Quick links to procedures on this page:
• |
Corel Painter lets you export a frame stack as an animated GIF file. The animated GIF format is ideal for displaying simple animations on the World Wide Web.
Animated GIFs are easy to create and add to your Web pages. You give them the same HTML tag you would give any GIF image. The only difference is that the browser displays the file as an animation. A GIF can be used as a link anchor or as an image map. However, it cannot be used as a background.
Your browser must support GIF animations for the images to display properly. Refer to Web for more information about creating content for Web pages.
If your movie is intended for the Web, you should consider file size and number of colors in your animation, as these factors affect the speed of the animation.
Create your animation in a Corel Painter frame stack. Take advantage of your favorite animation features and techniques to develop the images.
As you design your animation, consider the file size and transfer time necessary. Your animations will be more accessible if they’re small enough to download in a reasonable time. You can minimize file size by considering the following:
• |
Reduce the frame size. A smaller frame leads to a smaller file. You choose the frame
size when you create a new movie. If you import an existing animation or video,
you cannot resize the frames.
|
• |
Limit the number of frames. Good animations do not necessarily need a large
number of frames. Each frame increases the file size, so see if you can get by with
fewer frames.
|
• |
Limit the number of colors. Including fewer colors in the image reduces the size of
the color palette and leads to smaller files. For best results, choose colors from the
Windows Default 256 color set. This color set matches the color palette of
Netscape Navigator, so the colors in your GIF will be reproduced on the client
without dithering.
|
If the animation requires transparency, you must set up a selection for each frame. For information about creating selections, refer to Creating and Saving Selections.
There are many options available when you save images to a GIF file. You can choose the number of colors and the imaging method — either Quantize or Dither. If you want to gradually display images in the Web browser as they load, you can enable the Interlaced option.
If you have created selections in each frame, you can make your image transparent and choose your background option. You might need to adjust the Threshold slider to determine the selection mask value at which the image becomes transparent.
You can also set animation-specific GIF options — Frame Delay, Disposal Method, and Looping. For more information on these GIF options, refer to Saving GIF Files.
The Frame Delay option allows you to specify a pause (in 100ths of a second) between each frame. Without a delay, the frames appear as quickly as the system can load and display them. The display of each image (especially with larger frames) varies between computer systems, so the actual animation display rate may be lower. You can use Frame Delay to approximate a particular frame rate. For example, you capture some one-quarter size video at 8 frames per second (fps). You want 8 frames to appear in one second, so divide one second (100 hundredths of a second) by 8. The result is 100/8 = 12.5. Discard the decimal portion and enter 12 as the frame delay. Discarding the decimal is the only allowance for the time required to display each image. For a large frame size, you might want to allow more time for display.
The Disposal Method options let you specify what happens to an image after it has been displayed (and its frame delay has passed), and before the next image is displayed. The disposal method is significant only when you use transparency that differs between frames.
• |
With Default, the client browser’s default disposal method is used.
|
• |
With None, the image is left on-screen and the next frame is rendered over it.
|
• |
With Background, the region covered by the image is restored to the background
color.
|
• |
With Previous, the region covered by the graphic is returned to the imagery of the
previous frame.
|
If you want the animation to repeat, enable the Loop option. Enter the number of times the animation should repeat. If you want it to repeat indefinitely, enter 0.
In the client browser, the animation appears one frame at a time during download. In most cases, this is significantly slower than the intended display rate. After all frames have been downloaded, the browser will loop the animation (if the loop option is used) with the specified delay between frames. Because the animation plays from the browser’s cache, it’s much faster.
| To export a frame stack as an animated GIF | |
1 |
With the frame stack open, choose File  Save As.
|
2 |
In the Save Movie dialog box, enable the Save Movie As GIF Animation option.
|
3 |
In the Enter Movie Name dialog box, choose a location, enter a filename, and click
Save.
|
4 |
In the Save as GIF Options dialog box, specify the options you want.
|
You can now use your browser to open the file and view the animation. You can place the animation on a Web page with the same HTML image tag you’d use for a simple GIF file. |
 |
If the animation in the browser window stops playing, it’s probably finished
the set number of loops. In some browsers, you can get it started again by
resizing the window. In all browsers, you can get it started again by reloading
the page.
|
|
Copyright 2012 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved.