Render GIF

[timothyg10570841]

We have a number of clients who require animated GIFS.

Is there a way to render animated GIFs un AfterEffects?  

We have been rendering quicktime videos using photoshop

to convert the quicktime to GIF. Its relatively simple to do

but it would be great if there was an option to create the

GIF in Ae as a render option.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

The advantage of using Photoshop is that you can set the duration of each frame. You cannot do that with After Effects even if you purchase 3rd party plug-ins.

Take this example: Advertising banner, 30 seconds, 5 slides with a 15 frame transition between slides.

After Effects:

30 seconds at 15fps = 450 frames

Photoshop:

5 transitions at 15 frames = 75 frames

5 slides at 5 seconds per frame = 5 frames

Total: 80 frames

You will end up with a file that is less than 1/20 the size, loads faster and is completely indistinguishable from the file created in AE.

If your clients are paying you to deliver animated gifs and you are sending them files with duplicate frames you are wasting their bandwidth and their money. Either purchase a dedicated piece of software or use a combination of After Effects designing the comp so you never have two identical frames, and set the timing in Photoshop.

[timothyg10570841]

Hello Rick

We create 24 frame or 30 frame 1 second videos.  On our case we want to use every frame.  In the past it was possible to render directly yo an animated GIF.  It would expedite our process to simply render the GIF instead of quicktime or other image sequence, only to open the video in photoshop to export it as a GIF.    The maddening part to me is the functionality was in AE and then removed. 

Using Photoshop works well, the control and results are fine.  Its just an extra step that has added time to our process workflow. Ideally Adobe would just re-enable the previous functionality.

[Rick Gerard]

You will still get a lot more control over color dithering and quality if you go to Photoshop. I've never been impressed with AE's 8 but dithering. You have no control over it.

If I had a client that wanted a half dozen one second videos a month I would invest in the software that would do the job efficiently. If it is just converting 1 or 2 seconds of video to a gif I would still use Photoshop but I would never send anyone a gif that was 30 fps. 15 is more than enough for an 8-bit product. Every cartoon made before computers were 12 fps. They just shot each animation cell twice. Buggs Bunny looks great at that frame rate and the story is more than adequately told. So did Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Bambi, and all the other Disney masterpieces.

[timothyg10570841]

We do lenticular imaging.   The animated GIF is essentially a soft proof thats used to approve the content prior to producing high end physical proofs and going to print.  I prefer Quicktime for soft proofs, but too many clients have problems viewing the proofs if we provide them as Quicktime.  GIF's are a lowest common denominator solution. The quality is not where we want it but most people can view it directly in their email. If not they use their web browser.

We want to render GIF's directly in AE to avoid the extra step in the process workflow.  Using Photoshop works, but requires extra processing that we used to be able to do without leaving AE. 

[Rick Gerard]

For that kind of workflow, I would just buy the plugin. Problem solved. It actually works pretty good and you even have higher quality options that are web-based.

[timothyg10570841]

Good advice, I think i'll give GIFGUN a try.  It looks like it will do the trick.

Thanks