Metuchen High School: GIMP

6 points

This exercise discusses creating an animated GIF using GIMP's drawing tools. 

In this exercise, you use GIMP's drawing tools to make an animated GIF.  You'll probably use the Pencil  , Pen  , Airbrush  , Bucket Fill  and/or Ink  tools.

• To get started, start a new project, and create each of the images that you'll use in your animation. Use Open as Layers to add each image to a layer.

• As an alternative, use Open as Layers just for the first image. Then use the Duplicate Layer button, at the bottom of the Layers panel, to create additional layers. You can then edit the image on each layer.

  The sunrise GIF I made consists of 16 frames. I created the sun with the Paintbrush tool.  I changed the Foreground color to different shades of gray for the GIFs' backgrounds, and used the Bucket Fill tool to fill each layer with color.

• Consider using GIMP's Blend tool to add intermediate frames, to make your animation smoother.

• Set up the animation: Filters > Animation > Optimize (for GIF). Right-click on each layer and choose "Edit Layer Attributes".  After the layer's name, in parentheses edit the number of milliseconds that you want the layer to display.  For example, if the layer is named "Layer 2" and you want it to display for 2.5 seconds, you would set this up: Layer 2 (2500ms)

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

• To create the animated GIF, do File > Save.  At the bottom of the screen, you see "Select File Type".  Select GIF.  Select Save As Animation and Convert to Indexed and click Export.  You can select Loop Forever.  For "Frame disposal where unspecified," choose One Frame Per Layer.  Click "Use disposal entered above for all frames".  Click Save.  Then preview your animated GIF: Filters > Animation > Playback.

Exercise

Make an animated GIF, using the drawing tools, with 10 or more frames.

GIMP Links

• docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-paintbrush.html

• docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-bucket-fill.html