Author Topic: RE: Animated maps (Read 22555 times)

Will · « **on:** December 13, 2008, 04:51:43 am »

I wish to know what I need to do to create animated maps. Most animated maps here are GIFs done by Peardian in the Super Mario games. Perhaps I can make one my own maps interesting if I have the know how.

DarkWolf · « **Reply #1 on:** December 13, 2008, 06:58:16 am »

If I'm not mistaken you would have to make a version of the map for each frame. IIRC GIF will ignore portions of the image that have not changed from frame to frame, but all the editors I've used need the full frame to figure this out. I could be wrong though.

More importantly, I don't think it's a great idea. Most things can be conveyed without animation, and the use of animated GIF only prolongs the life of a format that needs to die its natural death.

Some alternatives to animated GIF would be one of the animated PNG formats, although, support is scarce among browsers. You could also use HTML canvas, although that suffers the same problem. More supported, but requiring more effort would be something made in Flash.

Revned · « **Reply #2 on:** December 13, 2008, 12:25:51 pm »

I don't know if you noticed, but in this topic I tested out APNG, the unofficial animated PNG format. The nice thing is that it's backwards compatible, so browsers that don't support it can still show the first frame. But, as I mentioned there, it's not really feasible if there's more than a few frames.

Piranhaplant · « **Reply #3 on:** December 13, 2008, 01:15:20 pm »

If you need a gif animator you can get one here.

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Games I have mapped--Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SNES), Mario Party 3 (N64), Super Mario Bros Deluxe (GBC), New Super Mario Bros. (DS), Mario Kart DS (DS)

Will · « **Reply #4 on:** December 13, 2008, 01:29:37 pm »

GIFs unfortunately reduce quality and colours of graphics. To tell you the truth, I was working on animation process on Final Fight 3 stages, in which the neon lights and signs change colour and place.

Peardian · « **Reply #5 on:** December 13, 2008, 06:29:25 pm »

Well, the max number of colors that can be in an animated gif is 256, which is well above the color limit for NES and around the same for a single room in SNES. It's probably too low for some of the more advanced consoles.

I myself use Jasc Animation Shop 3.0, which gives me a lot of control over settings. However, it's not free.

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YTT (32%) - WL4 (60%) - PM (29%)

Revned · « **Reply #6 on:** December 13, 2008, 07:17:41 pm »

*cough*