User Guide

Animation and Video442
Animations for the World
Wide Web
Corel Painter lets you export a frame
stack as an animated GIF file. The
animated GIF format is ideal for
displaying simple animations on the
World Wide Web (WWW).
Animated GIFs are easy to create and
add to your Web pages. You give them
the same HTML tag you would any
GIF image. The only difference is that
the browser displays the file as an
animation. Animated GIFs can be
used as a link anchor or as an image
map. However, they cannot be used as
a background.
Your browser must support GIF
animations for the images to display
properly.
Refer to “The Web” on page 393 for
more information about creating
content for Web pages.
Creating Animated GIFs
If your movie is intended for the Web,
you should consider file size and
number of colors in your animation,
as these factors affect the speed of the
animation.
Create your animation in a Corel
Painter frame stack. Take advantage of
your favorite animation features and
techniques to develop the images.
As you design your animation,
consider the file size and transfer time
necessary. Your animations will be
more accessible if they're small
enough to download in a reasonable
time. You can minimize file size by
considering the following:
• Reduce the frame size. A smaller
frame leads to a smaller file. You
choose the frame size when you
create a new movie. If you import
an existing animation or video, you
cannot resize the frames.
• Limit the number of frames. Good
animations do not necessarily need
a large number of frames. Each
frame increases the file size, so if
you can get by with fewer frames,
do it.
• Limit the number of colors. Fewer
colors in the image reduces the size
of the color palette and leads to
smaller files. For best results,
choose colors from the default 256-
color set. This color set matches
the color palette of Netscape
Navigator, so the colors in your
GIF will be reproduced on the
client without dithering.
If the animation requires
transparency, you must set up a
selection for each frame. For
information about creating selections,
refer to “Creating Selections” on
page 206.
Exporting Animated GIFs
There are many options available
when saving to the GIF file format.
You can choose the number of colors
and the imaging method—Quantize
or Dither.