Active GIF Creator 3.8 ---------Tutorial
Site: http://www.easyanimationtools.com/products/agif/ E-mail: agif@easyanimationtools.com Active GIF Creator 3.8 (AGIF) is a powerful tool for creation, editing, optimization and protection of great looking GIF- animations and other graphics for the Web and presentations. Key features: support of BMP, JPEG, ICO, PCX, PNG, TGA, PSD, GIF- files and Windows Metafiles; internal image editor; animation scripts; a quantity of image editing operations; image effects; color palette support; import / export to different graphical formats; advanced open picture dialog (thumbnailer); GIF- file size powerful optimization; HTML image map editor; button creator; batch mode; image collections; clipboard operations. This tutorial introduces you to the detailed information about creation, editing, optimization and protection of GIF- animations with the help of Active GIF Creator(AGIF).
| Getting started - How to add frame? - Reordering frames. - Frame's attributes: offset and transparency. - Frame operations. - Operations with frame part. - Button creator. Frame editing. - Image Editor. - Using of image collections. - Editing of frame's attributes. GIF- animation. - Preview. - Editing of animation parameters. - Editing of global GIF- file attributes. - Animation scripts. | GIF optimization. - Optimal number of frames. - Size and offset of image. - Dialog "Optimize GIF". File operations. - Load file. - Save file. - Preview GIF- file on Web page. - Protect GIFs from unauthorized use. Individual preferences. - Customize Toolbars. - Create your own image collection. - Select language.
> Getting started. GIF- file consists of multiple images (frames). These images are created with the help of internal image editor or any graphic application such as Windows Paint, Adobe Photoshop and so on. After installation of Active GIF Creator (AGIF) you can place wanted tools to Standard Toolbar (see Customize Toolbars) and set work parameters in dialog File / Preferences. To create (edit) animated GIF you need some number of images (frames). For that you can: load existent GIF- file (file with extension .gif) or project (file with extension .agif) ; import bitmap strip, AVI or ANI- file; paste image from clipboard (select menu item Image / Paste image or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar). Image with big number of colors will be transformed to 256- colored image; create new animation: - select menu item File / New or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar; - add empty image to GIF (select menu item Image / New or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar). Color palette and initial width and height of this new image are defined in dialog File / Preferences on tab New. You can set image size or select standard banner size, shape and shape's color for this image. Then you can continue to draw new image by Image Editor; - you can add new image to GIF; - you can add button image to GIF from dialog Button Creator; - you can use previously created subimages and apply image operations to them. Notes: Image Collections make possible to use images from bitmap strips for pasting them to editing frame; there is an alternative method of GIF creation by using of Script Editor in AGIF. How to add frame? Select menu item Image / Add or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. You can select BMP, JPEG, GIF, ICO, WMF, EMF, PCX, PNG, TGA or PSD- files for insertion from Advanced Open Picture Dialog (see parameters on tab Tools in File / Preferences dialog). Notes: each new image is added to the end of the List of images. You can move image later to any place of the list; you can resize added JPEG- files and Metafiles, if flag Invoke size dialog is checked in dialog File / Preferences (tab Add); new images have attributes defined in dialog File / Preferences on tab New. GIF- file is a special case as it already contains frames with attributes. So you can leave original image attributes if you mark checkbox Keep original frame attributes of added GIF- files in dialog File / Preferences on tab Add; GIF can contain no more than 256 colors. So it is important to define color reduction and dithering mode for added images in dialog File / Preferences on tab Add. Default values are Quantize with 8 bits and Nearest (nearest color matching without error correction).
