What kinds of animated GIFs do you have?


Important note:
This document is extremely outdated. However, the more updated version containing many more animations and new features is here.

Images 6 through 10



1 A new way to light fireworks







Starting since I was very young, typically about 7 years old ± 1 year, I was involved with fireworks and lighting them. Since then, every year I've lit fireworks thus I have plenty of experience with them. I'm also familiar with some of the terms involved with fireworks, mainly the basic ones, not the special chemicals used to make the special effects. This image shows you a way to light fireworks, the old fashioned way, and, as a surprise, a strange, new way to light a firework. Safer for you, but if you're still not careful, you'll get the firework's effects on the ground instead of the sky! Care for fire spells***? Cast create to make the firework you want, then cast fire to light it. Dumb, but it works. Though, spells can be casted from even hundreds of millions of miles away, provided you know the exact distance and place and are very aware of fire spells†. This image is also physically accurate by means of the acceleration of the background's movement and timings. My favorite part about this is the part about the old way and how the sparks come from the fuse. Nearly impossible to see in the small window, best viewed in the magnified version.

2 Endless float-running







Like the mountains? This image is for you! With 18 unique colors, and a realistic fog effect with a beautiful 3D appearance, this image puts you right into the scene! Now, five layers may seem like a bit much, but take a look how well those five layers blend into each other so smoothly. In fact, this is the only image with more than 3 layers used, let alone having five!

What went into this? Unlike many of my other animations, there's hardly anything in the way of math. I focused on beauty for this one. It started while I was playing around with some mountain scenes. Since the fade to the sky color was much more realistic-looking, I've designed a scene of four sets of mountains. Each set of mountains was to be a layer. I also wanted to set a record: having the most layers in a single animation. So, I went on using this very concept and goal. I tried to keep a low frame count as well, but 36 frames ain't too bad [some of my animations have over 500]. With the 5 layers, 36 frames seemed more like about 120 as some were just simply repetitious.

To make layering easier, always start with the most distant of objects. I processed the furthest mountains (which are barely even visible) in which there was 9 unique frames. I backed up my progress after finishing this. The second layer was the next closest set of mountains, with 18 unique frames (meaning a set of 2 consecutive frames were identical). After processing this, I backed up my progress again. I worked on the third and fourth layers in the same way backing up my progress just in case I need to redo something from a fault.

With the mountains now there, I added the foreground stuff, which included the ground the character was float-running on, and the speedometer, which is always at 200 mph, the top speed with the float run on level ground. Merging all five layers together (and my only graphics editor I used was simple ol' MSPaint...), I saved all 36 bitmap frames as GIF frames then turned those GIF frames into an animation, tested it for the best frame rate then uploaded it as you see here.

3 Jumping toward the clouds





This animated GIF is where you are jumping toward the clouds high above. This animated GIF actually has over 500 frames, but about 200 or so are unique. This image used to be used with the mind game report until Dec , 2004. In this image, you jump from the ground, climb up very high, use the stomp to gain 4 times the height, and a long chain of other maneuvers to try to reach the clouds high above. This image takes background effects to quite an extreme as I have 11 objects. Most don't get much more than 7. The only other one with close to this many is the ferris wheel one above (section 3) which happens to have 10 background objects (and two layers).

Note: if I stretch this image to 4 times the size, it'll become jerky, very jerky. I don't know why, however.

4 3D side to side effects







This animated GIF demonstrates just what I can do with 3D effects. If you're familiar with background scaling (the function of making something move slower than you to simulate distance), and that it works with single objects, there so seems to be a trick in which you can use it for 3D effects. This is the first image in which this technique has been applied. Though, yes, just for about 9 objects, there's a lot of numbers involved, 9 columns just to describe positioning. The method that this is used with is actually quite simple. As you go up each pixel from the bottom, the scale increases by a constant linear amount (that is, if the bottom most line of pixels was scaled at 10, the next line of pixels above would be scaled at 20, the next at 30, 40, 50, 60 and so on clear to the horizon). The 3D effects are easily noticable with the low res version. Realizing this, I've now got a new technique for making side scroller 3D animations.

As this image goes, some text appears at first, two sections of text to be precise. Following that is the way the speed blast works. First, the arms are curled up a little bit and become tense. 2 to 3 seconds later, depending on your speed and strength I think it is, a yellow band of light appears behind. This yellow band of light is compressed air that is very hot (which is why it glows). After juicing it up a bit, and releasing the pressure, you blast off at an intense speed, 300 mph in this case (I left out the speedometer intentionally). After that, before you fall over the cliff, you make a few puffs (dust clouds) to stop fully. While moving, watch the lakes in the background carefully. Though it's hard to detect, the lakes move in real 3D. After the full stop and the puffs disappearing, the scene freezes then the animation starts all over again.

