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Kieti โ€” How to Animate a GIF in GIMP

Published: 2006-09-24 04:56:44 +0000 UTC; Views: 45887; Favourites: 564; Downloads: 4448
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Description My first tutorial, created on a whim because ~toxic-paradise asked me how I made the blinky eye. A three-hour whim XD I need to get a life.

Careful, it's huge.

Anyway, first tutorial, if something's confusing please ask.

Tutorial is about the GIMP; I don't think it'd work with other programs, sorry. It might, you never know. I certainly don't.

Blinky eye found here [link]

EDIT: Okay, so the main question I'm running into is about the transparencies. Basically, the way the animation works in GIMP is that it stacks the layers on top of one another. It doesn't swap one out for another. So if you have transparencies, you're going to see the lower layers behind them.

Another thing: When you hit "Optomize" (Why, no, I can't spell, how did you guess?) what happens is that GIMP takes your GIF and turns everything that's repeated into transparencies. So say you have a blue background with a little stick figure dancing on it. You would probably put the blue background on every frame. GIMP would then replace the background with transparencies eveywhere that it didn't change.

That doesn't make sense. Um... it makes your filesize a lot smaller, and it therefore good.
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Comments: 325

Oo-mimi-oO [2010-01-09 17:07:48 +0000 UTC]

umm i really need help here !! i made a icon thats animated but it wont let me upload it because "The image you chose is larger than 15 KB."
can anyone tell me how to lower KB's
plz plz plz plz plz
and thank you !!!

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flamen-eagle [2009-12-30 05:38:24 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for posting. It's a simple but straightforward. This helped so much!

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MythicAzurel [2009-11-05 10:00:34 +0000 UTC]

Added to faves

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Syra-Syra In reply to ??? [2009-10-19 04:42:36 +0000 UTC]

Thank you very much!
I've made one animation without help once, but I couldn't remeber for the life of me how I managed to do it! This was a great help, and is deeply appreciated

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SonicEdge7 [2009-09-07 17:06:50 +0000 UTC]

this helps! I've done some animating with photoshop, but never with GIMP.

Thanks for the help!

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Kawaii-Jen-Chan [2009-09-03 23:54:21 +0000 UTC]

I don't have a dialog option menu D:

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gregsep [2009-08-31 15:44:12 +0000 UTC]

I've gotta prob. I don't have a dialog box... GIMP 2.6? plz help

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gregsep In reply to gregsep [2009-08-31 15:58:34 +0000 UTC]

NVM, I fixed it! thx!

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Pikachueevee123 [2009-08-13 05:41:45 +0000 UTC]

Wow but can you put the animation on deviantart?

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Kikaruu In reply to ??? [2009-08-03 03:09:52 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the awesome tutorial! I just made my very first GIF animation! Thanks again; I'm so used to painting with GIMP that I forgot all about its animation features.

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whitewolf12321 [2009-07-06 19:41:02 +0000 UTC]

could you send me a link for the page you download gimp on?

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T3RMMK [2009-05-29 21:57:26 +0000 UTC]

thanks

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deidara1231 In reply to ??? [2009-05-01 22:58:50 +0000 UTC]

Okay so I made a cat with its ear twitching but when it plays the layer before it still shows. Like the first layer stays in place when it moves to the next! How do I fix this?!

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SlyFox48 In reply to deidara1231 [2009-06-20 11:01:01 +0000 UTC]

i have the same prob

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deidara1231 In reply to SlyFox48 [2009-06-20 11:01:36 +0000 UTC]

It sux! D8

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SlyFox48 In reply to deidara1231 [2009-06-20 11:17:45 +0000 UTC]

r ur layers transparent or not? if they r transparent, colour it white or use any other colour then it should work, my avitar was made in gimp

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deidara1231 In reply to SlyFox48 [2009-06-20 11:24:15 +0000 UTC]

hmm that must be it

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SlyFox48 In reply to deidara1231 [2009-06-20 11:30:06 +0000 UTC]

tell me if it works, oh also u can copy the bg layer and change the frame number, i'll make a youtube vid soon

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deidara1231 In reply to SlyFox48 [2009-06-20 11:35:42 +0000 UTC]

okay!

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SlyFox48 In reply to deidara1231 [2009-06-20 11:39:14 +0000 UTC]

although i need a screen recorder..nvm, i'll do it somehow

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deidara1231 In reply to SlyFox48 [2009-06-20 11:42:57 +0000 UTC]

You could take screenshots nad have an explanation for each shot.

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SlyFox48 In reply to deidara1231 [2009-06-20 11:44:20 +0000 UTC]

i guess, lol Nad, my GFs name(well nick but close enough)

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deidara1231 In reply to SlyFox48 [2009-06-20 11:45:10 +0000 UTC]

lol I meant and! Stupid typos!

