Anyone know of any programs for compressing .SWF files to decent sized .GIFS
I have one but it doesn't seem to efficient, .GIFS end up huge.
I want to turn this into a .GIF
Full Version: Gif compression programs
Don't know of any programs, but just wanted to say that's pretty damn cool. 
Cheers Hammer, getting my head around it now 
I know, i need to sort out some of the pixels in the muzzle flare, they are transparent, but at least i'm getting the size down now
I know, i need to sort out some of the pixels in the muzzle flare, they are transparent, but at least i'm getting the size down now
The best way to do it is to kind of recreate the animation as a gif, say in ImageReady. What I'd suggest is to export just the animated part (the crosshairs and the text) as a gif from Flash, or whatever SWF tool you're using. Make sure the GIF has a transparent background.
Then open the GIF in ImageReady and drop the background graphic in as exactly that. ImageReady should create a gif where the only frame-by-frame changes are the changes to the transparent layer, rather than reproducing the background in each frame. That should decrease the filesize by a fair amount.
If you don't have what you need, send me your Dai-San font and I'll do it for you. My email address is all over my website (with minimal spam protection), or post it here somewhere.
Then open the GIF in ImageReady and drop the background graphic in as exactly that. ImageReady should create a gif where the only frame-by-frame changes are the changes to the transparent layer, rather than reproducing the background in each frame. That should decrease the filesize by a fair amount.
If you don't have what you need, send me your Dai-San font and I'll do it for you
. My email address is all over my website (with minimal spam protection), or post it here somewhere.
Hey doormat, cheers for the advice but i'm still having a few probs. I took your advice and have the crosshair and word animation saved as a transparent gif HERE 
and the background also as a transparent gif HERE
Combining the two is whats getting me confused, I have both Adobe ImageReady 7.0 and Jasc Animationshop 3 and cant figure out in either how to insert a static background.
Feel free to play about but Could you explain HOW you manage to combine the two images and keep the size low (feel free to reduce the size by up to 50%)
Cheers m8
and the background also as a transparent gif HERE
Combining the two is whats getting me confused, I have both Adobe ImageReady 7.0 and Jasc Animationshop 3 and cant figure out in either how to insert a static background.
Feel free to play about but Could you explain HOW you manage to combine the two images and keep the size low (feel free to reduce the size by up to 50%)
Cheers m8
Test #2.
Cheers Thy but i prefer the xhair to stay in the picture and the muzzle flare looks wierd transparent.
Test 3
Test 4
Edit: Sucess! No white edge. Sorry for the hijack.
Edit: Sucess! No white edge. Sorry for the hijack.
Nice one Thy, I actually like the white edges though, looks like a hole torn out of the page
One thing I have noticed though, and this aint you, there seems to be something wrong with the crosshair anim, theres ghosting at the letter end that isn't in my original (the one I have as my sig atm). Wierd.
One thing I have noticed though, and this aint you, there seems to be something wrong with the crosshair anim, theres ghosting at the letter end that isn't in my original (the one I have as my sig atm). Wierd.
Dunno if this has been linked before but there are some good tutorials Here
Hmmm. Had to think about this actually - I knew *what* needed to happen, but I had to think for a bit to remember *how*. Something I did at work the other day reminded me how much my skills have atrophied...must do some work soon!
Anyhow, first up: here's an optimised version, at the size you're using it. Filesize is about 75Kb.
Actually, it is showing a little ghosting - and I think I've placed the animation a little off-centre. Not to worry - here's how to do it in ImageReady 7 (the version with PS7).
1) Open your transparent, no background animation in IR.
2) Select frame 1 and add a new frame. This will be the same as the existing first frame.
3) Insert the background. There's a few ways to do this - I just dragged it from the background image file into the transparent animation.
4) Make sure the background is at the bottom of the layer stack.
5) In frame one, make sure that the only layer that's visible is the background you just added.
6) Right click on frame one, and select "Restore to background". This makes the content of this frame the "background" for the whole animation, provided you...
7) Select all the remaining frames, right click and select "Do not dispose". This means they all use frame 1's background as their background.
That's pretty much it. This way the gif only contains the difference between this frame and frame one - not much in this case. You can have different frames set to "restore to background" if you have different sections to an animation.
UPDATE: had a quick play and remove the ghosted frames. This allowed me to up the colours to 128, still at 75Kb.
Hope this helps!
Anyhow, first up: here's an optimised version, at the size you're using it. Filesize is about 75Kb.
Actually, it is showing a little ghosting - and I think I've placed the animation a little off-centre. Not to worry - here's how to do it in ImageReady 7 (the version with PS7).
1) Open your transparent, no background animation in IR.
2) Select frame 1 and add a new frame. This will be the same as the existing first frame.
3) Insert the background. There's a few ways to do this - I just dragged it from the background image file into the transparent animation.
4) Make sure the background is at the bottom of the layer stack.
5) In frame one, make sure that the only layer that's visible is the background you just added.
6) Right click on frame one, and select "Restore to background". This makes the content of this frame the "background" for the whole animation, provided you...
7) Select all the remaining frames, right click and select "Do not dispose". This means they all use frame 1's background as their background.
That's pretty much it. This way the gif only contains the difference between this frame and frame one - not much in this case. You can have different frames set to "restore to background" if you have different sections to an animation.
UPDATE: had a quick play and remove the ghosted frames. This allowed me to up the colours to 128, still at 75Kb.
Hope this helps!
Fantastic Doormat, but more importantly thanks for the nice explaination.
No bother
ok, help, i'm a bit confused here
1) Open your transparent, no background animation in IR. No probs
2) Select frame 1 and add a new frame. This will be the same as the existing first frame. No probs
3) Insert the background. There's a few ways to do this - I just dragged it from the background image file into the transparent animation. Here's where I have probs, Background image file? I assume you mean the transparent background picture, ie the soldiers, but how do you insert it, paste it etc into the first animation frame?
1) Open your transparent, no background animation in IR. No probs
2) Select frame 1 and add a new frame. This will be the same as the existing first frame. No probs
3) Insert the background. There's a few ways to do this - I just dragged it from the background image file into the transparent animation. Here's where I have probs, Background image file? I assume you mean the transparent background picture, ie the soldiers, but how do you insert it, paste it etc into the first animation frame?
it looks good
QUOTE (Dai-San @ Jun 3 2005, 06:13 PM)
3) Insert the background. There's a few ways to do this - I just dragged it from the background image file into the transparent animation.
Here's where I have probs, Background image file? I assume you mean the transparent background picture, ie the soldiers, but how do you insert it, paste it etc into the first animation frame?
Here's where I have probs, Background image file? I assume you mean the transparent background picture, ie the soldiers, but how do you insert it, paste it etc into the first animation frame?
If you open both your transparent animation, and the file containing the transparent background in IR, you can either
- drag'n'drop the background from the background window onto the transparent anim window, or
- select all in the background window (ctrl-a), copy, then paste in the anim window.
Try right-clicking and downloading this pdf guide with some screenshots - might make it more clear as I'm not explaining very well.
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