Nysus

Ah, well I suppose I should try to help then! I will use the GFY button as my guinea pig, I hope they don't mind..

ANIMATED GRAPHICS HOW-TO (Long)


Step 1:
Basically what I would do is think up what I want to happen in my button/banner; whatever it is you are making -- keep in mind each frame you have adds download size to the graphic. Also during this step you should decide the dimension of the graphic you want. The follow are the standard dimensions:

type (width by height pixels)
Full banner (468 by 60 pixels)
Half banner (234 by 60 pixels)
Vertical banner (120 by 240 pixels)
Standard button (120 by 60 pixels)
Square button (125 by 125 pixels)
Micro button (88 by 31 pixels)

Over the years people have developed some ignorance to graphics these sizes, they associate them with advertising banners. I haven't personally experimented with different sizes, I think it would have to be a different in the ratio (width by height) in order to make people notice it more.

Also, the dimension of the graphic will logically affect the download size.


Step 2:
This is when my brain stops working and I have to remember what to do next for all you folks using this.

Once you have decided the dimensions, what you want the graphic to look like, now you must start the creation stage! But no fear! It's not too hard... as long as you can use a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop to create your individual frames! If you don't know how to use any graphics programs then it still isn't hard to learn and there are many tutorials online; just search at Google for '(program name) tutorials'.


Step 3:
Okay, you've created the frames you wanted to use you'll need a GIF animator program. I have always used Jasc Animation Shop for creating animations and found it quite easy to figure it out on my own when I first started out.

I'm going to use Animation Shop and you using my guinea pig show you what stuff looks like. I'm sure there are tutorials online that go more indepth than I am going into right now, maybe eventually I'll make a full tutorial.

Screenshot of GFY button opened in Animation Shop (click to enlarge):


Okay, well now you're probably wondering how you'd get your own images in place of those. Animation Shop has a nice little Animation Wizard feature. Simply go to File and then click Animation Wizard and follow the instructions!

Once you finish the Wizard your graphics will pop up in a row like you saw the GFY ones in the screenshot above. You can then proceed to set the individual times of each frame by right-clicking on the frame you wish to edit and clicking Frame Properties.

I'm pretty pooped of typing right now, if you have any questions you can put them on here or send me an ICQ message, I'd be glad to answer them.

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Jasc Animation Shop is $39 USD and they have a 30 day evalution period availible to download - Link

I believe there is also an evaluation availible for Adobe Photoshop - Link
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I'm sure I probably messed something up in while typing this so I'm sure I will have to edit it, I hope I didn't forget anything majorly important either!!

Oh, and the best advice I can possibly give is EXPERIMENT & GO FUCK YOURSELF!

Here's a little self-experimental fucking myself I did...


Cheers

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