How to make an animated GIF?

Report · Mar 12, 2016

Hello! I've just tried a trial of Animate CC + Adobe Media Encoder.

I have a very simple task to make an animated GIF out of my .fla file.

But when I try making that in AME I cannot(!) make a single animated GIF. It always gives me a sequence of gif images. But I need a single file (just what good old Flash could do via it's Publish menu).

So my question is: how can I export a single gif animation?

Thank you.

Report · Nov 27, 2016

I've created animated & looping GIFs by exporting QuickTimes from Photoshop, but I'm surprised that it's not available from AME, Ae or An.

Report · Nov 27, 2016

Animated GIFs within AME are now supported on Windows only:

Files supported for export with Adobe Media Encoder

It must be a change in QuickTime, because After Effects used to support Animated GIFs directly.

Report · Nov 27, 2016

I was a little sad to lose native export to Animated GIF in AE on the Mac side.

If Animate CC isn't doing it either, then you'll have to export to a video format first via AME (H264 Match Source High Bit Rate or QuickTime Apple ProRes 422) and then convert the resulting MP4 or MOV to animated GIF in an application that converts video to GIF (GIF Brewery 3 or Gifrocket - Create Gif from video, for Mac OS X could be good options, but I haven't tried them). GIFBuilder used to be the go to choice, but I think it was last published in 2001 (in other words, it won't run in any recent versions of OS X).

As for AE on the Mac side, I've had very good results with GifGun by Extrabite. It adds A "Make GIif" button to AE user interface. There's a trial/free version with a resolution limit and then the full version for $30.

Something that seems to be lost to the history of computer graphics is creating a Super Palette in Debabliizer for GIFs generated from video. Debablizer would scan each frame of video for the most common 256 colors, creating a custom 8-bit or less color table that could be extracted in PS and loaded in AE or in GifBuilder.

Report · Sep 26, 2017

If you are a mac user then you can easily make GiF on mac using Quicktime player or by installing any third party software like GIF Brewery 3.

Report · Oct 02, 2017

Oh - PUBLISH SETTINGS.

By default, the GIF is set to single frame. You want an animated file. Change your playback version to animated, and PUBLISH!

This should solve your question.