Gif animation problem w/transparency

Hello!

I'm a cartoonist having a problem with Ulead Gif Animator 5.

When I import transparent gifs to use as frames in an animation (say, a two-frame animation), when I animate it, there is suddenly a fringe of white pixels (jaggies) around the animated image. It looks horribly unprofesional. I read elsewhere the less than helpful tip that the problem can be solve by setting "Soften" to 0. For the life of me, I've searched and searched Ulead Gif Animator and cannot find any setting with that name. Any help on how to get rid of the dreadful jaggies?

Corrie

I think this may be related to a deficiency in the .gif format itself. Namely that it doesn't support variable transparency (also called alpha transparency) and only supports binary transparency.

In short, the pixels can either be transparent or not and there's no in between. So if you have a gradient that fades to transparent it will be made up of transparent pixels and non transparent pixels and when put on another background it won't look good.

Have a look at this:

http://www.webdesignref.com/examples/giftransparency.htm

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Thanks Robert!

I think the problem lies in Ulead itself, as I don't use gradients.

When I check the individual images in Photoshop, the backgrounds are beautifully transparent. Not a jaggy in sight. When I import the images as frames into Ulead Gif Animator, it all looks okay until I make the animated gif, then a jagged fringe of white pixels suddenly appears. It doesn't matter whether I optimize the animation or not.

Any other ideas?

Corrie

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Sorry Corrie but I don't have any experience with Ulead Gif Animator. While you are probably right that it's not the binary transparency issue I do want to note that gradients aren't the only way to get this problem, and was just an example.

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Okay, I have finally - after a day of beating my head against a brick wall - figured out the problem. I'll post the solution here in case someone else new to Ulead Gif Animator has the same trouble.

Import your transparent gif images into UGA as usual and do your animation. Click the Optimize tab. At the top of the page, youll see a box named "Matte." Next to it is a button - "Transparency." Be sure the Transparency button is pressed. Now check the Matte box. If it's still showing white or any other color (our UGA defaults to white even when the transparency button is pressed), click inside the box. You'll get a drop-down menu. Choose "None." The interior of the box should revert to the checkerboard pattern of z transparent background. No more jaggies!

Thanks for trying to help, Robert. Smile

Corrie

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