Making an animation in GIMP

[britt_m_89]

I am having trouble making an animated .gif. I have Gimp 2.8.

I go to file --> open as layers and open the screenshots I will be using. After I playback what the animation is going to look like, I then go to file --> save as but it will not let me save it as a gif. It tells me to go to file --> export which I do. When I go to save it as a .gif, I

Comments

[vortex]

Did you edit any of the screenshots?

If you did, you might have to "Flatten" the images first.

I don't know anything about creating gifs in GIMP as I only use it for editing pictures. But, when I edit an image, I have to go to Image - Flatten Image

I don't know what effect this will have on layers, as I always thought it was supposed to blend the layers together...

[vortex]

Maybe you need to open each screenshot, edit it, flatten it, save it, then open them all up in a layer and save as a gif...

[rizbef]

okay, here's what you do. hopefully this works, I'm using 2.6 and it worked.

load all of your layers.

go to Filters > Animation > Optimize (for gif)

in the new window, you can see GIMP added little comments on each layer next to the layer name... such as, "your layer name".png (2000ms)
the (2000ms) is the delay between each frame. you can change this to your liking.

then, go to Image > Mode > Indexd
I chose "generate optimum palette" max colors 255, color dithering: none. click 'convert'

now save your image. go to 'save as' type "image name".gif and GIMP will ask you if you would like to merge layers or save as animation. save as animation.

also... see http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Simple_Animations/
I'd never made an animation before, but I googled and found that.

[harleymae]

If you're still having problems after the above advice, it might be best for you to save the file as a .xcf, then provide download links for that AND the .gif that you generated. That way it's easier to figure out what your specific issue is.

[amimichiru]

Hi there! Looks like I'm commenting too late to be useful, but I don't check this community frequently.

Anyway, I recently downloaded GIMP 2.8 and made an animated GIF from there. I have to ask: did you specify a delay time for the frames you're going to use for your GIF? I've forgotten to add it a few times and the GIF wouldn't work. Now I've made a habit of adding the delay when I save export the file as a GIF:

[britt_m_89]

I switched to GIMP 2.6 which took care of the problem I was having. Someone suggested that I should cap 20 frames per second and the results have been good. I also use 100 milliseconds as my delay between frames. I don't tick the "use delay entered above for all frames" box because 100 milliseconds is the default. Hope this helps!

Here are some examples of how the gifs looked after I applied all the above settings:

[amimichiru]

Seems like you solved the problem! That's good to hear. GIMP 2.8 is still pretty new (I just downloaded it today and am trying to figure out what I can and can't do with layer groups), so switching back to 2.6 was a smart call.

Also, love the GIFs. =D