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Pixelware
Participant
December 7, 2016
Answered

Animate CC 2017 - How do I export to animated GIF?

  • December 7, 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 29879 views

I have wasted so much time trying to simply export a basic fla movie to an animated GIF - there isn't a single tutorial on the internet that explains how to do this in Animate CC 2017, even Adobe help is useless here.

Please can someone enlighten me as to how this is done. All I ever achieve is a single GIF frame no matter what I do.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Colin Holgate

The feature is for exporting the main timeline, if you put your movieclip animation into the main timeline, it should export ok.

SWF appears to work because it's looping the timeline, and the movieclip progresses.

4 replies

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chabotjeff
Known Participant
September 19, 2018

In newer versions of Animate CC you can export any timeline to gif animation just by being in the specific timeline while going to Export.

deepaks1798
deepaks1798
Participant
April 23, 2022

How to do that? I created the animation but it is nested in the Layer 1 and when I export, it only exports the first image. I'm new to this and I don't know how tot put it all on the main timeline or export it. When tested in a browser, it works fine and I can see the animation. Also I'm unable to export as a video because Adobe media encoder is not installed

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chabotjeff
Known Participant
September 18, 2018

This question appears answered, however, what I have come across is when exporting gif animations it will only play the animation on the main timeline -- not embedded "nested" movie clips with their own timeline. Has anyone else found this to be true and found a workaround?

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    carola_illustration
    Participant
    October 4, 2018

    I think I have the same problem, when exporting animation it works on the "scene" level (for instance the main character is crossing the whole scene) but it is not animating the single parts of the character (like arms or legs that I had previously nested in it), on the "character" level.

    I precise that doesn't work when exporting in GIF format but if I launch "control / test" on the main bar it works good (but it is only a preview on browser).

    Thanks for helping me

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    PixelwareAuthor
    Participant
    December 7, 2016

    Yippee! That has worked thanks Colin. The only problem is the resulting GIF weighs in at 1.3Mb compared with 3Kb for the SWF and 10Kb for the javascript version that flashes on and off on Android Chrome and so is a deal breaker - disappointing to say the least.

    Colin Holgate
    Colin Holgate
    Inspiring
    December 7, 2016

    You could look into animated SVG instead.

    Export SVG Animations for the Web with Snap.SVG Animator | Creative Cloud blog by Adobe

    Colin Holgate
    Colin Holgate
    Inspiring
    December 7, 2016

    If you're in an FLA that has an animation, and you choose File/Export/Export Animated GIF..., do you not see the same animation in the dialog that appears? There are play controllers in the lower right, where you can also set whether it will loop forever.

    Assuming that works, if you click the Preview button in the lower left, do you then get a browser window that is showing the animation?

    If you do you can either just drag that graphic to your desktop, or back in Animate you can click the Save button in the bottom right of the dialog.

    Let us know at which stage something fails.

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      PixelwareAuthor
      Participant
      December 7, 2016

      Hi Colin

      It doesn't work at the very first option - the export dialog. I see the player controls but there is no more than a single frame so nothing to animate and the browser preview just displays this static frame.

      I have an animation as a movie clip symbol which is placed on the stage in a single frame - this doesn't export as an animation. If I open up the movie clip symbol to expose the timeline and layers and do the same thing I'm again presented with just one frame.

      I've tried selecting all the frames and setting the editing markers to encompass the entire timeline but still - one frame.

      Export to SWF (which I miss enormously) and I have my animation. Export to Canvas JS and I get my animation (but the javascript responsive code causes flashing on Android Chrome - but that's another story as you know and the reason why I'm trying animated GIF).

      Colin Holgate
      Colin HolgateCorrect answer
      Inspiring
      December 7, 2016

      The feature is for exporting the main timeline, if you put your movieclip animation into the main timeline, it should export ok.

      SWF appears to work because it's looping the timeline, and the movieclip progresses.

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