Metuchen High School: GIMP

15. Animated GIF #2

5 points

This exercise provides an introduction to creating animated GIFs, with Blend.

Here are the 4 images I began with:

This is the complete GIF, with Blend:

• The first step in creating an animated GIF with Blend is to locate or create several images that are related to each other.  (I used 4 images of a tree in each of the seasons.)  First create a new project. Then use Open as Layers to add each image to the project; this puts each image on its own layer. The Blend feature adds intermediate frames between the images that you added to the project. These intermediate frames make the final animation look smoother.

• Begin setting up the animation: Filters > Animation > Blend. Choose how many intermediate frames you want GIMP to put between each of the original images. Try 10 - 15 frames. The resulting animation should appear in a separate tab or window.

• Note: sometimes GIMP omits the bottom (last) layer when generating the animation. A workaround is to duplicate this layer in the Layers Dialog, so that it exists twice there. This seems to get GIMP to include the bottom layer.

• To view the animated GIF: Filters > Animation > Playback and click the Play button.

• To create a standalone animated GIF: File > Export. Under Select File Type, choose GIF. Click Export. In the "Export Image as GIF" box, click the "As animation" option. To cause the animation to loop, click "Loop forever." Here you can also set "delay between frames where unspecified." Click Export.

   

  Exercise

  Create an animated GIF with 4+ slides. Use the Blend feature to add additional frames and make the animation smoother.

   

  Video

  YouTube video on using Blend in GIMP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olNbH7h_2QQ