Now, just what exactly did the numbers look like you might ask? Here's a simple representation, for the first 14 frames of movement, copying the spreadsheet document with decimals rounded to 2 places (otherwise the table gets excessively wide and scrolling left and right is required).

Speed blast number notes
BG scaling:speedpositionframe
300295290285280275270265260flagsnotes/actions
000000000006xbase frame
11.021.031.051.071.091.111.131.153003007xblasts off
22.032.072.112.142.182.222.262.313006008x
33.053.13.163.213.273.333.43.463009009x
44.074.144.214.294.364.444.534.62300120010x
55.085.175.265.365.455.565.665.77300150011x
66.16.216.326.436.556.676.796.92300180012x
77.127.247.377.57.647.787.928.08300210013x
88.148.288.428.578.737.899.069.23300240014x
99.159.319.479.649.821010.1910.38300270015x
1010.1710.3410.5310.7110.9111.1111.3211.54300300016xstarts stopping
10.9811.1711.3611.5611.7711.9812.212.4312.67295329517xsize 16 puff appears*
11.9312.1412.3412.5612.7913.0213.2613.5113.77285358018
12.8513.0713.2913.5313.7714.0214.2814.5514.83275385519size 15 puff appears


Table footnotes:
* Puff size is directly related to the speed. At this 160x120 resolution, every 20 mph lost means the puff size drops by one. The size is how big of a circle I need to make in MSPaint. Size 16 means that I use a 17x17 circle (MSPaint makes a 2x2 circle when it says 3x3, a bug with the program; you can hold shift to keep everything the same dimensions). Size 15 means I use a 16x16 circle and so on clear until size 1, a mere single pixel.
Though the footnotes section seems empty, much of this stuff is already explained in section 6's table, just the numbers are arranged differently.

The puff movement notes are to the right of the notes column positioned where the frame numbers are mentioned.

5 Balloon sky diving with bouncing



Link to 800 KB image


Created on Mar 30, 2005, taking nearly 20 combined working hours (hours spent watching TV, sleeping, etc. don't count), this is, by far, my most realistic-appearing animation yet that very closely relates to how things truly look in my mind game. Not only are there 6 layers, but there's just over 300 frames! Now, a 300-frame animated GIF might seem a bit crazy, it's just exactly as I had it planned. What are the six layers? At the beginning, there are 4 distinct layers. The first layer is the most distant mountains made half transparent to the sky (as from fog). The second layer is a closer set of mountains not affected by fog. The third (after jumping off of the balloon) is the hills. After falling for quite aways picking up a lot of speed, you'll soon see the fourth layer, the city. Near the bottom is the fifth layer, the houses and road. The sixth layer is the foreground (where your character is, the hot air balloon, the shadows, the flare effect, etc..

As the animated GIF goes, Knuckles, the character I use in my mind game frequently, is standing on top of a hot air balloon (usually, you're in the basket at the bottom, but hey, in my mind game, I can do weird things). He tells of the lovely view from where he is. He then finds his house below and then mentions what he was going to do. He then jumps off of the hot air balloon and uses the flash attack immediately allowing him to jump up at a high speed (160 mph initial). He reaches the highest point then falls continually. The balloon doesn't reappear because he actually moves slightly to the side. You can't see the effect, because the objects in the background are too far away (even the closest hills). When he reaches 600 mph, the flare effect begins. The flare effect is rarely mentioned on my website in general. Upon ground impact, the speed is halved and you head back up again. The flare effect also ends as well. After bouncing two more times, Knuckles finally lands. He then tells which house is his (the brown one). Then, "the end" appears in a special way and then the animated GIF repeats again.

While making this animated GIF, I've made a few interesting discoveries. The first is that one unit of distance is 0.1466666... (or 11/75 (or 1/7)) feet. The second discovery is that for every 1 scaling unit, the objects' distance increases by 25 feet (± 5 feet). Since the houses have a scaling of 12, their distance is about 300 feet. The far mountains have a scaling of 2048 making them 51,200 feet away (or about 9.6 miles). The most distant part of the road has a scale of 10 and the closest part of the road has a scale of 9 making the road 25 feet across (about that of a two-lane road). Surprising as it is, I only needed 7 columns of numbers for positioning of the objects (although there is the frame number, speed, and net position as well as the actual height in feet, these 7 columns relate to the position on which the background scenery is positioned (in this case, only the vertical was needed)).

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