Animated GIF transparent backround

Hi, I just want to know how I can get rid of the white fringe in an animated GIF. I know how to do this with a still image, but with the animated GIF's it won't work. I want to put the animated GIF on a webpage, but this webpage has an image backround. Can you take a look for me? http://www.jplangkamp.nl and then click on 'Dogs'. You can see what the problem is: it has a blue backround, because I've obviously made the page backround in Xara blue, but I want it transparent WITHOUT the generally hated white fringe.
So, what to do?
Thanks, MarciaB

Ah !

You made it in Xara. You need to tick the "Make Background Transparent" option.

See screen grab

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Ah !

You made it in Xara. You need to tick the "Make Background Transparent" option.

See screen grab

---

Hi Egg, thanks, but I already did that. It still has the fringe...What am I doing wrong?
MarciaB

Hi Marcie,

Make your background the colour you will use the animation on. You can drag a colour from the colour line to a blank area of the work space and hold the control key down and release. Or you can open the colour gallery, select a colour and then click the Background option at the top of the gallery.

Works the same way if you are working in the standard work space.

As you are probably aware, the background colour that a gif is antialiased to will cause the fringe you see when the gif (still or animated) is used over another background colour.

Hi Bill, thanks for your answer, but I did all those things already...
Maybe the problem is that the webpage backround is an image?
Did you take a look at the page? www.jplangkamp.nl and then click on 'Dogs!'
It's a mystery, but I think I'm still doing something wrong. Again, with a still image there's no problem.
Gr. MarciaB

Marcia,

Post your xar file here and we'll try to do the transparency for you.

Here it is...
Marcia

I guess I'm not seeing the fringe you see. There are white highlights from the lighting on the photo. There are jaggies. But I don't see white fringe on the animated, tail-wagging dog on the Web page. This is with IE6.

Dave

here's what i see - looks great to me

Perchance she's asking how to make the black background transparent, so her site's background shows up through it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by David O'Neil

Perchance she's asking how to make the black background transparent, so her site's background shows up through it?

---

Taking the xar file and making an everything-default transparent GIF, I get this - the 'white' edges on the right front leg, the chest and snout are, as far as I can tell, just the highlights from the original carved dog photo. There is a slight dark blue fringe (most visible where the left rear leg superposes on the carved dog in the b.g.), but I wouldn't consider this objectionable.

Marcia,

Try this on your site.

Yes, that's exacly what I want, David! I don't want the white fringe on the page, so that's why I've made it non-transparent for now.
Anyway, thanks everybody for taking a look at this!
Marcia

Hello Egg, I've put your dog on the web, see what I mean?
Marcia

Ah yes, now I remember. This was an annoying bug that started with the introduction of XaraX, whereby the background keeps defaulting to white. It's such a long time since I used Xtreme for animations I'd forgotten this one. I'm away for the next 36 hours, but I'll try and do a search on my return to see if we ever found a workaround for this.

Try this one.

Yesss! You did it! :) The big Q is now: HOW??? In XaraXtreme?? :confused:
I tried to manage it in Flash 5 but obviously didn't succeed...
Hope to hear from you in about 34 hours,
Marcia

Hi Marcia,

This is how I cheated!

1: In XaraXtreme, create your transparent animated gif. (Name it 0.gif. It will have white fringes even on a dark blue backgound as you discovered earlier)
2: Select frame 1 and export a transparent (static) gif. (Name=1.gif)
3: Select frame 2 and export a transparent (static) gif. (Name=2.gif)
4: In XaraXtreme Select the "New Animation" icon
5: Import the animated gif named 0.gif.
6: Select frame 1 and import 1.gif. Alt select to select the older gif below & delete.
7: Select frame 2 and import 2.gif. Alt select to select the older gif below & delete.
8: Select "File" / "Export Animated gif", select transparent and export as 4.gif

It sounds more long winded than it actually is, however it's a workaround that we shouldn't need to do. Early versions of XaraX didn't have this bug.

I think your partners carvings are excellent by the way.

A zillion thanks Egg! Why didn't I think of that? I only changed the colour depth to 256 colours because with only 16 he/she lost his/her big smile...:)
Boy, am I glad I found these forums (fora?) ! :D
Case closed !