GIF Quickie

leofox · Post by **leofox** » Tue 22 Aug, 2006 9:50 pm

I dont understand GIMP. I got it to make an animated koopa troopa but i can't even make a decent drawing in it. I had to make the koopa troopa in MSPaint xD

Arcane WIzard · Post by **Arcane WIzard** » Tue 22 Aug, 2006 10:54 pm

The pen/brush tools are really handy.

thegamefreak0134 · Post by **thegamefreak0134** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 3:44 pm

OK, I personally don't like GIMP. I am looking for something simple. The tools given (in like the first reply or so) work easily like I wanted, but for some odd reason don't make the animation go nearly as fast as it's supposed to.

I'm seriously considering just throwing the sprites into the game and seeing what it looks like there, since it's simpler than messing with a clunky GUI (of which most pay-for programs are.)

Thanks.

-gamefreak

Post by **benryves** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 3:49 pm

The speed of animation in browsers varies quite a lot. You can create GIFs that go like the clappers in FF but run more sedately in IE. When using ImageReady, I specify 0.6ms as the maximum time between frames as it seems to run fluidly (and fast) under the majority of browsers.

Then again, you have other things like the Windows Picture and Fax viewer that plays back GIF animations quite slowly.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 4:02 pm

but then, the Windows Picture ans Fax viewer isnt much of a program, so i wrote my own pic viewer once, i'll see how fast GIF's run on it...
what are the inner-workings of a GIF like anyway?
(may write a drag an' drop gif creator its real easy, like just drag the next frame and there you go.. if its easy)

Post by **benryves** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 4:18 pm

Whenever you want to know about a file format, your first port of call is Wotsit's Format. It gave me, amongst others, this link.

I don't really see much of a problem with the picture and fax viewer - it does what it says on the tin.

thegamefreak0134 · Post by **thegamefreak0134** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 4:31 pm

... That might explain a lot. Why would windows write a program if it's so horribly crappy? I mean, I've never ever ever ever had a use for simply opening a file to look at it. You print it out if you need to do that. No, they wrote it for the idiots who think computers exist primarily to work with mictures and MP3 files. Those of us who actually need to use them for what makes them usefull are stuck with fighting the idiot-proofness of horrible written code.

</ranting>

Windows Picture and Fax Viewer was probably the issue. I'll look into that.

-gamefreak

Post by **benryves** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 4:38 pm

thegamefreak0134 wrote:Those of us who actually need to use them for what makes them usefull are stuck with fighting the idiot-proofness of horrible written code.

I'm not sure what you're ranting at, but I am yet to see any two applications that display GIF animations at the same speed. Accurate timing doesn't seem to be part of the spec.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 5:30 pm

i agree with thegamefreak, and i guess i'll try to write a GIF displayer with good timing.
and that picture and fax viewer.. well.. it has a lot of crap around it that doesnt need to be there, all kinds of things that make the code unstable and long while only adding some stupid thingie that may look nice or make the program idiot proof, it makes it slow and unstable.. a picture viewer should only be that, not also have extra stuff around it like "save and edit the picture" or a print button (right-click print would do the trick..) and the worst of all things: a limitation to only 1 active window! the pic viewer of windows vista got rid of it though, MS finally having some sensible ideas?

Arcane WIzard · Post by **Arcane WIzard** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 5:40 pm

thegamefreak0134 wrote:OK, I personally don't like GIMP. I am looking for something simple.

1) Open the last frame of the animation with GIMP.
2) In the window that appears (and contains the image) select File->Open as layer (Control + Alt + O)
3) Select all the other files for the animation and hit Open or the enter key or whatever you want.
4) File->Save as.. (Ctrl + Shift + S) -> "filename.gif" -> click through dialogs
5) Done.

No wonder you don't understand the purpose of Window's File Picture And Fax Viewer. If you're such a clevar almighty advanced Windows XP user, why don't you replace the default image open action with something you prefer instead of crying about it?

Well I for one like having an instantly loading preview window that let's me browse images in a directory (try using thumbnails for a dir with 3000-30000 images) smoothly while I have controls for zooming, fitting, rotating, deleting, and a shortcut to an editor all within reach.

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 5:50 pm

benryves wrote:Accurate timing doesn't seem to be part of the spec.

As far as I know (more like what I gathered when writing my outputter), frame times are given in hundredths of a second. However, the smallest value that seems to work somewhat consistently among applications is 11, i. e. around a ninth of a second.

thegamefreak0134 · Post by **thegamefreak0134** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 7:46 pm

No wonder you don't understand the purpose of Window's File Picture And Fax Viewer. If you're such a clevar almighty advanced Windows XP user, why don't you replace the default image open action with something you prefer instead of crying about it?

It's not so much a problem with the changing it. I'm not that dumb...

I just don't like it, that's all. I do know how to change it, I just don't like the program taking up my hard-drive space with it's cheapishness. Not to mention that it's in the sidebar, and you can't customize the sidebar at all to my knowledge.

If I can get it to work, I might be happy with GIMP. Course, if you're serious about writing a simple GIF diaplayer, it would be real nice to have it just plow away at 60 FPS, regardless, since that's what I really need.

-gamefreak

Arcane WIzard · Post by **Arcane WIzard** » Wed 23 Aug, 2006 8:18 pm

It's not a seperate program, it's a window generated by explorer. It's the same part of Windows as the filmstrip view option, the thumbnails, and the My Pictures folder sidebar. It uses a DLL for the image processing, which you actually /can/ delete if you don't want this functionality.

It's not cheapish. :<

I think you can edit the sidebars, though why you would have explorer functions like the image sidebar when you don't like the functionality of the viewer is beyond me, they offer the same options (ok the viewer has 2 more, which makes it better), just in a different window layout. But in which sidebar is it? I don't see it anywhere..

Scavenger · Post by **Scavenger** » Sat 26 Aug, 2006 10:38 pm

I use Paint to edit it frame by frame, then import it into Beneton Movie GIF to add on some extra touches and save it. It's freeware and really easy to use, the only reason I use paint for each frame is that the zoom is weird. But other than that, it's a great free program.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Tue 29 Aug, 2006 7:04 pm

http://www.freewebs.com/lawcompany/PicView.exe
it displays animated GIFs too
(click on the window somewhere to open a picture)
tell me what you think (you probebly think its crap lol but tell me anyway.. i may make a new version)
edit: oh and when you start the program without a picture and then close the openfiledialog you'll get a nice "unhandled exeption", and when you open a picture the event handler will only catch your click if it happens to be somewhere on the picture (something about automatic resize..)
and you need .NET 2.0 or higher...