Centering animated GIFs

Palsa's guide for centering animated GIFs.

Original post, here.

One thing that has to be understood about animated sprites, they change their shape.

If a character is standing still, then it works without any problems, but if they were to extend their arm out, then the center point has changed.

The best way of dealing with sprite animations is to use the move tool and place each frame manually.

If your using Animation Shop 3, then there is an easy way to fix that.

First, find the 'fixed' location on the animation.

I'm referring to a particular spot that either doesn't move, or does a very small amount of moving, like a door hinge.

In Animation Shop, go to your tools bar and press this button: and then click on one of the frames.

A small cross should appear there, move the cross to a fixed point. The cross will appear in the same location on every layer.

Now, select the mover tool, it looks like this: and move each frame so that the fixed points match.

Test the animation by pressing this button:

If something looks out of place, then most likely one of the frames needs to be adjusted more.

Another thing that you might encounter is the display time for the frame.

You can adjust the display time for a single, or multiple frames, by selecting the frames you want to adjust and clicking on the 'Animation' tab, and then selecting 'Frame Properties'.

For a video image, I usually save every frame as 3, but sprites may vary depending on the animation.

For an example, lets say I wanted to create a simple standing sprite animation.

The sprite has 3 frames, one with the eyes open (frame A), one with the eyes half closed (frame B), and another with the eyes completely closed (frame C).

I will start by selecting every frame, and setting the display time to 10 (may vary).

Then I'll copy frame B, and paste it after frame C.

Now I'll change frame C's display time to 20, and frame A's display time to 300.

We're done, the sprite should stand still for several moments and then the eyes will blink.

The frames should appear something like this: (A:300),(B:10),(C:20),(B10), and then continue the cycle.

Now, we can make it look more interesting by copying the entire animation and pasting it after the last frame.

Lets modify the copied version of frame A so that it has a display time of 100.

It should now look something like this: (A:300),(B:10),(C:20),(B10),(A:100),(B:10),(C:20),(B10),

Again, the numbers represent how long each frame is displayed.

The sprite will now stand for several moments, and then blink the eyes twice.

To use the 'Paste Before' and 'Paste After' commands, select the frame you that want to paste the image in front of, or behind, and right click so that a drop down menu appears.

Alternately, click the 'Edit' tab and choose one of the options under 'Paste'.