I've tried searching, but haven't been able to find any straight-forward instructions for creating a simple animated gif.
I've attached an example of what I'm trying to do.
Perhaps you can tell me or point me in the right direction.
Thanks so much!
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I've tried searching, but haven't been able to find any straight-forward instructions for creating a simple animated gif.
I've attached an example of what I'm trying to do.
Perhaps you can tell me or point me in the right direction.
Thanks so much!
an animated gif is a simple thing
you just use a sequence of still pictures and you swap one for another fast so that it appears to 'move'
so in your example you would have five pictures they would all be the same except that the first would have 'Happy' the second that would be changed to 'New'.... and so on to five
you would need to open an animation document and use the frame gallery
the straight forward way is to position your photo and text in the first frame and then use the copy button on the frame gallery to copy the frame and then change the text and then repeat until done
not the most efficient way, but for five frames it may not matter as long as the file size ends up acceptable
you can adjust the timing in the properties [button on frame gallery again]
if you end up with too clumsy a file then you will need to delve into the use of backgrounds and overlays
Thanks for helping me!
Can you elaborate on what an "animation document" is? Is this something that is found in Xara?
Also, when I click on Utilities > Galleries and look for the Frame Gallery, it is grayed out and I'm not able to select/click on it. Do you know what that means?
It means you haven't opened a new Animation document.Quote:
Originally Posted by fuss
File>>New>>Animation
Oh, wait, I think I figured out what you mean.
1. Open new animation document: FILE > NEW > ANIMATION
Once I did that, I see that the GALLERIES > FRAME GALLERY now appears.
I'm kind of loss as to what to do next though. (I'm a newbie, not a power user of Xara).
Can you (or anyone) provide some further steps?
Press F1Quote:
Originally Posted by fuss
Once I create an animated gif (i.e., I have all the frames set up and the timing set), do I just save/export in .gif and that's it, or does it need to be saved in some other particular format?
Yeah, that didn't work. Does anyone know what to do once you have all the frames set up? What format is it supposed to be saved in to work?
File>>Export animation
Select from .swf / .gif and .avi formats.
That's what I couldn't find. But after posting, I see now that it's under a separate export command.
So for those who are new like me, here are the steps:
FILE > (and then scroll down until you see) EXPORT ANIMATION.
From there, you can save the file type as animated gif, animated flash or AVI video.
I have another problem now.
So I exported the file as an animated .gif and it's working. Yay!
BUT, when I insert it onto my web page, it's got the dimensions as 480x320px instead of the size of the image I created which is 289x100px.
Does anyone know what on earth is going on with that? It's like the image appears as the right size, but it's like it's added all this invisible padding around it. I have no clue what is going on or how to fix.
I think this is a clue:
When I opened a new animation document, it automatically had a small white background that I am noticing now appear to be the same dimensions at 480x320px.
I didn't think anything of it because there's always a white background whenever I open up any new document. But when I save/export things, they never pick up that white background. I've always thought that was just the working desktop.
But it would seem that the export is actually including that white desktop background.
Does that seems right? How do I get rid of it?
you should be able to change the page size in the animation document in the same way as you change a page size in a normal document [in options] - make it the same size as your background photo - you may need to reposition after and if you need to do this across frames you will need to make all frames visible and all frames editable in the frame gallery so you can select everything at once [just like you would in the layer gallery in a normal document]
fuss - When you have a moment, can you update your profile so we know what product(s) you are using? This will help us when we answer your questions.
Thanks you so much, handrawn! I was going batty trying to figure that out. Funny how it doesn't pickup that background desktop on any of my other documents when I save/export. Is it just because it's an animated file?
Oh, sorry about that Gary! I didn't even realize all that was there. All done now. :)
It's not necessary to change the page size, you can select either to export the Page or just the Page Content in the export options dialogue box.
It's also not necessary to copy the photograph to every page. Paste the photo in the first layer, set it as the background by ticking the left check box, in the properties un-check show frame tick box (It will still be visible, it just won't have a display frame of it's own in the animation)
The big problem with gif's are their limitation to 256 colours so perhaps you'd be better off exporting as a swf which uses millions of colours. (If you do this you'll need to check the show frame box on the background layer and give it a 0.01 sec display time).
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Egg! This is just the last bit of details I need to get straight! Mucho appreciated. :)
:D at this rate you'll soon be an expert