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Yep :thumbup , using a transparent background .gif is the best choice.

And the layout of the longer sentence is good, though (maybe) one could add a few dots:

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled

was convincing the world he didn't exist.

And like that, ......... poof. He's gone.

I used Courier in the above just ot have a monospaced font and give the idea of the "He's gone." "right aligned to the rest.

One could use the dot's appearing one by one before the final sentence, like:

And like that, ...

And like that, ....

And like that, .....

And like that, .......

And like that, ........

And like that, .........

And like that, ......... poof.

And like that, ......... poof. He's gone.

Way #2 sounds really nice. :)

jaclaz

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@ jaclaz:

First off, I made a mistake in describing Way # 2 in my Post # 375 (but I think you probably knew what I meant). I corrected it in the edit. Please read it, so that we'll be on the same page. Thanks. Sorry.

I like your Devil layout, and if that's what you want, you'll get it exactly as it is in the GIF when all the letters are typed in. In my "And that's all there was to it !!!", I typed the phrase in 1 character at a time. I'm not sure I understand how you want me to type your letters (and periods) in. It kind of sounds like you want *everything* but poof typed in 1 character at a time (i.e., 1 character per frame) and poof to appear as a whole word in 1 frame. Even if this isn't what you meant that might be a good idea, since it would really emphasize the word and give a nice "poofy" visual effect.

Can you discuss this a little more so I'll know exactly what you want ?

Is this what you want your Forrest Gump phrase to look like ? (Taken straight from the MSFN text editor.)

...and that's all I have to say about that.

It might be best if you layed that phrase out too so that you'll have it *exactly* as you want it.

Thanks.

Edited by larryb123456
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Yes, your edited way #2 is more easy to understand, but I had got it also earlier, I like it.

And yes, the poofy effect is exactly what I would like to highlight. :)

In the same frame should appear:

poof. He's gone.

then the poof should disappear, while the "He's gone" should remain for some more (but relatively short period of) time, and as I see it the whole sentence should be replaced by the appearing (and fast disappearing) of the "jaclaz!!!"

About the Forrest Gump thingy if you can make it exactly like you made your:

Andthatsalltherewastoit.gif

it would be perfect (after all it is just another "version" of your "closing sentence above, the only difference being that reading the:

...and that's all I have to say about that.

I still giggle.... ;), as well as I do at:

...shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp

salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp

burger, shrimp sandwich... that's,

that's about it.

(but this latter can be only seldom be re-used)

jaclaz

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@ jaclaz:

Let's get everything straight. (I'm confused.) Please answer clearly the following questions:

# 1: For the Devil text, do you want the layout: A) *exactly* as shown in your Post # 376 or B ) *exactly* as shown in my Post # 374 but with the periods put in (as you show in Post # 376) so that "gone." is right aligned ?

# 2: Is the following frame scenario what you want (as you seem to be saying in your Post # 378) ?

A) The characters (i.e., letters and periods) appear, 1 per frame, until "poof. He's gone." is reached.

B ) Then "poof. He's gone." appears *all* in the next frame. At this point, all the text is visible.

C) All this text stays visible for a certain number of frames.

D) "poof." disappears in 1 frame while all the other text stays visible for a certain number of frames more.

E) Then all the remaining text disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375.

F) The background, without text, stays visible for a certain number of frames.

G) The GIF loops back to A.

If I could offer the following scenario (which modifies a little your Post # 376):

A) The characters (i.e., letters and periods) appear, 1 per frame, until "poof." is reached.

B ) Then "poof." appears in the next frame (i.e., all at once).

C) There is a time delay of a certain number of frames until "He's gone." appears 1 character per frame. This time delay will highlight "poof." because the viewer will wonder what comes next. (IMO, having "He's gone." appear all in 1 frame is too repetitive with regard to "poof." appearing in 1 frame.)

At this point, all the text is visible.

D) All this text stays visible for a certain number of frames.

E) "poof." disappears in 1 frame while all the other text stays visible for a certain number of frames more.

F) Then all the remaining text disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375.

G) The background, without text, stays visible for a certain number of frames.

H) The GIF loops back to A.

IMO, the above scenario is a very effective treatment, emphasizing "poof." going and coming.

You have me very confused with regard to the Forrest Gump text.

Didn't you say you wanted transparent GIFs to be used on any forum ?

