Animated gifs in VS 10+ project

sweetchuk · Post by **sweetchuk** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:24 pm

Hi all,

Well, just about finished the project with VS 10+, and it has been a terrific program to use for this.
My question is this ... when I try to import an animated gif into the project using Image folder, it allows me to bring it in, then I drag & drop the animated gif into the storyboard, add transitions & timing of each frame, then run it to see how it looks.

The actual image of the animated gif shows up, but it doesn't run the animation - essentially, it displays as a static non-moving picture.

I was wondering if someone could give me a tip on how to insert the animated gifs into the project and have them run as animated, rather than just a picture.
I've poured through the help files, but I'm unable to locate any area which explains the procedure on how to best accomplish this.

Any advice much appreciated!

Kind regards,

chuk

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:03 am

A gif file is animated by the web browser. VS handles it different. Since I don't use VS, I can't be very specific here. I think you may need to export your gif as an image sequence (mabe you can even import a gif as an image sequence?) and put it on the time line.

In case you use the GifAnimator program you get from Ulead, you can export an animated gif in various formats and even as an AVI file to insert into a VS project.

sweetchuk · Post by **sweetchuk** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:14 am

Hi there heinz!

I have actually collected various animated gifs as representations of the photo themes .. ie a walking gif and horse-riding gif for parks & equestrian.

When I go to insert them as video via the ‘insert media files to timeline folder’, an error message pops up which says:

"OPEN VIDEO FILE

Unable to open file (C:\Documents and Settings\Pics\horseriding.gif)

File Format Mismatch"

Is it possible or plausible that I could use a video converter or similar program to convert the animated gif to .avi or similar then import it back to VS 10+ and insert it that way successfully into the storyboard?

Is that what you meant when suggesting the GifAnimator program from ULead? Does it convert the animated gif into a recogniseable format that VS10+ can then accept into the project?

Or any other solutions or conversion export/import ideas which might suit the above situation?

VS 10+ doesn't recognise any of the animated gifs and the same message comes up as above when I tried to insert any of them.

Cheers,

chuk

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:59 am

I don't think you can insert an animated GIF directly into a video editing program without it behaving as a simple still image.
Take a look down this list of Google search results where there are several GIF to AVI converters available

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:15 am

GifAnimator, which comes as stand alone as well as part of PhotoImpact will open animated gifs, create animated gifs form images and also alows to export the animated gifs in a format understood by NLE programs.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:19 am

Thanks Heinz - I overlooked the obvious one!

sweetchuk · Post by **sweetchuk** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:33 am

Thanks so much heinz & sjj!

This forum is terrific, and nothing seems too much trouble for great advice from people who really know ULead's software.

I must admit to being a little out of my depth when I first started the project, as to what application was best suited to what we do here, but ULead really has intuitive and easy to grasp step by step levels, and the same with anything I guess - the more you get used to it, the better you'll be.

Thank you again for all your help, and I hope to be able to offer some contributions & solutions for some problems people might encounter themselves after this project is done!

Many thanks again,

chuk

Terry Stetler · Post by **Terry Stetler** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:50 am

Odd. I've been able to load animgifs into VS and MSPro for ages. Don't have VS10 loaded yet, but it seems odd they'd remove it from the filetype list in Insert Video. Does *.gif appear in that dialog??

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 3:37 am

I too have no trouble inserting animated gifs in either my library or timeline. And they are just common or garden variety animated gifs, not prepared in GIF Animator -- simply a large stock I have accumulated over the years for use mainly in a website of which I am webmaster... But they also can occasionally add a note of humour to, or liven up the title of, a video...

I think, as Terry has suggested, that the trick is not to use Insert Image, but Insert Video...

