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Animated
GIF's -
The .GIF format is very useful,
in as much as, a number of "frames" or variants
on the theme of an image, may be combined into one and
shown as a sequence of pictures. The effect is that
of an animation and so a feeling of movement may be
portrayed. Furthermore, often good use may be made of
the transparency
option.
For the purposes of simply
showing what is involved, I will ''dismantle'' a smilie
type GIF image ........ just to demonstrate the structure. |
Example
Animation -
Here is a smilie which is
gun related! It is made up of 8 frames and the background
color is what is chosen to become the transparent color
in the finished animation. There are various software
applications which assist in building of these.
This finished file, as it stands, is rather large at
10k ..... but can be shrunk in size using optimization.
This process removes redundent pixels, simplifies the
color pallette where possible and also removes comment
blocks. Each frame has a time element - and this is
shown, in milli seconds.
Frames after optimization are shown after these. |
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Frame #1
20 msec
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Frame #2
10 msec
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Frame #3
10 msec
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Frame #4
10 msec
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Frame #5
10 msec
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Frame #6
10 msec
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Frame #7
10 msec
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Frame #8
40 msec
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And, here is the actual smilie,
in action (10k version)!
After
optimization -
Here are the frames after
optimization. Black is now the transparent color and,
any pixels that are not used or needed in a frame
are done away with. It is all about ''pruning down''
and going for economy so that nothing is used repeatedly
when not needed. It displays the same but - the file
is now less than 2k! |
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Frame #1
20 msec
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Frame #2
10 msec
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Frame #3
10 msec
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Frame #4
10 msec
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Frame #5
10 msec
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Frame #6
10 msec
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Frame #7
10 msec
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Frame #8
40 msec
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The optimized smilie, in action
(sub 2k version)!
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There
we are! Hardly essential learning but, possibly something
that you have not previously understood so well....
and maybe this helps dispel some mystique!
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