My "And that's all there was to it !!!" has a background rectangle [i.e., right-click and "Inspect Element (Q)"] of the MSFN page color, since the text disappeared by a sequence of decreasing opacities which introduced partial transparencies.

The *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario we're using on the Devil text will work just as well with Forrest. But if you want the GIF made exactly as I made my "And that's all there was to it !!!", I will do it. Let me know.

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# 1: For the Devil text, do you want the layout: A) *exactly* as shown in your Post # 376 or B ) *exactly* as shown in my Post # 374 but with the periods put in (as you show in Post # 376) so that "gone." is right aligned ?

B ) *exactly* as shown in my Post # 374 but with the periods put in (as you show in Post # 376) so that "gone." is right aligned.

If I could offer the following scenario (which modifies a little your Post # 376):

A) The characters (i.e., letters and periods) appear, 1 per frame, until "poof." is reached.

B ) Then "poof." appears in the next frame (i.e., all at once).

C) There is a time delay of a certain number of frames until "He's gone." appears 1 character per frame. This time delay will highlight "poof." because the viewer will wonder what comes next. (IMO, having "He's gone." appear all in 1 frame is too repetitive with regard to "poof." appearing in 1 frame.)

At this point, all the text is visible.

D) All this text stays visible for a certain number of frames.

E) "poof." disappears in 1 frame while all the other text stays visible for a certain number of frames more.

F) Then all the remaining text disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375.

G) The background, without text, stays visible for a certain number of frames.

H) The GIF loops back to A.

Perfect :thumbupBUT in E) "poof" and all preceding text disappears and only "He's gone." remains for a little bit more, so that it is also highlighted...

Didn't you say you wanted transparent GIFs to be used on any forum ?

Yes. :)

My "And that's all there was to it !!!" has a background rectangle [i.e., right-click and "Inspect Element (Q)"] of the MSFN page color, since the text disappeared by a sequence of decreasing opacities which introduced partial transparencies.

I didn't notice that, hey, you could use a transparent background, instead! ;).

The *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario we're using on the Devil text will work just as well with Forrest. But if you want the GIF made exactly as I made my "And that's all there was to it !!!", I will do it. Let me know.

Yep, in this case it is more a "closing" sentence, no actual need/wish for a "poofy" effect, and no need for the "jaclaz!!!" effect.

jaclaz

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There was a 20-frame animated GIF "line bar" with a left-to-right moving horizontal bright green pulse that I liked, and I wanted to use it as a background in an animation, http://postimage.org/image/42g8huouf/ (Added in edit: for some reason, the image below is not always animated , although the link -- as of now -- does show an animation. All in all, this flaw is a very minor point.)

Resource_line_bar.gif

I cropped some of the top and bottom off so that the green, horizontal line and the pulses would occupy more of the height and re-sized the bar to userbar dimensions.

I also liked a "Cheers" emoticon that dencorso added to one of his Posts (I don't remember which one), and I wanted to combine it with the line bar to make an animated GIF userbar. This resource Cheers emoticon GIF was 7-frame with variable display times per frame. I modified it to make it 10-frame so that looping would be compatible with the 20-frame line bar and made the display time for all the frames to be the same, for simplicity. The resource GIF is shown below on the left and my modification is shown to the right:

CheersResourceGIF.gifmodifiedcheersresourceGIFusedinuserbar.gif

As you can see, my modification captures pretty well the essential features of the emoticon.

The animated GIF userbar I made is shown below, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/AniMSUBfinal015sec60uniqueframes255colors350x20pxOOED40KB.gif

AniMSUBfinal015sec60uniqueframes255colors350x20pxOOED40KB.gif

This is a frame-by-frame animation: 60 unique frames, 0.15 sec display time per frame, 255 colors, 350x20px, 40 KB. The beer-drinking emoticons are in a 10-frame animated GIF. The background with the horizontal sweeping bright green pulses is a 20-frame animated GIF.

The userbar's left and right side emoticons are identical. There are 2 unique pairs of emoticons, achieved by "staggering" the frame sequence of one pair relative to the other pair. This can be seen if you watch the animation closely.

I choreographed the animation so that as soon as "Cheers, Mate" disappeared in the reverse direction, there were 5 frames where the sweeping bright green pulsation showed clearly on the background, before "Cheers, Mate" started to reappear in the forward direction. To me, this is the most important feature of the animation.

Andthatsalltherewastoit.gif

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some quotes about "drinking":

"Everybody has to believe in something.....I believe I'll have another drink."

