of frames in these swf files.
You will see this when it’s finished opening:
From Here you choose the part of the animation that you want to cut out and use as the gif file.
Make sure you click on the first box and then move over to the next box using the arrow keys. I keep scrolling over until I find the few frames I want to cut out of the animation. For now don’t worry about size. That can be scaled down later.
Once you find the frames you want to copy, hit SHIFT and then the arrow to select the few frames. Cut the frames from the current animation.
These are the frames I selected.
From here I will edit the frames so that all frames are 100x100 pixels to be used for an icon. I pick the frame that has the most action in the middle or to the side. I usually edit backwards from most action to least action in the animation.
I cropped these frames a little smaller and wound up with an animation this size 378x295.
I want something that will let me size it perfectly to 100x100 so I will play with the cropping until I get something around 295x295 and then size it to 100x100.
In the end I got a graphic to be 288x288.
I then resize it to 100x100
After I ran the optimization wizard : File -> optimization wizard I found that the file size was 65K bytes. Way too big for LJ.
I will delete some frames that are not needed in the animation since Harry and Ron “Bothering Snape” is repetitive.
Finally when you see that the file is less than 40KB, you are ready to save it as a GIF and upload it to your LJ or whatever journal you are using.
Here is the final product:
What I found about this software and editing the gif file, it takes practice. Sometimes I’ve not been happy with the final outcome and would start over again.
These are two others I have made from this program from the End of the World SWF.
If the moderators or anyone else feel as though I left something out, please tell me and I’ll fix the tutorial.
Thanks !
I made the below animation from the Snape is too Sexy SWF file.
This is from the SWF file Snape is too Sexy:
http://www.potterpuppetpals.com/sexy.swf
I was afraid of it crashing the program because it does loop, but the program just takes it to the first part of the white frames.