October 2014 Tips and Tricks - Big GIFs, Tiny Animations

[Gare]

Lest anyone’s feeling be hurt (although I’ve noticed this to be fairly thick-skinned crows!), let me provide a definition of the word critiqué before we go any farther; the word criticize is a derivation of critiqué, but not truly the same word. Critiqué (noun): An unbiased evaluation or appraisal of a work or body or work.

When you remark that something is good and you say it’s good, what you have said is a critique. Similarly, when something is bad, you call a spade a space, not partiality, no extra points because the creator is your friend or something.

Theinonen, I’m going to take a pass on remarking about your work, because 1.) You’ve stated twice that you’re lazy, and that 2.) you used a “slightly different technique” on your animation. Which means you either disagreed with it or didn’t read it, which sort of defeats the point of me spending time creating a monthly tutorial for you; the word tutorial is a derivation of the word “teach”.

I have a few questions to throw out for anyone on this area to answer (or to ask me for the answer). And I’d like honest answers, not snarks or jibes.

1. Why is Theinonen’s piece 10K larger than the one I taught to build, seeing as this month’s tutorial makes the promise to make large animated GIFs that are small in file size?

2. Why is there clearly banding inside the faces when lit up: hint-it has something to do with a Global Optimized palette and very little to do with the Maximum number of colors used?

3. Why does the background image appear to vibrate from frame to frame, even though in theory it’s the background and should not change from frame to frame unless an Overlay shape is on top of that area—which is not the case.


If someone doesn’t learn anything on The Xara Xone, then I am to blame, not the person who is playing student for the moment. It means I’m not doing my job, and this is why I’m tossing out these questions.

I’m not calling you out, The Oninonen. This is a critique area, I’ve just been prompted to ask questions by your post, and you, unfortunately, chose to go first in “class”. :)

My Best,

Gary (frequently a student)

By the way, I like the fact that Thenonin elected to design his own pumpkin faces. It shows creativity and exploration, and doesn't impact on the gist of the tutorial at all.