Animated avatars

[Silencer]

I want to have an animated avatar but it just doesn't appear animated at all. The black on white text is the first image of the animation. Here are the details:

100px x 100px (to large?)
30.49kB
link: http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f254/cavad/haha.gif

Speculation is that the picture is to big but I can still get the first slide so that's kind off odd...

[mr_pikachu]

If you're hosting it on TPM, file size can be an issue (although I don't know what the limit is). I'd try hosting it on another site (like the link you provided, for instance) and just assigning your avatar to that address.

(I'm assuming you're trying to host it on TPM, because the image information shows a TPM address, not one of another site. If that's not the problem, then... uh, good luck?)

To assign your avatar to a web address for another site:

1. Go to your profile.
2. Instead of browsing your computer to upload the image, use the area just above it to specify the picture's URL.
3. Admire your spiffy new avatar.

[Silencer]

Still nothing. I select "I have my own picture" and insert the URL. Then I get a preview right under 'personalised picture" where it is animated but when I select change profile it no longer is.

[mr_pikachu]

Okay, first of all, the avatar appears to have been resized to 80x80. Second, it is no longer a GIF file, it's a PNG!

(You can check both pieces of information by right-clicking your avvie and selecting "Properties.")

Hmm. Well, try resizing the animation itself to 80x80 or smaller on your comp, and see if it'll work on TPM as a GIF then. (I suspect that the forum is automatically making the image a PNG when it resizes it, and so it has to choose to just display that first frame. This may also mean that it'll work as a TPM-hosted image, although you may want to try it on your standard hosting site first.)

If that doesn't work... err... make sure you're uploading the full animation and not just the first frame to your hosting site?

Note: That means I'll be out of advice, which means you need to hope that someone else can help you.

Anyway, I hope you can get it to work. Best of luck!

[Silencer]

So with what program should I resize it? I have a feeling paint won't be good enough.

[mr_pikachu]

Yeah, probably not. Well, I use Paint Shop Pro... if I remember right, there was a copy of it in the Free, Useful Programs thread. Of course, Animation Shop might also be helpful for you, since it is technically an animation. Let me see what I can find, and I'll edit it into this post.


Good news: I found Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop.

Bad news: They might be too expensive. -_-;;;

Worse news: Unfortunately, compressing such a small image further may cause some distortion no matter what program you use. I'm using a relative's computer at the moment, so Í can't readily test how my suggested programs would perform. They might work, but they might not.


If you scanned these into your computer, you may want to try to change your scan options to make the graphic immediately change to 80x80 in order to prevent that distortion. (Your dimensions should be 80% of what they are now.) If they were created on the computer, you could try to edit them using whatever program you used to create them. But that might not be worth the trouble. I hate to say it, but it may almost be easier to just redraw the images in that case.

Hmm. I'm really hoping someone else can be of more help here. I have an odd feeling that I'm missing something horribly obvious...

[The Blue Avenger]

Here. I resized the image to 80 x 80 for you. It's a little distorted, but not much. Does it work as an avatar now?

[Chris]

The image is indeed being uploaded using MIME type image/png, meaning that it'll never get animated because PNGs don't support animation. This is because SMF converts any avatar that has to be resized to PNG, regardless of whether it's actually an animated GIF. There's no way I can disable this and it's really annoying.

TheBlueAvenger: I tried uploading your version too, but that was still being converted to a PNG after being uploaded - no idea why. I made another resized version and tried uploading that but it didn't work either, so screw it - I've increased the maximum dimensions to 100x100. It works now, Silencer.

I really don't like the way SMF handles avatars - in fact I don't really like the way SMF handles anything.

[Silencer]

Thanks Chris, specially for me *big grin*

I bow down to your generosity
*does indeed bow*