On Wed, 1 Mar 2000, Peter Reid wrote:
> >Recently, Peter Reid wrote:
> >
> > > Can anyone tell me ho it might be possible to run an animated GIF
> > > file in MC with some measure of control WITHOUT using a player object
> > > (which relies on having QuickTime available I believe).
> >
> >Just import it (via the file menu), or set the fileName of a new image
> >object to the directory path of your animation file.
> >
> >
> > > I'd like to be able to start and stop GIF animations, know how far
> > > through a sequence one is, how many frames etc.
> >
> >See the MetaTalk Reference index under:
> >
> >currentFrame
> >frameCount
> >palindromeFrames
> >repeatCount
> >
> >Regards,
> >
> >Scott
>
> Thanks Scott, I thought I was missing something obvious (again)!
>
> I have discovered an added problem. I have a large animated GIF of
> 2.5Mb which plays fine as long as I keep it external (a good idea
> anyway!). However, when I try to run an optimised version of the
> same thing MC crashes freezing my Mac! The original animated GIF was
> built using GIFBuilder, which was also used to produce the optimised
> version (only 750k). The optimisation involves the use of
> "betweened" frames instead of whole frames, i.e. each successive
> frame is sized to include an overlay sufficient to update the
> previous frame.
Please send me one of those images. Can't guarantee that we can make
it look right, but at least it shouldn't crash!
> The problem is that GIFbuilder adds some frames that are 1x1 pixels
> in size located at (0,0) and it is the presence of these tiny frames
> that cause MC to freeze! Removing these frames removes the problem.
> Another tip is to avoid using the "P" (restore to previous) frame
> disposal method as it doesn't really work with MC, stick to "N" (do
> not dispose) which works fine.
You might try the constantMask property, which disables the mask
feature of GIFs. There are lots of hacks that some of those GIF
exporting programs use in order to produce small files, most of which
result in images that don't work right except in browser windows (no
backgrounds, no buffering, no moving, no overlaying on or under other
objects, etc.). constantMask gets around one of these hacks, although
it does mean you give up the ability to do any of the above.
Regards,
Scott
> Cheers
> Peter
>
> PS this is all using MC 2.3 gamma on a Mac running MacOS 8.6
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Peter Reid
> Reid-IT Limited, Loughborough, Leics., UK
> Tel: +44 (0)1509 268843 Fax: +44 (0)870 052 7576
> E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Web: http://www.reidit.co.uk
>
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Scott Raney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.metacard.com
MetaCard: You know, there's an easier way to do that...
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