> Color reduction: |
> Windows20 - reduce to the Windows 20 color system palette. |
> Windows256 - reduce to the Windows 256 color halftone palette. |
> WindowsGray - reduce to the Windows 4 grayscale colors. |
> Monochrome - reduce to a black / white monochrome palette. |
> GrayScale - reduce to a uniform 256 shade grayscale palette. |
> Netscape - reduce to the Netscape 216 color palette. |
> Quantize - reduce to optimal 2^n color palette. The Bits parameter specifies the desired number of colors (bits per pixel). |
> QuantizeWindows - reduce to optimal 256 color windows palette. |
###### Back to top Reordering frames. When you add new images to GIF they appear at the end of the List of images. You can move them to any place of the list. To move wanted image up (down) in the list select menu item Image / Move Up (Image / Move Down) or click the toolbar button () of Standard Toolbar. Note: you can also change position of an image in the list by dragging the list item to new place, using mouse with pressed left button. To remove wanted image from the list select menu item Image / Delete or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Note: you can delete image group selected by checkboxes in the List of images. ###### Back to top Frame's attributes: offset and transparency. Offset. Each image has individual offset. You can define offset of separate image by means of spinedits on tab Image of Attribute Toolbar or by image dragging by mouse. Status Bar displays current mouse coordinates. Checked flag Logical screen Auto on tab Global of Attribute Toolbar means that size of logical screen will be recalculated after any image offset. See also image offsets- one of the tools for GIF- file optimization. Transparency. Images in GIF- files have transparency attribute so that one color in the image is not displayed. This allows a web-page's background colors show through. Initial transparent color of added image is the color of the lower left pixel. Property "transparency" of new image is defined in dialog File / Preferences on tab New. Transparent color is selected from active (local or global) palette. You can select another transparent color directly from image on tab Compose of Image Area. Click button on tab Image of Attribute Toolbar and move mouse over image. Click on necessary image color to fix selection. List of images has checkboxes to display images from different frames simultaneuosly on tab Compose. It helps you to see how one image is placed relative to other image. If demanded you can set transparent background for overlaid image. See also: frame operation merge. ###### Back to top Frame operations. All operations you can do only with images selected in the List of images. Duplicate. If there is a necessity in two or more identical frames, select wanted image and use menu operation Image / Operations / Duplicate or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. New frame will have the same attributes as the current frame. Merge. You can create a new image consisting of two and more images. For example, one image can be used as a background for other images placed on this background in different places. To merge all images checked in the List of images use menu operation Image / Operations / Merge or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. If two frames inside GIF have local palettes with different sets of 256 colors then the palette of merged frame will be converted to some new 256- colored palette. As a result of this operation you can get changed colors in merged frame. Notes: you can try to apply operation Image / Attributes / Delete Local Palette for source frames before merging and then merge these frames; you can set attributes of source frames before merging on tab Image of Attribute Toolbar. Crop. Sometimes there is a necessity to use some rectangle part of an image as a new image. It can be made by selecting a necessary fragment with the help of menu operation Image / Operations / Crop or by click on the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Note: also you can select rectangle part of the image by drawing tool in Image Editor and click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Resize. You can change size of any frame and set resize method: Crop, Stretch, Stretch + smooth. For that select menu item Image / Operations / Size or click the button on the tab Image of Attribute Toolbar. Also you can change image size by mouse dragging of the marker on tab Edit of image area. Marker is located in the right bottom corner of the image. If you drag with pressed key Ctrl then image will be stretched. If you drag with pressed key Shift then image will be stretched and smoothed (note: in common case smoothing creates 256-colors local palette because it demands new transitional colors). Rotate and flip. With the help of AGIF it is possible to make image rotation on 180 degrees or to the left and to the right on 90 degrees. It is also possible to flip images in a horizontal and vertical plane. These operations are available for execution in the menu items Image / Operations / Rotate and Image / Operations / Flip.
Effects. To use a set of tools for image modification select menu item Image / Operations / Effects or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Select tab with desired effect and set its parameters, then click button Apply to see effect's action. After pressing of this button you can edit effect parameters and see how they change the image. Button Extract displays current image without new effects superposition. Button Fix fixes current image with applied effect. It allows you to apply several effects to the image sequentially.
Particles. To put particles on your image or it's part select menu item Image / Operations / Particles or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. You can set particle image and it's color, define how particles will be located on image. Button of this dialog makes fragment equal to full image area. It is convenient to change fragment position and size by using of mouse. Note: if you want to put particles on specified image parts you can use particles as brush shapes. For that select the tab Edit in Image Area and click button on the page with brush forms in Image Editor.
