I am trying to develop an animated GIF to use as a web-ad, I have read the docs and googled but still having problems :-(

The ad (portrait format) is very simple: a background logo at the bottom of the ad, and three different text messages which rotate. I thus created a bottom layer with the logo covering the bottom third; a second layer with nothing but the first text message on the upper 2/3rds, another layer with the second text message also in the upper 2/3rds and finally a layer with the third text message in the upper 2/3rds. While the logo at the bottom should be displayed at all times the three different text messages are shown one at a time.

After reading the docs I then expanded each layer with a text message to be as large as the ad itself. My next step was to try to create a layer mask - for each of the three layers with the text messages, said layer mask to cover only the lower 1/3 where it would be transparent.

This is where I ran into problems, no matter what I tried, I could not accomplish this. There must be something very basic I have yet to understand!

Last, in order to create the animated GIF, I exported all four layers using "replace" in the dialog box. I also experimented with "combine" to no avail. No matter what I tried, I either ended up with an animated GIF where the logo and the three different text messages over time became overlaid, or, an animated GIF where only one thing was shown at one time.

What have I missed? Thanks.

Thank you! I did what Alexandre suggested and finished it in a couple of minutes, inquiring minds, however, want to know if it would have been possible to use layer masks to accomplish transparancy for the bottom part of the ad?

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:19:40 -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:

On 03/28/2012 03:00 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 10:50 PM, Hakan wrote:

What have I missed? Thanks.

Each layer is a frame.

You need to create two copies of the background and merge each text layer with one background layer. That will give you three layers, each with a background and text. Then you will have your 3 frames.

Righto! Another thing - once you are happy with your three frames, do Filters > Animation > Optimze (for GIF)

See: http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/plug-in-optimize.html

This will remove everything from all layers but the base layer, except pixels that change as the frames change. It very substantially reduces the file size of the finished image.

:o)

Steve

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