Affinity Photo - Create an animated gif

[Tibreizh]

Hi,

How to create an animated gif?

I do not see where to find the timeline to configure the transition from one image to another.

Could you help me ?

Thank you.

[MEB]

Hi Tibreizh,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Affinity Photo/Designer don't have a timeline nor support animated GIF's/animation.

[Tibreizh]

Thank you for your reply.

[SrPx]

On 3/26/2019 at 2:48 PM, Tibreizh said:

Thank you for your reply.

https://www.ssuiteoffice.com/software/gifanimator.htm

[snaf]

 It' sound so sad.  are there this function  in the future version?   because The PS program can do.

 

[fredphoesh]

On 3/29/2019 at 9:27 PM, SrPx said:

https://www.ssuiteoffice.com/software/gifanimator.htm

This is ok if you already have a series of images for each of your animation frames. There is also good, free websites that offer this too, but what PS can do is to actually allow you to design the the frames, animate objects, output that as separate png files with alpha.

[SrPx]

For that is a lot better an actual animation software. With proper onion settings, not something smashed there in any way, with a convoluted workflow like in PS,  and much better timeline and keyframes options than Adobe provides. Even Krita ( krita.org ) has that better.

As someone that has needed to animate quite often, I'd recommend specialized tools for that. Most animation packages count on a free version. I believe Spriter has one, and Spine does so, too  (not anymore). Sprite maintains its free one, though, and seems gif export is included. For pure pixel art animation, is thousands times better Aseprite. Is so important to do actually good animations, that I'd rather use a really good app for that, even if does not  export as gif anims (but PNG or GIF frames) and then you need to use MS gif animator or the one I linked, to convert the bunch of frames to an animated gif  (easy peasy, tho). Many apps allow to do this in 2 seconds.

Probably what you need is the free version of Sprite (I'd pre-order the version 2, seems is going to be amazing)

https://brashmonkey.com/download-spriter-pro/

That said, I love traditional animation, and some tools are very good for that, like  :

https://animationpaper.com/old-pap-free-download/

That old version of Animation Paper is really good and advanced. And the right move to make animation on the free land. That or Open toonz :

https://opentoonz.github.io/e/

Alternatively, another interesting option is Synfig:

https://www.synfig.org

I have not deeply use it for animation, but Krita has enough features for that, too :

https://krita.org/en/

And if you are making only pixel art, the thing is extremely clear, is getting this 14 $ jewel, it's a joy : 

https://www.aseprite.org/

 

When you do a bit more than the regular meme, you realize that you are better off with one of these dedicated animation apps (not referring to the converters, but the actual animation tools).

For handling a bunch of frames and process all with the touch of a button, you might want to get XNview, XNConvert, or Irfanview :

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/

https://www.irfanview.com/

Cheers,

[enginpost]

The one thing I liked about Adobe PhotoShop's timeline was that you could perform simple timeline animations using keyframes on layer/object properties which means, for each layer you could keyframe difference on:

• X&Y position of layer (including under a mask to make something disappear)
• Alpha %
• Visibility (on/off)

Being able to do this would allow you to create one time or looping animations of a UI to simulate UX quickly.  You could also create cool little simple character looping animations. I don't think it should ever try to compete with super complicated timeline animation tools for animation. That would be an entirely different product. But simple property in-betweens (tweens) over time would be nice.

[ayan fun]

On 9/23/2019 at 8:54 PM, enginpost said:

The one thing I liked about Adobe PhotoShop's timeline was that you could perform simple timeline animations using keyframes on layer/object properties which means, for each layer you could keyframe difference on:

• X&Y position of layer (including under a mask to make something disappear)
• Alpha %
• Visibility (on/off)

Being able to do this would allow you to create one time or looping animations of a UI to simulate UX quickly.  You could also create cool little simple character looping animations. I don't think it should ever try to compete with super complicated timeline animation tools for animation. That would be an entirely different product. But simple property in-betweens (tweens) over time would be nice.

