Working with Animated GIFs

Working with Animated GIFs

Working with Animated GIFs

Animations are an attractive visual element that can be added to a Web site. The flexibility in Canvas X Draw allows you to create animated GIFs.

Creating Animations

Create animated GIFs in Canvas X Draw by assembling images within an Animation document and then saving the file as an animated GIF. This animation format is extremely popular among Web designers since it is supported by nearly all Web browsers.

Animation documents consist of a series of frames, with each frame being a still image. Displaying frames in quick succession creates the illusion of motion.

The more frames per second (fps), the smoother the motion appears.

Use the Document Layout palette to arrange the frame sequence and set their individual duration. (See Using the Document Layout Palette.)

All About Onion Skinning

In Animation documents, you can display more than one frame at a time. Onion skinning is the term for displaying multiple frames as if they are on tracing paper. Onion-skinning is useful for positioning objects across frames of an animation.

The onion-skinning icon is located on the Document Layout palette. (See Using the Document Layout Palette.) Click this icon to open the menu.

  • No Onion Skinning: Shows just the current frame.
  • Next Frame: Displays the current frame and the frame after the current frame.
  • Previous Frame: Displays the current frame and the frame before the current frame.
  • Next & Previous: Displays the current frame and one frame before and after the current frame.
  • Custom: Choose this option to display any number of frames adjacent to the current frame. Enter the number of frames to display.

When onion-skinning is active, names of the displayed frames are tinted in the layout list.

Exporting an Animated GIF

Once you’ve created your animation, it is time to export it as an animated GIF.

You should save your file first in Canvas X Draw format (.CVX).

To Save as Animated GIF:

  1. Choose File | Save As.
  2. Select GIF Animated as the file type.
  3. Enter a name for the file.
  4. Click Save.
  5. In the Animated GIF Options dialog box, select the animated GIF options.

Animated GIF Options

Transparent Background

Makes the background transparent.

Auto Crop

Optimizes the size of each frame and the document. The Auto Crop feature will create the minimum size needed to accommodate all of the objects in the document.

Interlaced

The image will load into a browser a little bit at a time. Activating this feature creates the effect of improving an image over a slow connection.

Anti-aliasing

Objects from the Canvas X Draw document will be rendered with an overall softened effect.

Individual Palette Per Frame

If selected, each GIF frame will contain its own palette. This will create a larger GIF image; however, this setting is suggested if you are creating complex and colorful animations. If this option is not checked, then all frames will have a common palette. The color palette maximum is 256 colors.

Erase Previous Frame

Each frame will be erased and the area will be restored to the background before the next frame is displayed during playback.

Optimize frames

This feature minimizes the size of a file that will be created. We recommend this setting if you are working with colorful GIFs or pictures. The Optimize frame setting has no effect on simple graphics, like rectangles, ovals etc.

Differential frames

This option searches for the smallest frame possible in the set that contains all of the changes from a previous frame. After the search, it creates a new rectangle which becomes the new frame.

If the Erase Previous Frame option is checked, then this particular option will be unavailable. For more information on using animated GIF options, see Working with Animated GIFs.

Infinite Loop

Activating this option will cause your animation to run (loop) continuously.

You may specify the number of times that your animation will run. To do this, simply enter the number of times to “loop” your animation in the Times box.

See also:

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