animated .gifs and IM

[fmw42]

you could also coalesce the frames and then shrink them and put them back.

convert image.gif -coalesce -resize WidthxHeight newimage.gif

see

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_opt/
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_mods/

[snibgo]

It's strange that IE8 can animate some (eg "test mission rails with inserts") but not others (eg "test sato gates").

I downloaded the small "test sato gates" and tried:

convert sato_gates.gif sg1.gif
convert sato_gates.gif -coalesce sg2.gif

sg1.gif won't animate under IE8, but sg2.gif will. Perhaps IM does a simple copy for sg1, but for sg2 it has to unpack and re-pack.

According to identify -verbose, sato_gates.gif has frames of different sizes (239x168 and 240x155), and they have geometry offsets. sg2.gif doesn't.

Is there a "crop" somewhere in the IM chain without a corresponding "+repage"? Do you really want different frame sizes within an animation?

[fmw42]

without the coalesce, many animations simply have frame updates and are not full frames. that is what coalesce does -- it makes them full frames with the updates included. So perhaps some browsers don't know how to deal with updates that are not properly full framed.

It might also be an issue of optimization or disposal.

see http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/#dispose

But I am really not an expert on animations.

see coalesce

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/comma ... p#coalesce
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/#coalesce

[cassy]

some browsers won't animate if the delay between frames is too short. Be sure that there is a delay set properly.

delay is set to 3 seconds in all images.

[cassy]

you could also coalesce the frames and then shrink them and put them back.

convert image.gif -coalesce -resize WidthxHeight newimage.gif

thanks or the hint! I have just updated the respecitve file accordingly and submitted all 15 images again. On first sight it looks like all thumbs animate in IE7 however I have yet to check out large images and other browsers.

[fmw42]

OK, it is most likely the different frame sizes in the un-coalesced gif that is causing the problem. Best to coalesce and regenerate. Alternately, look at the disposal in http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/#dispose were it says:

"The first thing people creating GIF animation have trouble with is the "-dispose" setting. This is not surprising as it is a complex setting. Worse still a lot of animation programs, including many web browsers, don't always handle the GIF disposal meta-data setting correctly. However using the right disposal can make a big difference to how well your animation works and optimizes."

[cassy]

It's strange that IE8 can animate some (eg "test mission rails with inserts") but not others (eg "test sato gates").

I downloaded the small "test sato gates" and tried:

convert sato_gates.gif sg1.gif
convert sato_gates.gif -coalesce sg2.gif

sg1.gif won't animate under IE8, but sg2.gif will. Perhaps IM does a simple copy for sg1, but for sg2 it has to unpack and re-pack.

According to identify -verbose, sato_gates.gif has frames of different sizes (239x168 and 240x155), and they have geometry offsets. sg2.gif doesn't.

Is there a "crop" somewhere in the IM chain without a corresponding "+repage"? Do you really want different frame sizes within an animation?

no there is no cropping only resizing, quality and unsharp - and now also coalesce.

weird that the thumb is coming with differently sized frames as checking the psd shows that the layers of the image are of identical size (1010x710)

[cassy]

OK, it is most likely the different frame sizes in the un-coalesced gif that is causing the problem. Best to coalesce and regenerate. Alternately, look at the disposal in http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/#dispose were it says:

"The first thing people creating GIF animation have trouble with is the "-dispose" setting. This is not surprising as it is a complex setting. Worse still a lot of animation programs, including many web browsers, don't always handle the GIF disposal meta-data setting correctly. However using the right disposal can make a big difference to how well your animation works and optimizes."

that read about displosals is rather confusing.

since my images appear to be properly animating now (with coalesce added to the command line) I'm wondering what I need to do to get an actual movement like a launching rocket to preoperly animate? after all my images only need to display one frame after another with a bit of a delay in between.

reading the docu you mentioned about both coalesce and disposals makes me wonder how to further modify the command line.

[snibgo]

The coalesced versions all animate under IE8.

A rocket launching would work in the same way. Good web practise provides a facility for the user to stop animations on a page.