Totally agree!

[Stef_D]

I use PicGif for simple animated Gif, and its working fine. On the app store, cheap price, and it works with either pictures, or seq from a .mov file

[V!nc3r]

(Hi all! New  on this forum, also new Photo user)

I just found this thread about ability to edit and create .gif, +1 for this enhancement.

Waiting for that, I suggest an addition to @SrPx list, this very useful software : ScreenToGif. It allows to make a quick screen capture, but also have an editor to create a gif from scratch.

[360Pat]

On 3/26/2019 at 9:47 AM, MEB said:

Hi Tibreizh,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Affinity Photo/Designer don't have a timeline nor support animated GIF's/animation.

So what is the  "New Stack" option good for, if I may ask

[Aammppaa]

According to the help file…

Image stacks
Stacks blend together multiple images to allow exposure merging, object removal, noise reduction and creative effects.

Creative effects using stacks
Composite images of multiple exposures using stacks.

Exposure merging using stacks
Composite images of multiple exposures using stacks.

Noise reduction using stacks
Composite images of multiple exposures using stacks.

Object removal using stacks
Blend images for removing moving objects using stacks.

Focus merge source cloning
Edit focus merged results using the powerful Sources panel.

Focus merging images
Merge together images with different focus distances for greater depth of field.

[JofreJKD]

I would like to know if Affinity Photo will add the gif animation timeline option?

[Photography Remembered]

On 3/26/2019 at 7:47 AM, MEB said:

Hi Tibreizh,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Affinity Photo/Designer don't have a timeline nor support animated GIF's/animation.

Thanks it would be awesome to see this feature added. 

[Ted Pikul]

Is there any news on this? I need this function on a regular basis. Is it going to be added?

 

[MEB]

Hi @Ted Pikul, @Photography Remembered
Welcome to Affinity Forums
As far as i know, there's no plans to add support for animated GIFs/timelines/animation to Affinity, sorry.

[Ted Pikul]

Too bad. I guess I will have to find another way then. 

Thank you for your reply.

[FSB67]

Seems like the developers don't listen or pay attention to industry standards like animated gifs.

[Eumarcio]

On 9/25/2020 at 1:26 PM, MEB said:

Oi @Ted Pikul, @Photography Remembered
Bem-vindo ao Affinity Forums Pelo que eu sei, não há planos para adicionar suporte para GIFs / linhas do tempo / animação ao Affinity.

I really loved Affinity photo, I hope the future will reconsider putting function for animation. Affinity photo with animation would be more attractive, even krita is open source has this function.

[Umalum]

Same here - I stupidly just cancelled photoshop which I used to do very simple animations in. I know that Procreate can animate though so I might just use that in future when I need to do it. Would be great if Affinity could do it too!

[dotails]

On 3/26/2019 at 8:46 AM, Tibreizh said:

Hi,

How to create an animated gif?

I do not see where to find the timeline to configure the transition from one image to another.

Could you help me ?

Thank you.

Petition

I found a petition to make Affinity Animator a thing! If you sign it and maybe we can move mountains.

[Frank Juval]

I would prefer they don't bloat Affinity Photo with an animation feature.

I'm all for Affinity Animator. If they make an animation app, I'd buy it.

[v_kyr]

Aren't there enough GIF animation building tools (?), the net is full of them, freeware, opensource, commercial ones etc.

[NilsFinken]

Not a problem!

I can recommend the free on-line tool ezgif at https://ezgif.com/maker

1. Just create your different "frames" in Affinity,

2. Save in one of these formats:

GIF / JPG / PNG / APNG / HEIC / MNG / FLIF / AVIF / WebP or other images, up to 2000 files.
Max file size 6MB each or 100MB in total.

3. Upload multiple files or upload .zip archive with images via https://ezgif.com/maker.

4. Download the resulting animated .gif file..

Works like a charm! 😊