Prepared by Iva Haddad & Suha Maria
GIF animations are easy to make; you use commonly available tools, there is no programming necessary, no plug-ins are required, and you use the common HTML tag to display them on your web page. A GIF animation is simply a single GIF file that is composed of a series of individual still images plus some timing information. Playing these images in sequence gives the effect of motion much like one of those flipbooks that you probably made as a kid.
There are two goals to designing optimum animations;
First, to select colors that will display well in a variety
of computer monitors, browsers and
platforms.
Second, to design animations that can compress well to small
file sizes so they download quickly. With the Back-button and Stop button only a click
away, many surfers will bail out waiting for a large, slow animations to creep across the
page.
http://members.aol.com/royalef/gifmakf.htm
Here is an example of how to make an
Animated GIF VERY easily.
1.Draw some pictures. For example, drew enter signs, each one with a different text color:
Save your pictures in one folder with the name of your GIF!
2.Next label the pictures with easy to remember names. labeled as these, e01.GIF, e02.GIF,
and e03.GIF.
3.Now, open up your GIF Construction Set. Go up to File, then click on Animation Wizard.
This will take you through an
EASY step by step guide. It will ask you stuff like if you will use this on the web, (your
answer to this is probably yes),
and how much time you want between each frame of your animation(in hundredths).
4.When done with the Wizard, you might want to press view to see if it turned out right.
5.Now save it...give it a name like enter.GIF . It will also make a file with .THN on the
end. The file of this was called
enter.THN.
6.Upload it. All you need to upload is the GIF file. Skip the other ifs along with the
.THN file.
7.Look at your work! Remember, no lousy Navigator 1.0 will do!
Large space below and to the right of the GIF; GPF on animation.
Looping animation repaint on screen when they restart.
Transparent animations leave trails or aren’t transparent at
all.
Timing or transparency doesn’t take place at the correct
points in the animations.
Animations get stuck, don't loop, or don’t animate at all.
Animated GIF Backgrounds, User Input, and Previous Image
Removal/Disposal.
Timing Delays too slow, too fast, not at all.
Looping and stopping problems.
Animations are slow.
Graphic HTML tag not working.
to get more information " http://members.aol.com/royalef/topten.htm"
GIF Animation is the poor man's format.
Simple, but efficient enough for many
animations. From this report we learned the following:
GIF allows for any number of colors between
2 and 256. The fewer colors the less data and the
smaller the graphic files.
GIFs have the ability to store a local palette with each image inside it. GIF palettes use three bytes for each color.
Also, we learned that you need some software to make your animations, which are:
a graphic program to make the individual images
a GIF animation program to assembly the images into
a single GIF file and add the timing information.
a compression program to compact the animation file.
There are several good programs available for free or very inexpensively.
References for the animated object on the page:
http://members.aol.com/royalef1/galframe.htm
http://www.bellsnwhistles.com/page13.html
http://www.gifworld.com/mainframe.php3?page=icons.htm
http://www.kaleidoscapes.com/kidstuff/dcard.htm
Revised April 11, 1999
By Iva Haddad & Suha Maria, ihaddad@mail.gcccd.cc.ca.us & smaria@mail.gcccd.cc.ca.us
for CIS 212, Cuyamaca College