Transition. This operation gives effect of gradual substitution one image by other image. Select necessary image (except the last image) in the list and use menu item Image / Operations / Transition. You can set number of transitional frames and single delay for all transitional frames simultaneously. Note: if the second image which substitutes the first image is transparent then all transitional frames will be transparent with the same transparent color. ###### Back to top Operations with frame part. To select necessary rectangular part of the image use drawing tool of the Image editor on tab Edit. You can: move selected part of the frame within the drawing area by mouse with pressed left button; move it's copy to another part of the image by pressed CTRL key and mouse with pressed left button; copy selected part to the clipboard (menu item Edit / Copy) and paste it from clipboard to the current image (menu item Edit / Paste); rotate and flip selected part (similar to frame operation); apply effects to selected part (similar to frame operation). ###### Back to top Button creator. To create 2D and 3D button images select menu item Tools / Button. Select wanted template (click the button ) and edit parameters of the button, caption, light source, shade. Note: you can add button image as a new frame to the current GIF by click the button of this dialog.
> ###### Back to top Frame editing. You can create GIF by two methods: direct editing on tab Edit in Image Area or design on tab Script. Active tab is marked by green point. Priority work's method is toggled in File / Preferences dialog on tab GIF. Notes: If tab Edit is active then you can create or edit GIF mainly by using of Image Editor. In this case tab Script is an additional tool for drawing. You can add objects to the script and edit their attributes, but you can not see added objects on frame immediately with all movements and changes. For that you must put snapshot of script to the current () or new frame (). If tab Script is active then you can create or edit GIF mainly by using of Script Editor. In this case on the current frame you can see evident and immediate addition of objects and all object movements and changes. But any editing actions in Image Editor will be lost after any action in Script. Image Editor. The Image Editor gives possibility to edit current image. For that select the tab Edit in Image Area. The Image Editor contains the Toolbox and Color Palette. To use any drawing tool of the Toolbox click on it by the left mouse button. The box with few variants of this drawing tool is displayed in the bottom part of the Toolbox (if this tool has variants). If you draw by the left mouse button then drawing tools use foreground color from Color Palette located at the bottom of the main window. If you draw by the right mouse button then drawing tools use background color as an active color. To select any palette color in the current editing image directly use toolbox button of Image Editor. Notes: transparent images are displayed in Image Editor as non- transparent; you can use operations: Undo and Redo in process of frame editing (select menu items Edit / Undo and Edit / Redo or click toolbar buttons and of Standard toolbar). Color palette. Color palette is an array of colors. Each pixel of image reffers to color by index in color palette. Images in GIF- files can contain up to 256 colors. Therefore color palettes of multicoloured images will be transformed to 256 colors. See: add image to GIF; paste image from clipboard, Image Collections, Button Creator; frame operation merge; animation scripts.
> |  | There are two kinds of palettes: global and local. Local palette defines colors for individual image inside GIF- file. It demands some extra memory in GIF- file to be stored. Local palette may be absent, and global palette is used for that case. When you add new image it may use local or global palette. It depends on setting of combobox Palette on tab New in dialog File / Preferences. You can delete (create) local palette using menu items Image / Attributes / Delete (Create) Local Palette. You also may create global palette in optimization dialog: Move colors from local palettes to global palette. You can edit global and local color palettes in menu items Global / Global Palette and Image / Attributes / Local Palette or by means of Attribute Toolbar. Mouse double-click on editor color palette invokes edit color palette dialog too. You can change selected color entry (in red rectangle) by means of spinedits R, G, B or field HEX # or button . Also you can add () or remove () color index; move current color by mouse dragging or by buttons , ; sort palette entries () by usage or R, G, B values; delete extra palette entries with equal colors () or all unused (); redefine color entries in form of gradient fill ; load palette from file with extension .p () and save it ().
