GIMP Version: 2.8.20
Operating System: Windows
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

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Hello,

I've been trying to make an animated gif out of a specific part of a video, after some searches it looked like the best solution was to use GAP to avoid having to use external program to cut the video, as GAP allow to extract frames from a specific range in a mp4 video.
Using GAP for gimp 2.6 as it seems to be the latest (as i can't find a version specific to gimp 2.8.20)
http://photocomix-resources.deviantart. ... -135464357

It worked great with "Split Video into Frame -> Extract Videorange" , then enable the "Create only 1 multilayer image" option to have all the frames as layers of a single image (so you could then simply save as an animated gif without any problem)

Then after extracting each frame/layer into a different image ( Split Image to Frames )
file -> new followed by file -> Open as layer with all the extracted image selected (so all are renamed automatically with how GAP want them named, i mean ...._00001.xcf, for the other functions to work)

Then using "Frame Density" without "increase density" enabled, set to 2 or 3 or even 4 to trim down the enormous amount of frames/layers into something that would then end into a much less heavy gif, it worked great.

But that said i ran into a few problems that are annoying me and i can't find a solution :

Problem :
When doing the saving of every frames, GAP does not ask me where to extract and arbitrarly decided to extract all those hundred of images in my document&setting / username directory and i don't want gap to do that, that's super annoying to not be able to tell that thing to extract in a prepared folder.

Is there any way i can force GAP to save extracted file exactly where i want instead of it doing so where i DONT want ?

Problem 2 :
Very likely related to Problem 1, GAP does not remember the path to my videos when i launch it again, so it still insist to look for them into my document&setting / username directory and i have to re-point to my video folder every single time i want to make a gif from a video.

Problem 3 :
If i close GIMP and want to rework an existing image (that i have saved the original multilayer xcf ), all the functions of GAP do not work for that image anymore (i mean i can't setup anymore the min and max range for any of them, both stay at 0 ) , and even if i put back those myriad of xfc into my document&setting / username directory , all i have for most functions is :

(despite it's obvious they are correctly named)
While if i had worked on the image in GIMP from A to Z until i have my animated gif, it worked.

Any solution to that path problem or is GAP simply broken in 2.8.20 on windows ?

What is the filename of your saved .xcf file ??
It looks like the message says - only works on FILENAMES with something ending
in a number?
Sorry for not much help, only used it once a long time ago.

But that's the problem, the file names are correct, and everything works if i do the complete process (extract video into gimp layers with GAP -> gimp and GAP editing -> export as gif from GIMP) , but those errors will happen if at some point of that process i stop GIMP (of course saving the current multi-layer image to not restart from scratch), the relaunch GIMP with the saved image and resume work, despite all the files are still there and in same folder they were saved, errors will now happen.

Only workaround i had was to redo the Split Image to Frames to resave the files , overwriting the original ones that were still there (due to same names of course), can't make sense of this.

Sorry if I am misunderstanding, but do your layernames need to be .xcf also?

Not at first, but they become like that when you reopen all the previously individually saved layers into the same image.
But as i mentionned if i do the complete work and end with my finished animated gif without saving and quitting Gimp before finishing, it works good that way.


Thank you, i had no idea there was a GAP 2.7
Unfortunately i found out it's actually much worse than GAP 2.6

After removing all the files that came from GAP 2.6, i installed the GAP 2.7 ones
I immediately noticed that when i do a test Split Video into Frames -> Extract Videorange , when clicking the "Video Range" button after browsing to my mp4 video, the thing never stop to refresh the "Videoseek" , meaning you simply can't move the slider to preview the frame without the whole thing reloading completely wasting near 10 seconds for each slider movement.

In the 2.6 version it was doing it once, then you could move the slider and preview immediately as expected without having to wait for the "videoseek" to do its reloading constantly, that's actually very bad and making the whole thing borderline unusable as when you look for frame you need immediate reaction from the program, not between 5 or 10 seconds everytime you move the slider a pixel or two.

And still no possibility to select the destination folder, and even worse gap_video_extract.exe just crashed during the extraction, i'll have to remove this 2.7 one .
At least the 2.6 one despite some very odd behaviour at least worked , assuming you were doing the work from A to Z without saving and closing GIMP in the process.



I think i understand now after all those problems, i guess i'll have to find something else than GAP and than Gimp for when it is about extracting frames from video and ending into a gif as from my searches there's no alternative to GAP for Gimp unfortunately.
I hoped to not have to use external programs when i work with Gimp but with GAP in that state on windows and in 2.8.20 , it's not possible without headaches.

Thanks everyone for trying to help.

FWIW

You could try Avidemux to obtain the series of frames. Unlike some it is frame accurate, not restricted to keyframes.

The version to get is the old Avidemux 2.5 which has this option see: https://www.videohelp.com/software/AviDemux

The last installers for 2.5

https://www.videohelp.com/download/avid ... _win64.exe
or
https://www.videohelp.com/download/avid ... _win32.exe

mark the in and out then save as a series of jpeg. Sorry that is the only format option.

example:

have you ever tried ffmpeg and handbrake?

I had used Avidemux in the past when i was just cutting part of videos and saving them again, but i had no idea it could simply export frames as images too.
JPG isn't the best of course, but as things will end in low quality gif anyways it does not make much difference to me.
Thanks, i'll give this version 2.5.6 a go



Interesting that ffmpeg could do that :
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1095 ... ing-ffmpeg
I didn't knew this, thanks.

Never heard about Handbrake before, if avidemux or ffmpeg aren't satisfying i'll give it a closer look

EDIT : just tried a test with avidemux 2.5.6 and it's excellent, so much faster than with GAP as there's no reloading/refreshing when you explore the frames
And after setting A and B , a simple File -> Save -> Save selection as jpeg does the trick.
unfortunately for the frame density tool (this one is very usefull) of gap to work, after loading all those frames into single multi-layer image, you'll still have to Split Image to Frame , but at least in gap 2.6 there's no problem with that function even in gimp 2.8.20
only that lack of ability from gap to setup the destination folder is still irritating, but probably better than nothing.

that's a nice function from avidemux.