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export as gif

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 1:20 am
by superonIII
i searched and didn't discover, i'm sure this must have been mentioned somewhere though so with the risk of double posting or posting in the wrong place hanging there i'm still going ahead with this request:)
animated gifs would be nice and hopefully lessen discolouration due to my current process of passing the images through other apps.

even if i'm just getting discolouring due to my own ineptitude i still feel this would be a great addition;)
spreading the love

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 2:44 am
by funksmaname
Hey superon,
regardless of where it's exported, GIFs can only contain 256 colours, and are often large and cumbersome. It's probably less your ineptitude than the limitations of the format, and the ambitious nature of what you might be trying to export - few, solid colours will export ok, but as soon as one or more things have a gradient you will struggle to make it look remotely acceptable. Crazy dithering will be introduced. Exporting gifs directly from AS might save a couple of steps but is unlikely to offer any quality improvements over taking PNG's into photoshop and exporting from there...

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 2:58 am
by superonIII
funksmaname wrote:Hey superon,
regardless of where it's exported, GIFs can only contain 256 colours, and are often large and cumbersome. It's probably less your ineptitude than the limitations of the format, and the ambitious nature of what you might be trying to export - few, solid colours will export ok, but as soon as one or more things have a gradient you will struggle to make it look remotely acceptable. Crazy dithering will be introduced. Exporting gifs directly from AS might save a couple of steps but is unlikely to offer any quality improvements over taking PNG's into photoshop and exporting from there...
ahh yeah, now i'm sure it's me being poo. i'm having a problem with white FFFFFF being translated to off-white, barely noticeable but still. thanks for the reminder, i'll be bashing the import/export options until it gets resolved;)

just a little time-saving perhaps, but it all adds up to years if i get to hammer long enough.

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:08 am
by funksmaname
i find exporting as PNG sequence is great quality - then import that into photoshop you shouldn't have discolouration...

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 7:05 am
by SvenFoster
I'm pretty sure you are hitting some pain with the gif format but since I don't use photoshop dunno.
I exprt in png and then run a simple image magik command line to process them.

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:33 am
by superonIII
as a suggestion i still think it's a worthwhile one, on the box (Anime Studio pro 8 ) it states "Complete Animation for Professionals and Digital Artists", and i'd have to agree that it's less than complete if it requires another program to be able to create .gif files. indeed if it were complete i wouldn't see so many people using various other app and software in order to create the "look" they desire.
heyho, would like to receive suggestions if people have them on software available that does this process.
i've tried Gimp (this has preset colour palette issues that i'm unable to resolve the rgb colour palette will set itself to one which translates white FFFFFF to grey, approximately white but not white / http://gimpforums.com/thread-white-turns-grey) and GIFfun (this has additional preset frame delay issues).

so here's my process:
1) create png image sequence using AS and put them in a folder
2) crack open photoshop CS3
3) file > scripts > load file into stack
4) change to folder and search for folder, choose it and ok
5) wait for a minute or 2 while it deals with loading the images (usually about 50 100x100 px files)
6) goto timeline and choose Make Frames From Layers
7) drag and shift_select whole timeline and set the base delay for frames
8) ( 8 ) choose Reverse Frames option ('cos it puts them in backwards as standard)
9) set individual delay for frames where required to differ
10) Save for Web & Devices...
11) set Colours (mostly for file size reduction), Transparency and Looping options
12) Save

even with my ignorance about some issues here i can say that it would be faster, simpler and more cost effective if the >.gif process could be dealt with within AS.

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 1:34 am
by JaMike
superonIII wrote:it's less than complete if it requires another program to be able to create .gif files
That's a bit unfair - hardly anyone wants to export quality animation as GIFs any more. The frame rate is all messed up, and the 256 colour limit is a real problem.

None of the big name professional animation tools export GIF (as far as I remember) - there's many more features I'd want before I'd worry about native GIF.

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 1:22 pm
by Rhoel
From memory, there is also a licensing issue with Gif - its propitiatory and you have to pay a license few to use it in a program.

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 2:38 pm
by SvenFoster
image magik
convert -delay 20 -loop 0 files*.png outputfilename.gif

So long as your files are names *01.png *02.png etc(as anime does already) it will order them just fine.

there are other options to enhance things, set scaling, change the type of transitions(incremental, full etc) and change the background image, composite etc...

if you are on mac or *nix its probably installed, if not its a 2 second job.

I'm on mac, and even tho I can script there is no need, I have an automator task that runs the above when the files change in a dir.

then again.. hardly earth shattering to put it in a .bat file if you are on <the other OS> ;)


superonIII wrote:as a suggestion i still think it's a worthwhile one, on the box (Anime Studio pro 8 ) it states "Complete Animation for Professionals and Digital Artists", and i'd have to agree that it's less than complete if it requires another program to be able to create .gif files. indeed if it were complete i wouldn't see so many people using various other app and software in order to create the "look" they desire.
heyho, would like to receive suggestions if people have them on software available that does this process.
i've tried Gimp (this has preset colour palette issues that i'm unable to resolve the rgb colour palette will set itself to one which translates white FFFFFF to grey, approximately white but not white / http://gimpforums.com/thread-white-turns-grey) and GIFfun (this has additional preset frame delay issues).

so here's my process:
1) create png image sequence using AS and put them in a folder
2) crack open photoshop CS3
3) file > scripts > load file into stack
4) change to folder and search for folder, choose it and ok
5) wait for a minute or 2 while it deals with loading the images (usually about 50 100x100 px files)
6) goto timeline and choose Make Frames From Layers
7) drag and shift_select whole timeline and set the base delay for frames
8) ( 8 ) choose Reverse Frames option ('cos it puts them in backwards as standard)
9) set individual delay for frames where required to differ
10) Save for Web & Devices...
11) set Colours (mostly for file size reduction), Transparency and Looping options
12) Save

even with my ignorance about some issues here i can say that it would be faster, simpler and more cost effective if the >.gif process could be dealt with within AS.