| Fleeting Glimpse > GIF Animation Instructions > Getting Ready | |
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You'll need some software to make your animations;
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| Getting Ready | step1 |
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A graphics program |
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I use Gifcon to assemble the animation and A Smaller Gif to compress it. |
Programs to assemble and compress the animation Gifcon These instructions are based on Gifcon (GIF Construction Set for Windows) from Alchemy Mindworks. This is a very well featured and inexpensive shareware program for PCs. It includes an Animation Wizard to automate assembly, 10 transitions (like wipes, splits and sandstorm), a banner creator, font shadowing and embossing. It also has an integrated compression function. http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/alchemy.html Other good animation programs include;
Gif Animator - Microsoft's PC program is very basic but free. Some limitations -- it can only import gif images; a work-around to import bmp, jpg of tif files is to copy the
non-gif file to the clipboard and paste it into Gif Animator. It's viewer sometimes has trouble displaying compressed animations. It has no optimization function. But it's free.
Microsoft doesn't offer it at their site anymore but you can still get it at Softseek. Just seach for "Gif Animator" and it will show up in the
results.
ULead Gif Animator Lite - Another freeware animator you can get at Softseek. Just seach for "Gif Animator" and it will show up in the
results. V In-Depth V Some more advanced, more expensive programs to consider if you are going to make animations often;
PhotoImpact Gif Animator from Ulead Systems for Win95/NT. Full featured like Gifcon.
A Smaller GIF from Pedagogue Software doesn't assemble animations but I use it because it does a better job of compressing files than other
programs. The unregistered version won't save files but will tell you how much they will be compressed and functions fully as a viewer. Gif.gIf.giF is a special purpose program by Pedagogue Software for making gif animations the quick and easy way -- by screen capture. And it compresses the file to a very compact size. Gif.gIf.giF is available for MacIntosh, Power MacIntosh, Win3.x with win32s, and Win95 for $28. If you are a Photoshop user and generate your animations using layers, this program is great -- for each frame, just make visible the appropriate layers, and grab it with Gif.gIf.giF. This program is cool. http://www.peda.com/ggg |
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For more on colors on the web, there are links on my More Information page. |
A web palette You should also get the "web palette" (also know as a "Netscape palette", "Browser Safe palette" or the "non-dithering palette") to use with you graphics program. The palette contains the 216 colors that are supported by both PCs and Macs and both Netscape and IE on monitors with at least 256 colors (the other 40 colors vary on Macs and PCs). If you use colors from this palette, people will see them exactly as you drew them.  But if you use colors not in this
palette, they may be approximated on 256-color monitors either by shifting to the nearest web color or by dithering, that is, approximating the non-web color by combining pixels of two or
more different web colors resulting in a grainy, speckled look. Either way your work of art may look different, and worse, than you intended. The figure on the right shows how two
different colors would look on a 256 color display - first a web color that will appear as solid (non-dithered) and a non-web color that would be approximated by dithering with 3 web
colors.
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The R-G-B hex values for web colors are limited to 0, 33, 66, 99, CC, FF (in decimal 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255) |
Wondering how many colors your video display shows? Here are a some ways to find out;
Intro < Ready > Plan > Draw > Assemble > Compress > Place > More Info > Inspiration
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The 216 colors in the web palette are shown on the right. Some programs like
Adobe PhotoShop come with a web palette already included. To make a web palette for Paint Shop Pro, first save the image on the right. Now open the image in Paint Shop Pro, then save
the image's palette by selecting COLORS|SAVE PALETTE and naming it something like 216col.pal. Save it to a directory where you can easily find it later. More on using this palette
later.