- Using of image collections. Image collections allow you to have a large set of different fragments of images and insert them into edited frames. You can use collections supplied with the program or create your own collections. To set collections use menu item Tools / Image Collections. You will see the dialog box with a list. Elements of the list are file names with the bitmap strips. You can add and delete items, sort list and check / uncheck marks in the list items. The checked item means: window with appropriate set of images is visible on screen now. You can move this window with images and change its size. Select tab Edit in Image area and click on any image in the window with a collection. Image will be inserted into the left upper angle of the current frame (similarly to operation Edit / Paste). Move it to desired place and continue editing. Notes: color palette of inserted image will be transformed to the current palette of the edited frame; pasted image is not transparent. Editing of frame's attributes. You can edit attributes of the current frame (size, offset, transparency, local palette, interlacement, delay, title, "How To Remove") by means of menu item Image / Attributes or on tab Image of Attribute Toolbar. Button allows you to assign attributes of selected image to all images checked in the List of images. The default attributes are assigned to images that don't contain settings. This situation is occured if you add any image to your GIF as a new frame (including GIF- file created by another application). Default settings may be redefined in the File / Preferences dialog. ###### Back to top GIF- animation. Animation in GIF format is realized as a sequence of images which differ slightly from each other. It gives an illusion of a motion. Preview of animation. To preview animation select menu item Animation / Animate or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Image on this button will be changed to . Animation in AGIF continues until you stop it or begin editing actions. To stop animation select menu item Animation / Animate or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Editing of animation parameters: Number of loops in animation. You can edit this value with help of spinedit Looping on page Global of Attribute Toolbar. (If Attribute Toolbar is not present on screen - switch it on by selecting menu item View / Attribute Toolbar). In addition to loop counter there is a checkbox Infinite, which in checked state makes counter unavailable. There are another ways to change loop counter: select menu item Animation / Loop Counter or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Value of delay. Each image in GIF- file has individual value of delay measured in one- hundredths of a second. For example, value 25 means a quarter of a second. You can edit value of delay with help of spinedit Delay on the tab Image of Attribute Toolbar. There are another ways to change delay: select menu item Animation / Delay or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. You can define delay value for selected frame, or single value for all frames simultaneously. For our example, we set delays in green and red frames as 300 (3 seconds) and in two yellow frames as 50 (half of a second). Attribute "How To Remove". This attribute is used for definition of image mapping at the time of GIF- file browsing. It is located on the tab Image of Attribute Toolbar and has the following values: - Web Browser Decides (browser removes the image in the way it decides); - Do Not Remove (the image is not removed, the next image will be displayed over it); - To Background Color (replaces the image with the web page background color); - To Previous State (replaces the image with the image preceding it).
> Default values of loop counter, delay, attribute "How To Remove" for new GIF are defined on the tab New in dialog File / Preferences (or by "hot key" F6). Editing of global GIF- file attributes. You can edit global attributes of GIF- file (size of logical screen, background color, global palette) by means of menu item Global or tab Global of Attribute Toolbar. Notes: with the help of menu item Global / Size () you can change size of animated GIF- file; logical screen may limit view of separate image but it will be stored in GIF- file in its full size so next time you can redefine size of logical screen and view hidden parts of the image. Checked flag Logical screen Auto in Attribute Toolbar means that size of logical screen will be recalculated after the following operations with images: add image, delete image, move image, paste image. Automatic calculation is made by maximum sizes of all images; background color defines color of empty spaces which are transparent when the animation is played in a web browser. It is selected from global palette. GIF may not include global palette (then each image must have local palette); in this case you cannot set background color and GIF appearence will depend on web browser and image parameter "How To Remove". Background color is used very seldom. Animation scripts. The Script Editor gives you possibility to create and edit animation scripts based on objects (small images). Select tab Script in Image Area and Script toolbox will appear on the screen.
> |  | Animation is built by manipulations with these objects. You can move object, change it size, rotate it on 180 or 90 degrees, edit object by graphic tools, bring it to front or send to back, transform and set visibility of object in any frame. Animation script is saved in project (file with extension .agif) and allows you edit object parameters easily and fast. - To clear existent script click the toolbox button . - To put selected frame from the List of images as an object to script click the toolbox button . - You can add objects from file (the toolbox button ), from Image collection, from dialog Export button image (radiobutton Copy to script). Also you can use text (the toolbox button ) as an object. Icons in the list of objects denote object types. If you click on object by mouse or select it in script list then this object is marked by rectangle with 8 markers on a perimeter. Markers are used to change object size. If flag Stretch in dialog Object attributes is checked then object image will be resized. Dialog Object attributes appears after double click on object or script list, or by click the toolbox button . - To replace selected object image in all frames simultaneously use buttons or of dialog Object attributes.
