a simple question about Gifs

[Cielo Seminario]

So I know this has probably been asked a gazillion times. I've been to a few stores where there are TV screens with moving pictures...I know they're gifs. I could buy one but I want to make my own so I can change them up. I have a little knowledge of building so there's no problem there. What I want to know is there a script or some special way to upload the gif so that it animates, I googled and I know it said something about frames but that was pretty much it.

[Chosen Few]

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Cielo Seminario wrote:

I know they're gifs.

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Um, no you don't.

SL cannot import GIF files, whether animated or not.  The image formats it can import are TGA, BMP, PNG, and JPG.  Internally, SL stores all images in JPEG2000 format, regardless of the source format.

 

Frame animation in SL is done filmstrip style.  Take all the frames of your animation sequence, and lay them out, one next to the other, on a single image.  When the animation plays, only part of the image will be displayed at any given time  For example, if you have four frames in your animation, the playback would first display the first quarter of the image, then then the second quarter, then the third, then the fourth.

The script function for this is called llSetTexureAnim.  You can read about its various parameters and options on the script wiki, at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlSetTextureAnim .

[Cielo Seminario]

well I wasn't saying they were uploaded as .gifs:matte-motes-big-grin-squint:, I know that SL doesn't upload a .gif format. I was just trying to figure out how to get the frames so that I can make it animated. Thnx for replying

[MrMonkE]

Use this website.

Site: http://www.mrmonke.net/

The site explains some of the  logic behind tiled textures and it's limitations.

FAQ: http://www.mrmonke.net/Forum/gif2ani.aspx?g=posts&t=6
Example: https://ssl.mrmonke.net/Forum/gif2ani.aspx?g=posts&t=7

It lets you upload an animated gif and edit it -in your browser- per frame.
You can pick what frames to use, what frames to skip in various ways and set animationspeed.
The site generates a texture to use in Second Life and a LSL script to use in secondlife.

It's explained on the sites FAQ and in the generated LSL Script how to use, but it's quite simple.
The script also lets you set proper aspect ratio inside lsl with a menu and sets the object name to the gif image name.
So you don't have to rename all your objects from 'object' 

[Rolig Loon]

Try http://www.peregrinesalon.com/anim/ .  It's a pretty straightforward GIF to TGA converter that will produce a "filmstrip" for you and will even give you a correctly-parameterized script that you can drop into your object, to animate the strip.  All you need to provide it is an animated GIF. 

NOTE: The maximum size for any texture in SL is 1024 x 1024 pixels.  You can get 16 frames that are 256 x 256 on a texture that size without losing much resolution.  If you need more frames than that, though, or if your uploaded texture is smaller than 1024 x 1024  --- it's always a good idea to avoid HUGE texture if at all possible --- then you'll start to get resolution issues.

[VirtualKitten]

Hmm, Is this not just a way of SL taking more lindens not uploading gifs . I wanted to upload gifs to so that i could play the picture with an animation and use a differant texture animation to move it accross screen. I guess i am just going to have to pay 240L for a minute of gif video  and 1200L for 5 mins ? Is there no other way of doing this which is better?

[Rolig Loon]

I doubt that you can upload a gif video at all.  You might consider putting it on a server somewhere and then playing it with Media On A Prim (MOAP) from its URL.

[Mistressdalgato]

I know this is old but if you want ot use a gif in game, download gif to sl program which is free take your gif and convert it in the program to png animated. then upload png to game. find any prim you want to put it on and drop that texture in the content tab then go to https://www.outworldz.com/cgi/freescripts.plx?ID=348 take that script and drop it in content tab as well and bingo your texture is now a moving gif well animated png lol

[Rolig Loon]

Yes, this is quite an old thread with an even older question. The solution you're suggesting is the same one that I was offering back in 2012, when Peregrine Salon was the only game in town. If you do a quick Google search, you'll find that there are several similar services now, all converting an animated gif to a multi-frame png image. It's a decent solution, although limited by the number of frames you can show without losing a lot of resolution. The sort of solution that Virtual Kitten was hoping for still isn't possible, though.  You can't unload an animated gif to SL.