Brief topic on animated GIFs
Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:34 pm
Since there has been occasional interest in how animated GIFs are created, I created this discussion here. 
yet other times I use other software to achieve similar results.
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
The key to allowing the animation to function well within a browser (such as FireFox and others)
is to make sure the GIF is less than about 1 megabyte in size
Problems may start to happen if the GIF is larger than ~ 1 MB, such as distortion or it may not display at all,
so it's a trade-off between GIF playing-time and GIF size (width x height).
You can have a huge GIF that repeats for a short time, (1 to 5 secs) or a small GIF that plays for a long time, such as 2 to 3 minutes.
You can trim away the GIF size by decreasing the GIF frame rate, for example, there may be a range of 2 fps all the way to 30 fps,
(fps = frames per second)
I typically use frame rates of 6 or 8 fps, to save on size.
You can also trim away GIF size by decreasing color depth, for example, you can use 16 colors instead of 256.
But when you start using less colors, it starts to look bad, obviously.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some free alternative software (instead of using C.S.) :
Free Screen Video Recorder
{ Sometimes the output is choppy, so I hope you can find something better. }
http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dv ... corder.htm
Free Video to GIF converter { works nicely }
http://www.video-gif-converter.com/
There are lots of screen recorders out there, and probably better than what I've listed here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One other program that is both fun and easy to use is
Active GIF Creator; { has a demo too }
http://active-gif-creator.soft32.com/
One of the neat things about this program is that you can decompile other people's GIFs. ( I love taking things apart.
)
So, here's a before and after scenario using LittleZbot's avatar as an example.
BEFORE, (the original):
AFTER, (has now been decompiled and resized),
proving that "SHAKE IT" is made from 13 frames:
You can taKE any GIF and decompile it into its frames, ..., and then do stuff with the frames.
I'll use a demo of Camtasia Studio to create GIFs, since it performs the best,Liz Mayhew wrote:I've been playing this one too, but haven't managed to get to the exit yet!
It's fun trying though ...
Andy - how did you do that mini-video?
yet other times I use other software to achieve similar results.
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
The key to allowing the animation to function well within a browser (such as FireFox and others)
is to make sure the GIF is less than about 1 megabyte in size
Problems may start to happen if the GIF is larger than ~ 1 MB, such as distortion or it may not display at all,
so it's a trade-off between GIF playing-time and GIF size (width x height).
You can have a huge GIF that repeats for a short time, (1 to 5 secs) or a small GIF that plays for a long time, such as 2 to 3 minutes.
You can trim away the GIF size by decreasing the GIF frame rate, for example, there may be a range of 2 fps all the way to 30 fps,
(fps = frames per second)
I typically use frame rates of 6 or 8 fps, to save on size.
You can also trim away GIF size by decreasing color depth, for example, you can use 16 colors instead of 256.
But when you start using less colors, it starts to look bad, obviously.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some free alternative software (instead of using C.S.) :
Free Screen Video Recorder
{ Sometimes the output is choppy, so I hope you can find something better. }
http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dv ... corder.htm
Free Video to GIF converter { works nicely }
http://www.video-gif-converter.com/
There are lots of screen recorders out there, and probably better than what I've listed here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One other program that is both fun and easy to use is
Active GIF Creator; { has a demo too }
http://active-gif-creator.soft32.com/
One of the neat things about this program is that you can decompile other people's GIFs. ( I love taking things apart.
)So, here's a before and after scenario using LittleZbot's avatar as an example.
BEFORE, (the original):
AFTER, (has now been decompiled and resized),
proving that "SHAKE IT" is made from 13 frames:
You can taKE any GIF and decompile it into its frames, ..., and then do stuff with the frames.
