Animated gif with Illustrator?

[SebastiaoV]

Hi guys,

I am doing an sketch of a website using Illustrator. I am just Illustrator as if i were designing a magazine and i will later send the JPG to a programmer to "build up" the site.

Anyhow, the homepage has a flash effect which is just a frame that changes pictures by itself. I guess i can do it in Photoshop as a animated gif, but could i inserted later in Illustrator to show that effect to my client? Does the PDF have the possibility of having Animated gifs within? I might just send the sketches as a PDF.

Thanks for any info!

Sebastian

[Ozzwoman9]

Illustrator does not do animation. You can create the initial artwork in AI, but you will need to set the animation part up in Photoshop and then use the Save for Web to save file as a .gif to support the animation. I'm not sure about putting the animation into a pdf, I would think that the .gif file would be best to send to your customer. If file size is an issue you can also save a lower res file and send that to the customer for their proof.

[JETalmage]

Illustrator does not do animation.

Illustrator can export Layers and/or Blends as SWF step-by-step frames. Therefore, Sebastiao has two options:

Deliver as SWF

1. Put the several images to be used as animation frames on separate layers.

2. Export as SWF. In the Export Options dialog, select AI Layers to SWF Frames. Click the Advanced button and select the other Layers as static.

3. Deliver the SWF to the customer. Alternatively, if using Acrobat Professional, create a PDF Package that includes the SWF and deliver the PDF Package.

Deliver as PDF

1. Put the several images to be used as animation frames on separate layers. Turn off visibility of other layers.

2. Export as SWF using Save For Web & Devices. Select Layers to SWF Frames. In the Save Dialog, select Images and HTML.You now have an HTML document which contains a SWF.

3. Turn off the Layers that contain the animation frames. Turn on the other layers. Save a copy as PDF. (Use Smallest Size preset.)

4. Open the PDF in Acrobat Professional.

5. In Acrobat Professional, FIle>Create PDF>From Web Page. Navigate to the HTML file.

6. Use Acrobat's Select Object Tool to select the animated SWF. Copy.

7. In Acrobat, switch to the other PDF. Get the Select Object Tool. Paste the SWF. Save.

8. Deliver the PDF to the customer.

JET

[SebastiaoV]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the great info!

Jet, you described the options very well. Now i will try to see how it works.

Cheers,

Sebs

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Animated gif from AI, not that I know of?

An SWF yes and it is possible to have a static back ground but it will not run in Illustrator nor can you place it in Illustrator.

You will not be able run an animation in a Jpeg export as well. Unless you create a slice of it first. But then you need an a html page to put it back together and in a browser.

This one might be better to build in Photoshop. I have made a feature request to have a timeline in iLlustrator many times for this percise purpose but the request seems to be misunderstood.

It would be great to be able to do your comps in illustrator show them to clients and other creative team members and then have them use it as a template in Dreamweaver, but…