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:43 am

I'll be sure to try this out myself. Never used gif files before.

sweetchuk · Post by **sweetchuk** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:18 am

Hi there Terry & Ken,

It sure is strange, and I would have thought that it was a simple exercise in inserting animated gifs to play as animated gifs in sequence, but either I was doing something incorrectly (entirely possible!), or the animated gifs needed converting to a format that VS 10+ recognised and would allow to be inserted into the project.
These are the two ways I tried to insert the animated gifs into the storyboard, before the actual photo's and video clips...

1) 1st way I tried was to go into File>Insert Media File to Timeline>Insert Video
Then the folder selection window came up, which would normally have allowed me to select which animated gifs I wanted to use in any given area, but it did not recognise any files in there (the selection drop down box defaulted to All Formats).
When I selected All Files, you could then see the animated gif names, but then when I selected any single animated gif, or a batch of them to bring into the VS 10+ Edit window, that's when the above error message about File Format Mismatch popped up.

2) The 2nd way I tried, was from the Video Step window in VS 10+, I selected the Open Video Folder icon, then went to the folder containing the animated gifs, and again, nominated which ones to bring into VS 10+ so I could then drag them onto the storyboard to their location, but again, the same error message about File Format Mismatch appeared, and I was unable to get them into VS 10+ because of that.

I don't think I was doing anything incorrectly, and like Ken, I have quite a few animated gifs collected, in my case to add for a bit of comic relief and to break up the slideshow and video project every now and again.

Was there anything I was doing wrong or could have tried?
Heinz's suggestion about Ulead's GifAnimator has solved the problem, as I have now converted the animated gifs to avi's and it's all good.
But if there was a way to not have to go through that step, purely for time's sake, then I'd love to know what steps to take for that.

Many thanks for all your suggestions,

chuk.

sweetchuk · Post by **sweetchuk** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:12 am

Hi guys,

One last thing about the animated gif issue with VS 10+ ......

After I use Heinz's excellent suggestion and convert all animated gifs to .avi's using ULead GifAnimator, I then go to insert them into the project via storyboard, which is no drama at all.

The problem is that as the animated gif is, for example, consisting of say 4 frames each .075 of a second in duration, the finished avi is of course, only a very briefly visible single pass file.

When I go to insert it into VS 10+ in video mode, the most duration I can select to display the animated gif seems to be the duration of the collective tme of the individual frames - in most cases, only about a half to 3/4's of a second.

Is there a way I can extend or loop the animated gif (which has been converted now to avi, although I still have the original gif file) to stay on screen in the project for longer than the time it takes to do a single pass of the file?
I can play the file in Single Clip mode and click the Loop button just below the preview window, and it will play until the cows come home, but switch to Project, and it only does one pass which is a very tiny window of time.
Can I add or duplicate the converted avi one after another then somehow join them together as one file, so that it plays for say 6 or 7 seconds? Or is there another way of extending the duration of the clip in VS 10+ ?

Any ideas on this would be much appreciated.

Kind regards,

chuk

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:14 am

Ken, Terry
It is said that you learn something new every day. Because I always viewed an animated GIF as I would a 'normal' GIF I have never tried inserting one as a video, only as a picture.

Yes you are right, I just inserted one into VideoStudio 10+ as a video and yes it works.

Opened up MediaStudio Pro 8 - same again it works.

Terry Stetler · Post by **Terry Stetler** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 10:33 am

I find them useful for whimsy or as corner 'bugs'. Their alpha channel works, but if they have a solid background keys also work as expected. Just treat 'em like any other video clip.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 12:56 pm

You can of course make copies of your gif either by using the normal Copy and Paste commands, either in Windows itself or within VS. Right click a file and you will see the Copy command. Select your file, and Paste then becomes active.

But you don't even have to worry about that. If you have your gif in your library pane, then you simply drag and drop it into the timeline as many times as you like. You might want to disable (File > Preferences) any automatic insertion of a transition between clips, however. I have just done this with a 1.5 second gif of dancing penguins, repeating the drag and drop 10 times, and now have it as a continuous 15 second dance!