Making GIF animations

Making a GIF animation is simple in Ignite...

Use frames: Create a frame for each frame of your animation. Frames can be easily inserted and removed using the Frame properties pane on the Inspector.

Populate your frames: There are several ways you can do this in Ignite, use one or more them to set up your frames...

1. Add images to each frame by importing artwork.
2. Use Ignite's drawing tools.
3. If you have multiple individual files to make up the frames of your animation, use the Open many into frames feature from the File Menu to select the files and control the order they are opened in.
4. If you have already created artwork for your animation in Photoshop with each frame of the animation on a separate layer then choose File /Import to open that Photoshop file. Then in the Photoshop Load Options dialog box choose Load Image as layers and select Load each layer as a frame and Ignite will load each of your selected layers into a new frame.
5. Ignite can also work directly from Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and other graphics software as a plugin. Send your artwork directly to Ignite to populate the frames of your animation.

Duplicate common elements: If you have any elements in the first frame that must appear in all of the frames, select the element, and click the Duplicate button on the Inspector to copy it to all frames.

Set timings in the Animation Sequencer: You can modify your animation further using the Animation Sequencer. Control some or all of the frames at once, drag and drop a frame to change the frame order, adjust the speed of your animation, set background restore types, set frames in reverse order and more.

Create an Output file: Now create an output file for your animation by choosing GIF from the New Output button on the Tab Bar. Switch to Output view by clicking on the output file tab.

Optimize your GIF : You can let Ignite automatically choose the best settings to produce the smallest GIF file for you. Or you can use the GIF File pane on the Inspector to adjust settings like palettes, web safe colour, dithering, interlacing, transparency and much more for yourself.

Preview your animation: Preview your animation in Output view with the VCR style controls on the toolbar bar.

Save your animation: To save your animation simply click on the Save Output button.

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