A Short Exercise on Animating GIF Files

Sandra Akmansoy

Table of Contents

• Goals of the Exercise
• Computer and Data Requirements
• Procedure
• Animating Images
• Displaying the Results

Goals of the Exercise

• To learn how to take images and animate them.

Computer and Data Requirements

To carry out this exercise, you need to have access to a PC. You will also need MapEdit which Dr McKinney ahs place in his Class folder on the LRC server.

• Go to the Windows Explorer from the Start/Programs
• Select Map Network Drive under Tools
• Double-click on Microsoft Windows Network to expand it (if not already)
• Double-click on CIVIL2 to expand it
• Double-click on LRC
• This will create a new drive.  Double-click on Class.
• Double-click on McKinney
• Double-click on Util

Procedure

1. Animating Images

Once you have your any number of image files, open the GIF Construction Tool, and select New from the File menu.

Then, use the Insert Image button to insert your image files. (You will be asked to specify where your files are.)
For this example, I will use 12 image files

Each time you inset an image, you will be prompted for the following. Just use the default, and click OK.

You must also insert a loop from the Insert Loop menu, so that the animation will constantly loop. You may use the default iterations.

Once you have done this insert a filter between each file by selecting Control from the Insert menu, and specify a certain amount of seconds that each file will be paused on. You can set one to the desired speed and copy and paste it between each file.

Your screen should look like this after having inserted the files, the loops, and the control blocks.

To make sure that the speed of the animation is not too quick you can view your animation by clicking on View on the top tool bar. To leave the View, click on the right mouse.

Finally save the files. This will give you 2 files one gif and one THN.

2. Viewing the Results

Create an html file for the results. You can write whatever you wish on it but simply add the gif file using the command: <IMG SRC="yourfile.gif"

OK,  you're done!