hi. I made a nice animation that is supposed to end up as a GIF.
I’m perfectly happy re-rendering in whatever format I need to, but I need to take that result (whatever it ends up being) and make it into a GIF.
I guess the question is this: What do I do to make that conversion? What do I use? And preferably, is it free?
I was told by someone (not a blender user) that Media Coder would work, but unfortunately, that program appears to be out of my league.
If someone can give me a nice how-to in detail it would end a long journey with this project…from Blender output to GIF>
first, GIF does not compress, so do the math first. Each pixel is a byte. so a 75 frame 640x480 would result in a 22 MB file. Not something you want to download every time you hit a web page.
second, GIMP has an open multiple layers function that automatically reads in a sequenc set.
To generate a sequence set, set your output format to JPG, and each frame will be rendered out as a separate JPG image when you Animate. see the wiki on Rendering for more info. To split out a movie file, like an avi, load it into the VSE (see th wiki on using the Video Sequence Editor), click Do Sequence, and click Anim
Not quite sure what’s meant by this… GIF uses an internal lossless compression algorithm - sure, not a very good/new one, but its compression.
The biggest gotcha you’ll encounter is GIF’s limited 256 color pallette. This limitation is imposed for multiple-image GIFs as well. For animations, this means that each imported frame has to be dumbed down to 256 colors, and not only that, but the same set of 256 colors for all frames! So, especially for photo-real type anims, this can get real tricky real fast, particularly if you want a transparent color (alpha). GIF doesn’t support an alpha “channel” (a range of transparency per pixel) like PNG - its just on or off for just one of the colors of the pallette.
I’ll recommend the shareware app GIF Construction Set by Alchemy Mindworks. Not only can it import avis ('n such) directly, but it will help you with the color pallette issue. It won’t solve it for you, but it will help you with it. You’ll likely have to re-think & re-work your original material with this color limitation in mind. GIF is just old technology - it works well for what its designed to do, but doesn’t like to be stretched beyond that. Newer technologies, such as PNG/MNG, flash/SVG or embedded video have been developed to solve such (and other) limitations.
Here’s my Gimp method:
render your animation as PNG or TGA
Then in Gimp start a new image with the same dimensions of your animation ones
With a file browser select all image files and drag’n’drop over the Gimp image
window…this will create an automatic sequence for you ( lucky guy ) with basic settings
Now you can improve the size of the file
Change the Image type for Indexed colors
Run the “Filters/Animation/optimize” command…this will save lots of space
Then save as GIF and choose save as animation
Good luck
Bye
) with basic settings