Animated Gif

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Irving Lugo

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I'm new to Visual Basic and have only been using computers for 2 years now. I'm trying to figure out how to make an animated Gif or Jpeg file. I've been told that it's very simple. I tried it and can not figure it out. Also, can it be done with VB.Net?

Thanks in advance
 
You could try some software such as Correldraw. With it you can edit each frame of an animated gif as you want it, and give in the speed of frame changes..
 
You can't create an animated jpg, only an animated GIF. I would strongly suggest NOT trying to code this yourself unless you're a very good programmer. It would require building a GIF file by hand which means understanding the headers involved and how the bytes of the data work for the image.

You might be able to find a control that helps you with some of this. But, if you really just want to create an animated gif and not write a program that does it, I'd suggest finding a utility to do it. I use Paint Shop Pro's Animation Studio (last copy I bought was around $80 for both PSP and the Animation Studio). I'd bet a dollar there are some free animated gif builders available if you search google. They normally work by having you add a bunch of individual gif files and then tweaking the speed of each frame and a few other parameters.

-Ner
 
Thank you both for the information. I would like to learn to code this myself. Can you tell me what is involved in doing this?
Can this be done in VB.Net?

I do use PSP and have created some animated GIFS. I would like to write a program myself however.

Thanks in advance.
 
Have you ever coded anything before? Are you very advanced? You'll either want a 3rd party control to help you, or you'll be coding a bunch of GIF headers by hand. That is very technical stuff and unless you're a pretty good programmer I wouldn't suggest even trying.

-Nerseus
 
I'm not sure what you mean by writing it with code, writting a program that can create/read/edit gif files, or a control to display them. Either way, this is not something that a beginner should even attempt. The problem is that it is very involved, either way.

Start with much easier things, like a Text Editor, then move on to more complex things to prepare yourself for what you will face.

Have a look at the specification: http://www.wotsit.org/download.asp?f=gif89a to see what it will involve just trying to read the file.
 
Irving Lugo,

I have some code samples to help you and some general info.

This URL is great for sample code for developing graphics in VB6
http://www.catenary.com/siteindx.html

This news group will be able to help you along:
news:microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.drawing

However, you may want to create animated TIFs rather than animated GIF files, because vb.net's system drawing framework supprts the animated tif files easier than animated GIF's

This knowledgebase artical will tell you how to work with a single GIF.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319591

Things you should research include:
system.drawing:
EncoderValue.FrameDimensionPage

Good Luck
 
hmm

You could make a bad animated jpg i guess if you take alot of jpgs and time them to change using vbscript or javascript even. But the outcome is not very great and would be more productive to use a gif control. Peace.
 
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