Animated Gifs

Back in the day (say 1996) when you didn't have access to streaming video technology and FLASH, but you wanted to show moving images on a website what did you do? You used an Animated Gif. An Animated Gif is just a collection of images that the web browser plays to give the impression of movement...same way television and movies work. Today, we have many more options. Do you use a Java Applet? What about FLASH? Why not just stream the video over the Internet in real time? How do you know which to use? Everyone has their own opinions. If the media is short and doesn't need sound, I like to use Animated Gifs to save on bandwidth. They are perfect as avatars on social networking sites and forums. If I need sound but it's still short, I like to use Java applets because you can even have interaction. I think more people are using FLASH in this situation but I am personally more familiar with the applet route. If I don't need interation but the media needs to be television quality or better in audio and video, and the media is several minutes long, I like to stream it over the Internet from YouTube, MySpace, Blogger, GodTube, and VM Direct or from a site or blog that allows embedding. In this day and age you find that you sometimes have a file in one format but you need it in a different one. No Need to panic because somewhere somehow someone has written software to do the converting for you.

Here are some animated Gifs I created:

So what is the difference between and Animated Gif and an AVI (video file). Look below




The Gif is on the left. The video is on the right. The video can be longer and moves a little smoother.

I decided to go back to animated gifs when i realized that they could be used to make mugen characters and vice versa. I've decided to make a character from which I can get sprites before I try something like Black Panther that has fewer than no sprites. I like the Anime series Tekkaman Blade. I have found no Tekkaman Blade character but I did find a Super NES video game based on the series. I can get my sprites from there!

Here is an example of sprites gleaned from the game and about 11 of them animated together. I still need to learn how to make the background transparent. Mine is on the Right.

Here are some informative links for learning how to create Animated Gifs:
So, You Want An Animated .gif, Huh?
Tutorials: Sprite Ripping
Make Animated Gifs
Ripping and Using Sprites

Software that you may want (Just "Google" them):
ImageTasks
GIF Construction Set Professional
Easy Graphic Converter
Ulead GIF Animator
Free FLV to AVI Converter
Any Video Converter
Free FLV Player
SWF and FLV Toolbox
Camstudio

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