You can move selected object by mouse and edit it's attributes. Note: if you want to select one of overlapped objects on image use mouse with Ctrl key or script list. You can see object with all its movements: evident and immediate on all tabs and in the List of images if tab Script is active (with green point); only on tab Script if this tab is inactive. To see frame with added objects on other tabs and in the List of images you must put snapshot of script to the current frame by toolbox button or to new frame click the toolbox button . Button is intended for hand transformation of all GIF-frames on the basis of script if the tab Script is inactive. In this case objects will be visible in all frames. Note: you can see, edit and save multicoloured images on tab Script unlike to tabs Edit and Compose; when you put snapshot of script to the current or new frame then color palette will be transformed to 256 colors. You can: 1). bring selected object to front or send it to back among all other objects with the help of toolbox buttons or . If you move object in the script by means of buttons () then you can bring selected object to front or send it to back among neighbour objects. 2). delete selected object from script by button . 3). manage object position on background picture using the following buttons: - to insert frames to GIF (these can be background pictures together with objects or without them); and - to set fixed position, movement along the chosen trajectory or linear motion trajectory of an object for some range of frames or for all frames. Note: if you delete any object on active tab Script then it will be deleted from all images in GIF frames and in the List of images too. if you delete any object which already was added to the current frame and tab Script is inactive then your animation does not changed but you can not edit this object any more in Script (but you can edit frame image in Image Editor on tab Edit). ###### Back to top Optimization in Active GIF Creator. The optimization of GIF- files is important for using of animated images on web- pages. Web- pages contain both text and graphic images. Total download time in the greater degree will depend on download time of graphic images than text. Therefore it is necessary to make GIF- files small, but sufficient to provide the necessary quality of animation. Optimal number of frames. GIF- file contains multiple images. Each image has individual value of time delay it will be shown. Also each image occupies some memory. Bigger number of frames leads to bigger GIF-file size and bigger load time. The more number of frames leads to better quality of animation, but increases size of GIF- file. So it is important to find balance. Size and offset of image. Sizes of source bitmap images influence the size of destination GIF, as images are stored in full size with any size of logical screen. (Logical Screen defines the workspace for GIF view). You can change size of the current frame or size of whole animated GIF. If only part of animated picture will be changed you can create small images and define their offsets on logical screen. The great feature of GIF format is a use of images with different sizes. You can position each image in any place. It makes it possibly to use small images to animate only some parts of a picture. You may use crop operation to cut demanded part of an image. ###### Back to top Dialog "Optimize GIF".
| To use this dialog select menu item File / Optimize or click the toolbar button (or use "hot key" F5). Six checkboxes define conditions of optimization. You can use different combinations and see how they influence size of optimized file.
> Remove redundant pixels. For animated pictures there is a frequent situation, when different frames use the same colored pixels. For example, each frame contains the same background or some subimage is used simultaneously in several or all frames. With the help of this operation pixels which are used in several frames are deleted. It allows to reduce the sizes of individual frames and, hence, download time of the whole GIF- file will be decreased. Pixels deleted from a transparent image are present at the previous frames. The result depends on used pictures itself very much. Notes: sometimes total size of the GIF- file can even be increased! Therefore efficiency of this type of optimization checked up in this manner: you switch it on and off. images which you see in the frames after such operation can be strange for you, but you should know that pixels will be combined with pixels from the previous frames. For example, you can see the result of optimization of a GIF- file consisting of 5 frames:
> You can restore images in frames of optimized GIFs with help of menu item File / Restore Frames. Note: in common case we unable to define exact frame that contained the pixel before optimization. Another problem that two transparent frames may have different 256- colored local palettes, so we have image with more than 256 colors and must make color reduction. Sort color map by usage and remove unused entries. For most images, not being photos, the amount of colors used for reproduction frequently is less 256. So it is possible to remove them without any loss for images. Note that color palette may contain one of the following number of entries: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256. It means, that after removing unused entries size of color palette may be reduced, or may be not. It depends on the number colors in source palette and number of unused colors in image. Look at two GIFs - they do not differ, but the left image uses a full color palette in 256 colors, the right image has palette consisting only of 32 colors. And also these images have different file sizes.
