Import An Animation Into A Banner

Software: Ulead Gif Animator 5

Skill Level:  Beginner

Featured Tools:
Banner Text Effects

Additional Tools:
Transparent Gif

Note:  Create an animated banner and import an existing animation into it.

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This tutorial is aimed for the beginner. It will teach you how to create an animated banner in Gif Animator 5 and also how to import an existing animation into it.



Save this flag to your hard drive for use with this tutorial.

Open Gif Animator 5. The first image you'll see upon opening Gif Animator 5 is the Startup Wizard. Click on Blank Image.

Note: (You can eliminate the Startup Wizard by checking off the "Do not show this dialogue box next time" box. If you decide you want it back upon opening the program, you can go to File, Preferences and in the General category, check Enable Startup Wizard.)

Click on New.   The "New" dialogue box will open up. Set the canvas size to 320 width, 72 height. In Canvas Appearance click on solid background. Click on the box beside it and choose the color black. Click OK.

On the toolbar, click on Frame, Add Banner Text.  

The Add Banner Text dialogue box will open shown below.

In the text box, type in your text. You can change the font, size, and font color here. For this tutorial the font Lucida Calligraphy is used at size 18, color white. To center your text refer to the image above where the arrow is pointing and click on this symbol to center it.

Click on the Effect Tab. This is where the fun starts.

You'll see two boxes for text effects. The left box is what you want to see as the text enters the scene. The left box is what you will see as the text leaves the scene. The Frame box values are for the amount of frames you want to use for each scene. The lower the number of frames, the faster the text effect will be. In this tutorial enter 8 for the amount of frames on Enter Scene and Exit Scene. For Enter Scene click on Fade. For Exit Scene, click on Fade. Click on the Start Preview button to see the effect.

Now click on the Frame Control Tab.

For this tutorial enter 15 for the delay time. The higher the number you use for delay time, the slower the movement. The less numbers you use for delay time, the faster the movement.

Note: Key frame delay is when the banner text has finished one effect (Enter Scene) and is going to go onto the next effect (Exit Scene). For example, if you have your text scrolling from right to left, the key frame delay will occur in the middle and pause the text. The higher the number, the longer the pause. The lower the number, the shorter the pause. By putting the Key Frame Delay at 15 (the same as the delay time used in your frames) it will move across the screen without pausing. The reason we don't want it to pause is we will be adding the animated flag which should wave continuously.

Check Distributes to frames. Click on OK.

Select Create as Banner Text (Recommended). You can later edit your text by going to Frame, Edit Banner Text. (Note: If you choose Create as Individual Objects, you won't be able to edit the text.)

You'll have 16 frames in the Frame Panel. Click on the Preview tab to view the first part of the banner. You can also preview the animation by clicking on the Play button below in the Frame Panel.

Highlight Frame 16. Go to Frame, Add Banner Text. When the Add Banner Text Dialogue opens, replace "God Bless" with "the USA". Center the text. Click on the Effect tab and change the Exit Scene to Scroll Right. Click Ok and Create as Banner Text once more.

Preview your animation which consists of 31 frames.

Highlight the first frame in the Frame Panel. Go to File, Add Image.

Browse to where you saved the animated flag on your hard drive. Make sure Insert In The Current Frame and Distribute To Individual Frames is checked and double click to import it into Gif Animator. The flag is now imported into the frames in the Frame Panel. The animated flag consists of only 4 frames so it will only show through Frames 1 through 4.

You will need to repeat this step again by highlighting Frame 5, going to File, Add Image and repeating the above step. Highlight Frame 8 and repeat again by going to File, Add Image and import the flag again.  Keep repeating this step until the flag is added to all frames. The last addition you'll see there are only three frames. An extra frame will be added to accommodate the flag. This is Frame 32. Right click and delete this frame. Your total number of frames should be 32.



Saving and Optimizing

To save your animation, go to File, Optimization Wizard. The Optimization Wizard will pop up.  Leaving the first part at default, click on Next.

In the next step, number of colors, put in 16. The lower the number, the less colors you will be using. This helps in optimizing an animation. Since this banner uses only a few colors, 16 colors will work fine. You may need to increase the number of colors for different animations. Click Next.

The next step is redundant pixels and comments. Leave this section at the default settings. Your frames share the same image and pixels. These "elements" don't change from frame to frame and aren't needed for the animation. By removing redundant pixels between image layers/frames, this removes the "redundancies" in each frame of the animation and optimizes the image. Click on Next.

The last section shows you the options you chose. Click Finish.

The Gif Optimization Result Box will open up.

After Optimization is the actual size of your image. Click on Preview to see your animation. If you are not happy with the results, you can click on Another Try and the Optimization Wizard will come up again. You can add more or less colors, until you get the result you want. Once satisfied with your animation, click on Save As and save your animation.

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial.

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