TEXAS STYLE TUTORIAL

TEXAS STYLE TUTORIAL



Howdy partners! Saddle yourself up folks for a ride through our Texas Style Tutorial. This tutorial is gonna cover the process of creating a GIF animation with the assistance of our old pal, "Animation Wizard". The first thing ya’ll need is an image file. Ya’ll can create your own or rustle up another compadre's image file by roaming the Net 'til you git just what you want.

Ok Folks, now it’s time to put on your serious cowboy hat and git down to bidness. . .

For the purpose of this tutorial, we chose to view an image file in LViewPro; a tool similar to Paint Shop Pro, Power Point, Harvard Graphics, Corel Draw, etc. Image files imported into LViewPro should be in one of the following file formats:

JPEG - Joint Photographers Expert Group, JFIF
BMP - MS Windows and OS/2 bitmap
TIFF - Aldus' Tagged Image File Format 6.0
TGA - Truevision Targa
GIF - Compuserve's GIF87a and GIF89a
PCX - ZSoft's PCX
PBM, PGM and PPM - Jef Poskanzer's PBMPLUS formats

Once you have created the animation sequence in LViewPro or the graphic application of your choice, you are ready to import the individual images (frames) into GIF Construction Set for Windows 1.0G. In GIF Construction Set, perform the following steps to create your animation file using the feature called "Animation Wizard". The "Animation Wizard" will walk you through the entire process of creating an animated GIF file.

  1. Select the Animation Wizard found under the File option on the menu bar.

  2. Indicate whether you intend to use the GIF file on the World Wide Web or elsewhere.

  3. Indicate whether you want to loop the animation indefinitely. Looping simply means that after the animation is complete, it will pause and then start again from the Header.

  4. Indicate whether your image is a drawn or a photorealistic image. Line drawings and text constitute drawn images, whereas scanned or computer-generated pictures constitute photorealistic images.

  5. The next screen asks for you to designate the speed in between your frames in hundredths of seconds. This is not nearly as crucial to speed as the number of frames which make up the final GIF file. We suggest a minimum of 30 frames for every 1 second of display. Remember an animation sequence is very similar to a cartoon flip-book, in that the more frames you have the smoother and faster the movement of the image.

  6. At this point, you should select all the image files you have created to compile your animation. To do this, click Select from the dialog box and a directory appears. However, the default is directed toward GIF files. Because the image files were created in LViewPro, you will not be able to see them unless you select the All Files (*.*) Option. Once you select all files, the JPG files which were created in LViewPro will appear. Highlight each JPG file one at a time in sequence as to how you want them to appear in the animation. After each file you must select Done. After all files have been selected, click Next, then click Done.

  7. Animation Wizard will begin its remapping and dithering. Remapping and dithering is GIF Construction Set’s process of creating colors that are not part of its own global color palette, but is a part of the file you are importing.

  8. Animation Wizard is merging all the separate JPG files into one GIF file.

  9. If you choose to view the image at this time, click View from the file menu. We advise to Save first!!! Choose Save As from the File Option menu bar, and name your file. Now you have your one animated GIF file.

  10. This animated GIF file can be added to your HTML coding of your web page.


Well, Folks! There you have it. Now, wasn’t that a heap of fun. Hope ya’ll ain’t all tuckered out cause we still gotta show you "Where to go From Here".

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