How do you make a transparent GIF with anti-aliased edges? Is it possible in GIF format or is it only possible in a PNG? :yoshi:
You have to set a matte color for the .gif image so that the anti-aliased edge has a color to “blur” into. The matte setting can usually be found in the save as panel for the .gif file type.
But… If I were to animate this transparent GIF in Flash over a variety of backgrounds, then the matte method would not work.
Take for example, http://www.kelamali.com/La_Bibliotheque_du_Mande.html . I think they separate each element into multiple transparent GIFs. But somehow, they are able to have an antialiased edge.
True, but it’s the only method since .gifs don’t support partial transparency.
And before you think “PNGs can support partial transparency!”, PNGs are not really a standard in web design, so browsers actually don’t support their ability for partial transparency. And I don’t believe a PNG can be animated anyway (i’m pretty sure they can’t).
And thus is the reason you see a lot of crappy animated .gifs on sites (aside from too many crappy ones existing in the first place). :-\
Ah, I see you edited your post…
Their site is Flash, they probably used a series of png images (or just stuck with full vector)
I don’t beleive they drew everything in vector. That would be a far stretch in artistic ability…
Wait… so in your earlier post, you said that PNG’s cannot be animated. But in your later post, you say this site animated PNGs. ???
It could have been drawn in vectors. Or for example you could take a png…then apply an effect to it over several frames within fireworks. Then export all frames as a image sequence ie. image001.jpg, image002.jpg That could create the perception of motion. and flash can use pngs without consequence (other than an inflated file size). So lost is both right and wrong. You cannot animate a png in the sense of an animated gif on a webpage but you can cleverly use animated png (made by hand) in flash. I hope that makes sense…let me know if you are still stuck
It’s done in Flash, if you create the series of images you can use the Flash timeline to animate it how you want. Previously I thought you were talking on a web-page in general, not a flash page.
And it’s not that far really, there are some amazing vector artists out there. PixelWit created his pageflip effect with the Flash Drawing API (http://www.actionscript.org/showMovie.php?id=459) sure it’s not the most stunning looking, but it was done 100% drawing api, if you used symbols and hand created items it could be a lot better.
And I will admit, I am not entirely sure which part of this site you are talking about with the anti-aliasing, but chances are it is a PNG or PNG sequence animated in Flash (if not all vector ;)).