Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this idea of “live” tarot cards, and I wanted to share how I’ve been going about it. It’s been a bit of a journey, so buckle up!
Getting Started: The Basic Idea
First, I needed, you know, actual tarot cards. I grabbed a deck I had lying around – the classic Rider-Waite deck, nothing fancy. Then I had to figure out how to make them “live.” My initial thought was, “Wouldn’t it be cool if the images moved, like those old-timey lenticular pictures?”
Experimenting with Tech
So, my first experiment involved taking pictures of the cards. Like, a LOT of pictures. I set up my phone on a little tripod thingy, and for each card, I took shots from slightly different angles. The idea was to stitch them together later to create a sort of wobbly, animated effect.
- Step 1: Get the cards. Check.
- Step 2: Set up a makeshift photo studio. Kinda check.
- Step 3: Take a million photos. Definitely check.
Man, was that tedious! But hey, gotta start somewhere, right?
The “Animation” Process (and Frustration)
Next up, I had to figure out how to turn these photos into something, you know, moving. I tried a bunch of free online GIF makers. You upload the images, set the speed, and boom, supposedly you have an animated GIF. Except, it didn’t quite “boom” for me.
The results were… underwhelming. The GIFs were either super choppy, or the files were HUGE. It was hard to get that smooth, slightly-off-kilter movement I was imagining.
Trying a Different Tack
After banging my head against the GIF wall for a while, I decided to try something different. Instead of trying to animate the whole card, I thought, “What if I just focus on parts of the image?”
I’m using is a simple video editing program that I found. I loaded the picture of the card, and start to use some basic editing tools like zoom in, out, pan, fade in, out, and masking.
It’s still a work in progress. I’ve only done a few cards so far. But I’m learning as I go, and it’s actually pretty fun, even when it’s frustrating. This whole process has been a reminder that sometimes, the coolest projects come from just messing around and seeing what happens.