###### Back to top File operations. Load file. To load existent GIF- file or project from file with extension .agif select menu item File / Open or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. AGIF uses all global settings and image attributes from this GIF- file. Any project can be used as a template for creation of your own project. To import bitmap strips, ANI and AVI- files select menu item File / Import. Notes: imported animated cursor must have size 32 x 32 and 16 or 256 colors. The operating system cannot create cursors of sizes that do not supported by the current display driver; big AVI- files may consume a lot of resources. Speed of processing and limitations for using of AVI- files in AGIF depend on hardware the program runs. Save file. To save your animation as GIF- file select menu item File / Save GIF or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. Note: GIF- files can be saved in unregistered copies of AGIF with additional text at the left top corner in each frame: AGif - UNREGISTERED. To save your animation as a project in a file with extension .agif select menu item File / Save or click the toolbar button of Standard Toolbar. If selected project already exists then this command simply saves changes in it. Name of saved project is displayed in the caption of the main window. You can save your project with different names by selecting File / Save As. Notes: it is better to save your original non- optimized GIFs as projects for their editing in the future; in unregistered copy of the program (trial-version) your projects and GIF- files can be saved as projects; later in full-functional copy of AGIF you can produce GIF-file without text: AGif - UNREGISTERED; animation script of project allows you to edit added script objects any time your load the project. You can save GIF- frames as set of BMP, TIFF, JPEG- files, as AVI, or ANI- file (animated cursors). To do it select menu item File / Export and then BMP, TIFF, JPEG, AVI, ANI as file type. Notes: AVI- format has single delay for all frames; you can define number of loops in exported AVI in dialog Preferences on tab Export; AVI- format has not "transparency" property for frames, so AGIF exports each frame from GIF as separate frame to AVI without transparency and superposition with previous frames. Preview GIF- file on Web page. To preview your GIF- file on Web page select menu item Tools / Web Page and set color of background or background image for Web page and color of text. Protect GIFs from unauthorized use on the Web. To add hidden signatures to GIF- files select menu item Tools / Signature. Button Sign chooses existing GIF- file and saves it together with hidden signature which was inputed into a field above this button. Button Check checks presence of your signature in existing GIF- file. Notes: maximal text length of your signature is limited and depends on GIF coloring and size; using of hidden signature slightly increases size of created GIF- file. ###### Back to top Individual preferences. Customize Toolbars. After installation of AGIF Standard Toolbar contains set of tools by default. With the help of dialog View / Customize Toolbars it is possible to place any set of tools to Standard Toolbar. For this purpose drag desired tools with the help of left mouse button to the toolbar and remove unnecessary tools by dragging them off the toolbar. Create your own image collection. Image collection is stored as a bitmap strip. Bitmap strip represents a set of images of small sizes which are located like a sequence of frames in a film. Gather the images necessary to you and insert them, as frames, into single GIF- file. To create bitmap strip start operation File / Export and select file type bitmap strips. Now you can add this bitmap strip to prepared collections by means of the button Add in dialog Image Collections and use separate images from it for insertion to editing frames. Select language. AGIF supports multi-language user interface. Program interface may be seen in one of human languages. It includes menus, screen messages, all texts used in interface. To change language select menu item Help / Language. Select a language and click OK. Button Update is intended for update of languages from Internet. The program downloads file languages.inf from Internet and compares language files located on site with language files on your computer. New language is checked by flag, availability of updated version of existing language is highlighted. You can check and uncheck necessary languages. Button Install begins loading of checked and highlighted languages from Internet. Button Load is intended for update of languages from packed language files (with extension PLN) if they were already downloaded or delivered by some other way. New and updated languages have separate subfolders in the folder international and contain help files, tutorials and other data. ###### Back to top
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