How to create gif animations

This tutorial shows how to create simple gif animations using Inkscape and Gimp, two very nice and free open source programs. Nothing big, but my first instructable, so don't be harsh;) Image below is the result of this tutorial, but you can make much more difficult animations when you master these programs. Example two is another animation i made in just a few minutes. It's very easy to do;)

Step 1 Beggining

1. Download both Inkscape and GIMP.
2. Open Inkscape, if you are not familliar with it, go through the tutorials, this will help you.
3. Draw the first frame of your animation(clock this time). I've drawn it using rectangles with rounded edges, a triangle and a circle, pendulum is made by placing an oval either over another one or a rectangle, selecting both of them and pressing ctrl+ + (Path/Union). By the way, the end of the pendulum is hidden under the lighter . Actually, to do this, you must duplicate the darker inner part of the place where the pendulum is, then select the duplicate and the lighter rectangle and press ctrl+ - (Path/Difference). Then arrange the pieces of the clock by sending them back/Forward to get something like the picture. Then draw a white rectangle without borders on top of the clock, and send it to back of the image. With this rectangle you will control the size of your gif and it's essential!

Comments

[CameronSS]

I was having trouble with Inkscape, so I just made this in the GIMP. Simple, I know, but I made it in about 5 minutes, and it's my first ever animation. Thanks for showing me how to animate in the GIMP! That's one more thing to cross off my "stuff I need to learn" list.

[kiwi_soccer_maniac]

Haha nice instructable, here's mine I took a little cartoon of mine and scanned it, imported into inkscape then autotraced it to improve the quality then saved different frames after modifying it using the Simplify tool. Took me a while but here it is.

[Rye]

Do you export the pictures seperately?

[kiwi_soccer_maniac]

From inkscape I exported 13 different or images/frames. Then drag the first one into a new document, then drag the next frames into the layers menu (one you have showed above.) It should list the different frames as different layers. Hope that helps.

[Rye]

thank you

[dodo91]

Made this one.

[dodo91]

I dont know how to view it on my computer, so im putting on here to test it.

[siguym]

Made an account just so I could post this. Thanks SO MUCH for the awesome instructable. It will help me a lot as i am making a web site (http://bobtheguy.yolasite.com/)

This took me over an hour, and it's not much, but I'm real pleased with it.

For some reason I cant post the actual image, so just click this link:
file:///E:/Photos/GIF%20Images/friendshredder/friendshredder.gif
If THAT doesnt work, just go to my site and look at Issue 3 on the online store.

[siguym]

I made an account just so I could post this... It took me over an hour, and it's not much, but I'm real pleased with it. Thanks SO MUCH for this awesome instructable! I'm going to use it alot when making my website,
http://bobtheguy.yolasite.com/

[siguym]

I made an account just so I could post this... took me over an hour, but I'm really pleased with it. Thanks SO MUCH for this awesome instructable! It will really help when I'm making stuff on my website,
http://bobtheguy.yolasite.com/

[Capt. Kidd]

Heres a really short one i made. it's really simple, with two frames. I'll make a better one later, this is just an experiment.

[godoggie]

Here's a spiral... Don't get too dizzy! :-)

[drahz]

Cyber road rage on the Internet Super Highway. Road Rage of the 21st century

[hotanups]

WOW very nice!!!! it have taken you a damn time!!! love it

[QwertyuioLP]

haha funny how long did it take to do??

[Chicken2209]

i don't think he made that....

[Dr.Paj]

I've seen that before, a long time ago too.

[killbulletbill]

Sweet implementation!

[arne hendriks]

Thanks, very easy and functional.

[nutsandbolts_64]

 There is another software that's so easy to use. It's called Gifted Motion. It runs off Java. Extremely small size, as in 67KB. Here's the link to save you the Google search. You won't see the download link at first, but scroll down to the limit and you'll see a link that says something about Gifted Motion and the file size beside that etc. Just click on that link and it'll be instant download.

[auguatua]

thanks for the tut
that was painless

[I3uckwheat]

here is one i made by taking frames from a video i made

[wenpherd]

heres mine

[FaqMan]

It aien't really that good but i think i'm getting the hang of it thanks for making the ible.

[bad ass pope]

WOW! You have no idea how much you've just helped me! I'm doing a speech animation from photographs and have been looking for AGES to find out how to animate it. My art project is due in tomorrow, so it's a bit late, but thanks anyway!

[John Smith]

Look, I got it! WARNING: Very graphic!

[bad ass pope]

Haha, I'm glad you're not animating me!

[6stygos]

That's what I'm talking about :) Great job!

[chaosvoider]

That's a pretty handy instructable! I've never heard of Inkscape before.. I guess I'll have to play around with it! =D

[threecheersfornick]

space invaders

[jon123321]

do you like mine?

[salbabob]

this is a retarded1 i made :D

[halzep]

thanks a lot it really helped 5 stars

[Rye]

How did you save the layers as an animation? Every time I click file save as, the program tries to save images instead of all the layers.

[Rye]

Never mind. I got it. And to think that some other guy said his was cheep.

[Rye]

I'm having trouble getting all of my pictures on the layering window thing.It's this window-

[egreen767]

Thanks, I've been wanting to learn how to do this. I made a really crappy one lol

[Brennn10]

Awesome, I was searching on how to make one. Now I found it!

[TheBikemaniac]

I couldn't open my exported file from inkscape on GIMP, a message pops up telling me that the file format (png) is not compatible with GIMP! How can I get it to work? please help me!

[TheBikemaniac]

never mind