User manual ULEAD GIF ANIMATOR 4.0

[. . . ] GIF Animator USER GUIDE First English edition for GIF Animator 4. 0, September 1999 © 1996-99 Ulead Systems, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or storing in a retrieval system, or translating into any language in any form without the express written permission of Ulead Systems, Inc. Software license The software described in this document is furnished under a License Agreement which is included with the product. This Agreement specifies the permitted and prohibited uses of the product. Licenses and trademarks ICI Library © 1991­1992 C-Cube Microsystems. Ulead Systems, Inc. , the Ulead logo, Ulead GIF Animator, VideoStudio and MediaStudio Pro are trademarks of Ulead Systems, Inc. All other product names and any registered and unregistered trademarks mentioned in this manual are used for identification purposes only and remain the exclusive property of their respective owners. Sample files Files provided as samples on the program CD-ROM can be used for personal demonstrations, productions and presentations. [. . . ] You can set an image layer' s removal method on the Attribute toolbar in the How to remove option. The four removal methods are described below: · Web Browser Decides - The image layer is removed using the browser' s default method. This method is not recommended because you will probably get different effects with different browsers. · Do Not Remove - The image layer is not cleared from the screen and all subsequent image layers are stacked on top of it. · To Background Color - The image is removed and replaced with the background color. This can cause flashing if used improperly. · To Previous State - The image layer disappears in the same manner it appeared. This is generally the best removal method, but unfortunately, only Microsoft Internet Explorer supports this at this time. Note: In order to make GIF Animations that are completely cross-browser compatible, make all your image layers full size and then use `Do not remove'. When you run the Optimization Wizard, GIF Animator removes all the redundant pixels between images. With the Do not remove option set for each layer, just enough overlap is retained during optimization that image layers mask out the differences from previous layers as they are stacked during the animation. 20 Other image layer attributes The final three image layer attributes are Delay, Wait for user input, and Interlace. Like all the image layer attributes, their presence is required by the file format (GIF89a), but only one has any visible effect on an animation as it plays in a web browser. They are described below: · Delay - Of the three image layer attributes, this is the perhaps the most useful. The delay time measures the time that the image remains on screen before being removed and replaced by subsequent images. The delay time is measured in hundredths of a second. · Wait for user input - This option is currently not supported in the major browsers, but it is implemented in dedicated GIF viewers. Setting this option on an image layer forces the layer to pause the animation until the user either clicks the mouse button or presses a key on the keyboard. · Interlace - Interlacing breaks an image into two separate fields, allowing one field to download first while waiting for the other. This gives users an immediate preview of the image rather than having to wait for the entire picture to finish downloading. Static GIF images (i. e. , those with single image layers) support this, but in an animated GIF this feature doesn't work on any image layer except the first. If you import any GIF images with their interlacing enabled, be sure to deselect the option inside GIF Animator so that web browsers won't encounter any problems with them. 21 Using Plug-in Filters GIF Animator lets you apply wild plug-in effects directly to the image layers in your animation rather than having to open each layer in an outside editor to apply effects there. You can apply the effect to a single layer or to a range of selected layers. Any Adobe Photoshop 32-bit compliant plug-in can be used in GIF Animator. Loading plug-ins into GIF Animator: 1 Click the File: Preferences menu command to open the Preferences dialog box. When the Browse dialog box opens, locate the folder that contains the plug-ins you want to use. To apply plug-in filters: 1 Select the layer(s) to which you want to apply the plug-in filter. 3 Adjust the filter' s settings until you get the desired effect. [. . . ] Browser-Safe Any color palette that contains the 216 predefined colors used by all web browsers. Comment layer The third, optional layer type that allows you to put comments in your animation. Delay The duration that the image layer is displayed before being removed and replaced by another. Global Palette The GIF file's main palette of 256 indexed colors that all image layers can reference. [. . . ]