W.C. Fields

"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on."

Dean Martin

"I drink to make other people interesting."

George Jean Nathan

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edited by larryb123456
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@ jaclaz:

In pursuit of total clarity:

A) The characters (i.e., letters and periods) appear, 1 per frame, until "poof." is reached.

B ) Then "poof." appears in the next frame (i.e., all at once).

C) There is a time delay of a certain number of frames until "He's gone." appears 1 character per frame. This time delay will highlight "poof." because the viewer will wonder what comes next. (IMO, having "He's gone." appear all in 1 frame is too repetitive with regard to "poof." appearing in 1 frame.)

At this point, all the text is visible.

D) All this text stays visible for a certain number of frames.

E) "poof." disappears in 1 frame while all the other text stays visible for a certain number of frames more.

F) Then all the remaining text -- except for "He's gone." -- disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375.

G) "He's gone.", by itself, stays visible for a certain number of frames and then it disappears in 1 frame (like "poof." did). Now, there is no text visible.

H) The background, without text, stays visible for a certain number of frames.

I) The GIF loops back to A.

Is this scenario perfect for you ?

I'm first going to make a JPEG of the Devil text updated with the periods for your approval, just so there will be no chance of error.

OK, I'll make the Forrest GIF just like I made mine with the MSFN colored background.

To double check, is this the way you want it done ?

Thanks.

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Text layouts both perfect :).

In pursuit of total clarity:

A) The characters (i.e., letters and periods) appear, 1 per frame, until "poof." is reached.

B ) Then "poof." appears in the next frame (i.e., all at once).

C) There is a time delay of a certain number of frames until "He's gone." appears 1 character per frame. This time delay will highlight "poof." because the viewer will wonder what comes next. (IMO, having "He's gone." appear all in 1 frame is too repetitive with regard to "poof." appearing in 1 frame.)

At this point, all the text is visible.

D) All this text stays visible for a certain number of frames.

D) As soon as the final dot in "He's gone." appears ONLY "........poof. He's gone." remains on the screen for a few frames (and everything before the first dot of "........poof. He's gone." disappears in one frame.

E) "poof." disappears in 1 frame while all the other text ONLY "He's gone." stays visible for a certain number of frames more.

F) Then all the remaining text -- except for "He's gone." -- disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375.

G) "He's gone.", by itself, stays visible for a certain number of frames and then it disappears in 1 frame (like "poof." did). in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375.Now, there is no text visible.

H) The background, without text, stays visible for a certain number of frames.

I) The GIF loops back to A.

OK, I'll make the Forrest GIF just like I made mine with the MSFN colored background.

To double check, is this the way you want it done ?

NO, if possible I would like it with a transparent background, so that it can be used on *any* forum.

jaclaz

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@ jaclaz:

I'll do the Forrest transparent GIF first and I'll do 2 versions: 1) all the text disappears in 1 frame; and 2) the text disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375.

I re-wrote the Devil-text scenario so I could follow it easier (i.e., your "strike-throughs" and red text made my head spin a bit -- lol).

Please check out the following and let me know if it's exactly what you want:

A) The characters (i.e., letters and periods) appear, 1 per frame, until "poof." is reached.

B ) Then "poof." appears in the next frame (i.e., all at once).

C) There is a time delay of a certain number of frames until "He's gone." appears 1 character per frame.

D) As soon as the final dot in "He's gone." appears, everything before the first dot of "........poof. He's gone." disappears in one frame.

Therefore, only "........poof. He's gone." remains, and it stays visible for a certain number of frames.

E) Then "poof." disappears in 1 frame, so only "He's gone." remains, and it stays visible for a certain number of frames more.

F) Then "He's gone." disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375. Now, there is no text visible.

G) The background, without text, stays visible for a certain number of frames.

H) The GIF loops back to A.

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@ jaclaz:

Here are the 2 Forrest text animated GIFs and I also show the Forrest text JPEG for comparison purposes.

Here are the parameters:

1) letters "type in" at the rate of 1 letter every 0.13 sec (I'm pretty sure that's what I used for my GIF.)

2) the complete text stays visible for 2.0 sec

3) the background with no text stays visible for 1.7 sec

The above 3 parameters apply for both GIFs.

4) for the fast reverse-disappearing letters, a letter disappears every 0.02 sec

Let me know if you want to try different parameter sets. I think it's best to optimize (to suit you) with these 2 GIFs and then apply those parameters to the Devil text. I think that would be simpler.

