Re: Animation Problems

Hi Ryan!

At 11:03 AM 5/4/01 -0600, Ryan Mann wrote:
>I have got a doosie of a graphic problem. If you look at my site 
><http://www.cbccts.ca/>http://www.cbccts.ca/ you'll see it. The animation 
>on the home page is aweful. I'll admit it. The borders are jagged and 
>there are white lines along the border also. It's an animated GIF as it stands.

The reason why they are jagged and white outlines, is because they were 
designed on a white background, which gave it a white halo. When creating 
gifs to be transparent, it is best to have the background color match or be 
darker than the dominant background image. In this case, I would have 
either chosen black or dark blue. It will still leave a halo, but it will 
blend better with the background.

>Is there any other format that can be animated and transparent?

There is, but it is barely supported right now. If you want a lot of people 
to see the image, use an animated gif or try Flash.

>If not are there any suggestions out there on how to make this animated 
>GIF look better? I use PhotoShop 6.0 if that makes any difference on your 
>answers to my problem

What you should do, is if you have the originals, use Image Ready to create 
the animated gifs. Have a transparant layer showing (instead of one filled 
with the background color -- you can just click off the view of the 
background color) and be sure to use a "matte" of either black or dark blue 
(black at least would make it seems like a shadow, if it does show.) I have 
my Photoshop at home, but the help area should explain how the "matte" 
works, and black is one of the basic choices.

And I have a question for you. What purpose does the image serve? It took a 
long while to download on a high speed line, so it would take longer for a 
dial up visitor. Is it worth the extra time to wait for the image? If it 
must be used, can you add something to make it worth waiting for? Just 
something to ponder.

hth


Kimiko Drew
macruimmon(at)earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~macruimmon/

a web designer in The Camarilla
White Wolf's Official Fan Club

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