Ever wonder how I made this animation (or any of these)? You'll learn how in this tutorial, including a detailed behind-the-scenes look.
How do you make animations that behave in a realistic way?
Last updated: Apr 12, 2006 (first version)
Level 4 update on Jun 10, 2007 (added 2 new tips and clarifies the first)
Here are some tips and tricks to consider while making animations like the one you did with the tutorial.
- Plan everything out in detail first. With a solid plan, you are less prone to making mistakes.
- You can get a good idea for the length before you even start making the scenery. The frame count is how it is determined. The tutorial started out going to 406 frames which means 40.6 seconds. If it stopped on frame 1200, it'd be 120 seconds, or 2 minutes.
- Even though GIF supports up to 256 colors, you rarely need any more than 30 or 40 colors on a given frame. Our tutorial didn't peak 20 colors. Even with just 20 colors, the scene looks semi-decent.
- Avoid rich detail and especially anti-aliasing. Having a high degree of detail not only increases the file size significantly, it'll take longer for users to download your animation and it takes more bandwidth. You may, however, for things that don't move or change (like the player in our sample animation), and when you optimize the animation.
- Avoid data on the view, such as the speed of travel or height, unless you intend on optimizing the GIF and if you do, put this information where a lot of change is expected to further help reduce file size. This is typically the bottom.
- Be sure to optimize the file size by testing it right away. Avoiding this can give a smaller file size and thus a faster download using less bandwidth as well.
- For small details, like the eye, use one of the colors already present, one of which is nearest to your intended color. At normal size, this difference is not noticable by the human eye, but is when a less obvious method is used (taking a screenshot and using the eyedropper or color picker tool).
- When animating, use the image window to reveal the content of the next frame to process by sliding the window down, like using a book mark to help read a book line by line to prevent jumping a line or repeating the current line.
- When multiple layers move the same amount, link them together then move them then unlink them afterwards.
- For long animations, on the order of minutes, create test files and test play the animation to further check for possible mistakes. Using the provided batch converter on page 7 (the previous page) is useful in this way).
- When you expect more than 50 frames, have the file names based on 3 or more digits. When more than 800 frames are expected, have the file named based on 4 or more digits.
- You don't have to start at a position of 0 for the horizontal starting position, it can be anything above zero and is best used if some random value is used that causes the position of some objects to be offset some. This can enhance the realism.
- For big animations with many layers and/or frames, consider writing a program to automatically position everything for you. I made my "All About the Spinning Board" animation in just two days which has 1500 frames, 30 layers of objects (6 times as many as this one does), and far more realistic graphics than the animated GIF created here and my record setting "The Mega Race" animation has 3634 frames, 30 layers of objects, and more extensive and realistic special effects and took just 7 days to make, most of which spent toward making the scenery and the 3D effects.
3.2.3 Animation creation tutorial - how I make my flash-like animated GIFs to the finest detail
3.2.3.1 Introduction - The indroduction and tools needed
3.2.3.1-1 Introduction
3.2.3.1-2 Tools used
3.2.3.2 History - The history of my animation creation
3.2.3.2-1 The AVI days
3.2.3.2-2 MSPaint and early animated GIFs
3.2.3.2-3 GIMP and my latest animations
3.2.3.2-4 Automation leads to extreme complexity
3.2.3.2-5 Discoveries made along the way
3.2.3.2-6 The future
3.2.3.3 Glossary of terms and common formulas - Common animation-related terms and common formulas involved with art
3.2.3.3-1 Glossary
3.2.3.3-2 Commonly used formulas
3.2.3.4 Planning - Forming the plan - what the animation will do and how to set up the spreadsheet
3.2.3.4-1 The base plan
3.2.3.4-2 The main plan
3.2.3.4-3 The detailed plan
3.2.3.5 Creating the scenery - Making the scenery - how to optimize it and work with it
3.2.3.5-1 Some important notes
3.2.3.5-2 The easy stuff
3.2.3.5-3 The mountains
3.2.3.5-4 Making the character
3.2.3.5-5 Adding the obstacle and speed data
3.2.3.6 Animating - Processing the frames - using the spreadsheet data to make the frames of the animation
3.2.3.6-1 Important notes
3.2.3.6-2 Doing the text objects
3.2.3.6-3 The first scenery frames
3.2.3.6-4 Further scenery frames
3.2.3.7 Testing - Testing the animation - how to test the animation to spot problems
3.2.3.7-1 Compiling the animation
3.2.3.7-2 Testing the animation
3.2.3.8 Tips and tricks - Tips, tricks, and shortcuts to make animation-creation easier and faster
3.2.3.9 FAQ - Some commonly asked questions and help to common problems
Footnotes:
None.