Also, let me know if the Devil text steps in my last Post are what you want.

Forrest.text.JPEG

ForrestText_version3.jpg

Forrest.abrupt.disappear_version.1, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/Forrestabruptdisappear_version1.gif

Forrestabruptdisappear_version1.gif

Forrest.reverse.disappear_version.1, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/Forrestreversedisappear_version1.gif

Forrestreversedisappear_version1.gif

Added in Edit:

I made a version of the fast reverse-disappearing text where a letter disappeared every 0.01 sec. But it didn't give satisfactory results when I tried to have it hosted. Photobucket and Postimage showed the reverse-disappearing rate very slow. When I e-mailed the GIF to myself I got the same result. Freeimagehosting showed no image at all. The file saved and re-opened OK in my animator. I don't know what the problem is. But anyway, I think the 0.01 sec disappearing rate is way too fast. 0.02 sec seems good to me.

Edited by larryb123456
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I re-wrote the Devil-text scenario so I could follow it easier (i.e., your "strike-throughs" and red text made my head spin a bit -- lol).

Please check out the following and let me know if it's exactly what you want:

A) The characters (i.e., letters and periods) appear, 1 per frame, until "poof." is reached.

B ) Then "poof." appears in the next frame (i.e., all at once).

C) There is a time delay of a certain number of frames until "He's gone." appears 1 character per frame.

D) As soon as the final dot in "He's gone." appears, everything before the first dot of "........poof. He's gone." disappears in one frame.

Therefore, only "........poof. He's gone." remains, and it stays visible for a certain number of frames.

E) Then "poof." disappears in 1 frame, so only "He's gone." remains, and it stays visible for a certain number of frames more.

F) Then "He's gone." disappears in the *very, very fast* letter-by-letter reverse disappearing scenario described in the Way # 2 edit of my Post # 375. Now, there is no text visible.

G) The background, without text, stays visible for a certain number of frames.

H) The GIF loops back to A.

Perfect :thumbup:

This is perfect! :yes:

jaclaz

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@ jaclaz:

My animator gave very quirky results. I don't understand why. Maybe it had to do with the complexity of the GIF (111 frames). Forrest went through with no problems.

I would make a GIF file, preview it in the animator and it would be perfect. Then I'd save the file, re-open it and view the animation again and it wouldn't always be true to what I'd made and saved. For this reason I was unable to make a satisfactory GIF that followed exactly your choreography, as you can see from the 2 animations immediately below. (In the second animation, I introduced a little pause between ".........." and poof which I think adds to the "poofy" effect.) I tried to make corrections directly on the frames within the animator itself but this only made matters worse. I tried everything I could think of to alleviate this problem with no success. So, I modified the choreography a little so that I could get acceptable GIFs. These are shown in Versions 2 and 3 below. I really like the scenario in Version 3A, maybe even more than your proposed scenario. Tell me if you want to adjust the pauses between the action in any places. These adjustments will be easy to make to get a "perfect" GIF for you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Failure to get an acceptable GIF following your scenario:

Version 1, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion1-1.gif

DevilTextversion1-1.gif

Version 1A, with the pause, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion1A.gif

DevilTextversion1A.gif

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Version 2, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion2-1.gif

DevilTextversion2-1.gif

Version2A, with the pause, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion2A.gif

DevilTextversion2A.gif

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Version 3, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion3.gif

DevilTextversion3.gif

Version 3A, with the pause, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion3A.gif

This is my favorite.

DevilTextversion3A.gif

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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@ jaclaz:

I used Vulcan logic to solve the quirky animator problem:

fact # 1: The GIF looks perfect when originally made and viewed in the animator.

fact # 2: After the GIF is saved and re-opened, it doesn't look perfect as it did before.

Mr.Spock conclusion: the "bugs" are introduced in the saving process itself.

I had used the default saving parameters -- as I've used in all my previous GIFs with no problems -- so I went back and tried different combinations of parameters until I got a set that gave perfect GIFs following your choreography, as shown below. And, BTW, I like those the best, by far. In Version 4A, there is a pause between ".........." and poof which, IMO, adds to the "poofy" effect. Let me know if you want anything displayed for a longer or shorter time. Thanks.

Version 4, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion4.gif

DevilTextversion4.gif

Version 4A, with the pause, http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/DevilTextversion4A.gif

DevilTextversion4A.gif

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