Affinity Photo - Create an animated gif

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, v_kyr said:

... and convert/adapt that code over for ADe.

But what if that code from DP uses data structures that have no equivalent in AD? Does't that mean you first have to create those structures from scratch in AD before you can convert/adapt any DP code that uses them to run in AD?

[v_kyr]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But what if that code from DP uses data structures that have no equivalent in AD? Does't that mean you first have to create those structures from scratch in AD before you can convert/adapt any DP code that uses them to run in AD?

Make yourself first clear what data structures are, there are already tons of books telling you all needed to know about algorithms & data structures, with examples for their definition, implementation, usage & efficiency assessments and so on ... in/for various prog languges.

If an used data structure is nothing commonly predefined used one, so something more custom or own specific, then you have to convert it's code over from the source to the target system. Pretty much as what I've already told before and what I've done with/for the example ATN tool above, where I ported all of my initially written byte parsing and generation routines for the ATN file format (...Adobe's specific own data structures for ATN file formats) over to other prog languages for (re)usage on other host systems.

 

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

If an used data structure is nothing commonly predefined used one, so something more custom or own specific, then you have to convert it's code over from the source to the target system.

To me, that sounds more like you are really writing the actual code from scratch that 'converting' it from a source like DP, but I guess that is just me.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

To me, that sounds more like you are really writing the actual code from scratch that 'converting' it from a source like DP, but I guess that is just me.

Think about what porting/converting one app from A to B overall means here and how you would accomplish that. Maybe you get an idea of how that can be practically done then!

It's as I initially said that this debate will go, as you don't have any knowledge, experiences and the like about programming, so don't seem to understand what others are telling you, that will finally yield here again into some endless & fruitless discussions about such things, as it did a lot of times before here in the forum.

The best will probably be, you and I don't discuss & talk about such things, you don't either way know nothing about. So we better let it just be! - I'm now leaving this thread here and will instead let other people explain some of the common basics of software development to you here.

[Barry Newman]

On 7/9/2023 at 10:35 PM, v_kyr said:

The best will probably be, you and I don't discuss & talk about such things, you don't either way know nothing about. So we better let it just be! - I'm now leaving this thread here and will instead let other people explain some of the common basics of software development to you here.

I completely agree, vkyr. As I just wrote in another thread, lack of industry knowledge in multiple threads is a bad thing. The real stuff is drowned out by anything but useful content.

It all started in 2019 with:

Quote

How to make an animated gif?

It is now a task of Jupiter dimensions to skim page after page of posts with no value. I don't know what the benefit of a user forum is if it doesn't become a knowledge forum.

I'm forced to take a staycation this year where I plan to tinker with things I never have time for, and my old friend GIF could be an option. Or webp. It won't be in Affinity, but I'm happy to take recommendations on which software is best for that. OP might do the same - theoretically, right?

I think I'm going to focus on Blender during my vacation, now that I finally have the time and opportunity.

[Barry Newman]

Well @Westerwälder now you've played until late with putting laughing emojis on my and others posts, that's enough playing for today, time for bed.

[arifg]

I found a workaround;

-first you make your stickman in a layer, that is in the group 

-then you make or duplicate another layer... you know the rest.

grouping is for if there's a background object etc.

the idea is; can someone make a macro to hide the layers by order, and by fps, like  "play this animation at 30 fps"

[atraira]

with Adobe's latest dumb moves im looking more and more for a CS replacement, is there any news of a timeline being added so Photo can create animated gifs? it's a pretty important part for an all-in-one raster image editor, and an absolute essential if this is being billed as an alterative to PS

[R C-R]

No news.

[hambandana]

One of the many little things that make me consider going back to the abusive relationship with adobe.

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, hambandana said:

One of the many little things that make me consider going back to the abusive relationship with adobe.

If you Google "make animated GIFs" & you will find several alternatives to Adobe's product, some of them free.

[atraira]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

If you Google "make animated GIFs" & you will find several alternatives to Adobe's product, some of them free.

wow thank you i had no idea! that's super useful and not at all completely besides the point of this entire 5 page thread! i definately want to have to export out to a completely separate application for an integral part of the creative process! be sure to keep up the useful advice!

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, atraira said:

wow thank you i had no idea! that's super useful and not at all completely besides the point of this entire 5 page thread! i definately want to have to export out to a completely separate application for an integral part of the creative process! be sure to keep up the useful advice!

If making animations, GIF or otherwise, is a big part of your "creative process" then AP is not a good choice for you, since they have made it very clear that there are no plans to support animation in any form in any of the Affinity apps.

And as I mentioned, you do not have to choose any Adobe app for this if you want to avoid that "abusive" relationship.

[PaulEC]

After five pages, and five years, one thing seems certain: Serif are not gong to add animated gifs anytime soon!

That being the case, if you need to create animated gifs the choice seems simple, either use a free alternative, or pay a subscription to Adobe, (if you think it's worth it, just to avoid using a different app occasionally).

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

That being the case, if you need to create animated gifs the choice seems simple, either use a free alternative, or pay a subscription to Adobe, (if you think it's worth it, just to avoid using a different app occasionally).