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SlyFox48 In reply to deidara1231 [2009-06-20 11:52:35 +0000 UTC]

i know

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babbittaacc In reply to ??? [2009-04-29 23:05:39 +0000 UTC]

This is so awesome! X3

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Kidf90 In reply to ??? [2009-04-11 23:26:20 +0000 UTC]

*megasuperawesomehug of love* thanks so much! i was stuck on animating and my friend showed me this

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DevotedD [2009-03-29 09:56:04 +0000 UTC]

I don't understand. When I hit 'Optimize', it makes the filesize smaller, but not smaller than 98kb. How do I get it under 40?

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sethfoxen [2009-03-05 03:09:42 +0000 UTC]

cool, nifty!
I'm trying to get into animation, and this is so helpful! Thanks!

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LindaTateWilson [2009-02-16 01:04:53 +0000 UTC]

Thanks so much. I'm looking forward to trying this.

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Gally7 [2009-01-17 05:17:47 +0000 UTC]

thanks! i will try it when i have time!

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TentenRikku [2009-01-03 17:16:07 +0000 UTC]

I'm stuck on stage 8
When I edit my eye and then put the opacity back to 100 it just shows both lines.
Unlike yours, it shows the eye becoming smaller.
Please help

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shayerahol22 [2008-12-23 15:18:10 +0000 UTC]

I love you.

That is all.

[link]

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mizuno-hikaru [2008-11-07 09:16:25 +0000 UTC]

i this one~!! nice~!!

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bearyscary206 [2008-09-21 01:00:24 +0000 UTC]

I can't get it to work. ;_; I have already made frames I'm trying to put together, and I do everything right, I even go to playback and it'll play back, but when I save it, it won't move...

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Albels-wish In reply to ??? [2008-08-04 05:56:10 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the tip, it really helped me.

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debbie-panda In reply to ??? [2008-07-18 16:04:19 +0000 UTC]

Wow, this was EXTREMELY helpful!!! Here's how mine turned out: [link]

Not that good. But it's my first one. :'D

<3<3<3 on the tut. -favs-

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Steffaluffakiss [2008-06-27 23:44:22 +0000 UTC]

hi there please tell me how i get the playback?? my GIMP program doesnt have that...OR i just cant find it

thanks

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JaggidArt [2008-05-19 12:24:05 +0000 UTC]

Thank yoooou! A DA friend showed me this whe she told me to get Gimp, and I bow down to your helpfulness! I'm just about to put up my first (albeit shitty) animation! W00t you rock!

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alastair-camden In reply to ??? [2008-05-14 00:08:21 +0000 UTC]

i can animate with GIMP

but i can never get it to work on deviantart, what do i save it as to get it to play when someone opens the deviation?

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sweetgirlbia [2008-05-03 13:48:10 +0000 UTC]

this was VERY helpfull thanx really.....how did you discover this nya??/ X3...anyway THANX X3

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Rabidwolf22 [2008-04-20 19:46:52 +0000 UTC]

As you can see, my avatar was made by using this! x3
It's extremely helpful. I'm glad you did it! ^_^

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Zakuru In reply to ??? [2008-04-09 21:11:37 +0000 UTC]

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks.
That helped. Noe I just have to come up with something;

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JadeofAllTrades [2008-04-03 02:55:18 +0000 UTC]

, can't wait to check this out.





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Penguinton [2008-03-15 06:04:13 +0000 UTC]

WOW! Thats awesome! Thanks!!!!

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CrimsonAddiction13 In reply to ??? [2008-02-29 17:20:15 +0000 UTC]

I couldn't find a good tutorial. This was great! thanks! I'm going tio try to do it.

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ShinySerebii [2008-01-18 03:24:31 +0000 UTC]

THAAAAAAAANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH! I needed this!

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HisagiHugger In reply to ??? [2007-12-26 03:17:04 +0000 UTC]

I kinda lost you on step 8.

When I "bump" it back to 100%, I see my original drawing still, but with my edited drawing.

Like, if I was doing a bouncing ball, and I bump it back too 100, I see 2 balls instead of one. Get me?

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Kieti In reply to HisagiHugger [2008-02-02 07:00:08 +0000 UTC]

Sorry I took crazy long to reply @_@
Um, it's because you can see through to the layer below because it's transparent.
BUT
I have recently discovered that you can change it so that instead of stacking the layers on top of each other it switches them around.
I... lost the menu option though.
I think it's in the save options?
Anyway, I'll look into it and get back to you.

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HisagiHugger In reply to Kieti [2008-02-02 07:07:38 +0000 UTC]

Alright, thanks! ^^

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seaparrot In reply to ??? [2007-12-16 14:29:15 +0000 UTC]

ร”:รด You saaaved me! xD What should I do without this tutorial? I love it!!! A fav+ for sure! ;D

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