There are also other commercial (not free) apps that are much more powerful & better suited to animation work than the minimal animated GIF feature built into PS. They are particularly useful when you do not want to have to manually create each image that will become a frame in the animation.

[hambandana]

21 hours ago, R C-R said:

If making animations, GIF or otherwise, is a big part of your "creative process" then AP is not a good choice for you, since they have made it very clear that there are no plans to support animation in any form in any of the Affinity apps.

And as I mentioned, you do not have to choose any Adobe app for this if you want to avoid that "abusive" relationship.

Maybe instead of jumping down the throats of five pages of people saying this feature is a big gaping hole for us you should just... Accept that you are not the target audience here and move on

Edited December 5, 2024 by hambandana

[atraira]

1 hour ago, hambandana said:

Maybe instead of jumping down the throats of five pages of people saying this feature is a big gaping hole for us you should just... Accept that you are not the target audience here and move on

if "people looking for an alternative to photoshop" is not affinity photo's target audience then i'm not really sure what is

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, hambandana said:

Maybe instead of jumping down the throats of five pages of people saying this feature is a big gaping hole for us you should just... Accept that you are not the target audience here and move on

I am not jumping down anybody's throat. I'm just repeating what Serif has said repeatedly about having no plans to implement animation functions of any kind in AP. Thus, if you want or need to create animations, you need to look elsewhere for an app or service that will do that.

[jonnybe]

On 4/8/2021 at 7:24 PM, NilsFinken said:

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! 😊

 

In 2024 this is no longer a 'free' option. To download the generated animated gif requires signing up for a trial of some streaming content.

[jonnybe]

I ended up using Krita. Not only will it produce animated gifs, it also renders animated png (who knew) and even a video, which works perfectly in my case!

[eWalthert]

I tested (and paid for) several tools on MacOS to create and/or optimize animated GIF’s, yet all of them have issues and are lacking some basic options.

The way PhotoShop is able to create, edit and optimize Animated GIF’s is pretty great, even though it has been totally neglected since years.

I do understand, that adding a timeline to Affinity Photo is not a priority, but it would make a lot of users really happy. (looking at 5 pages of comments).
Animated GIF’s are here to stay. In many cases, they are the preferred hack or fallback to get things animated on restricted platforms.

[jonnybe]

20 minutes ago, eWalthert said:

I tested (and paid for) several tools on MacOS to create and/or optimize animated GIF’s, yet all of them have issues and are lacking some basic options.

The way PhotoShop is able to create, edit and optimize Animated GIF’s is pretty great, even though it has been totally neglected since years.

I do understand, that adding a timeline to Affinity Photo is not a priority, but it would make a lot of users really happy. (looking at 5 pages of comments).
Animated GIF’s are here to stay. In many cases, they are the preferred hack or fallback to get things animated on restricted platforms.

Hi,

Photoshop is not an option for me; I will never use an Adobe product again! I am really happy with Krita, and while it took a few goes to get the rendering as I wanted, it the MP4 and animated gif are great. I liked it so much I have donated to the development fund. I am much happier sending my $ there rather that Adobe and its poor customer service and awful subscription options.

Jon

[eWalthert]

6 minutes ago, jonnybe said:

Hi,

Photoshop is not an option for me; I will never use an Adobe product again! I am really happy with Krita, and while it took a few goes to get the rendering as I wanted, it the MP4 and animated gif are great. I liked it so much I have donated to the development fund. I am much happier sending my $ there rather that Adobe and its poor customer service and awful subscription options.

Jon

Oh thanks, for the tip, Krita did not come up in my search for Animated GIF software. I’ll give it a try. And I forgot to mention, that I’m no longer using PhotoShop.
The best way to compress and optimize GIF’s I have found so far was EZGIF, but I rather have an offline tool.

[eWalthert]

38 minutes ago, jonnybe said:

Hi,

Photoshop is not an option for me; I will never use an Adobe product again! I am really happy with Krita, and while it took a few goes to get the rendering as I wanted, it the MP4 and animated gif are great. I liked it so much I have donated to the development fund. I am much happier sending my $ there rather that Adobe and its poor customer service and awful subscription options.

Jon

Sorry, that does not work for me. While I’m able to open an MP4 or animated GIF and render it as animated GIF, there is no option for reducing the colour pallet and chose different ways of dithering or noise. Resulting in a GIF with 27MB that has been exported as 11MB and could be optimized down to 2MB.
It was worth the try and supporting the project. But it is unfortunately not there yet.

[jonnybe]

4 minutes ago, eWalthert said:

Sorry, that does not work for me. While I’m able to open an MP4 or animated GIF and render it as animated GIF, there is no option for reducing the colour pallet and chose different ways of dithering or noise. Resulting in a GIF with 27MB that has been exported as 11MB and could be optimized down to 2MB.
It was worth the try and supporting the project. But it is unfortunately not there yet.

Sorry to hear that. i started with individual images and then rendered to mp4 and animated gif. I suspect some of the options may be available at the front end?