Animated Gif and Animated Png from Image Folders: Can APNG be Optimized?

[Boleeman]

Upgraded to: Animated Gif and Animated Png from Image Folders (see later replies)

Was investigating how to make animated gifs from folders containing images (Png, Bmp, Gif, Jpg) for the Tween program.

Found a thread by my friend DreamVB (from the good old PlanetVb of years gone by) on this Lazarus Forum and I expanded on his Lazarus code.


Place numbered images in particular folders starting from .001

Uses TBgrabmp
Can change size, delay, Loopcount
Creates an output folder and lists percentage size in filename.


Might be nice to add a feature to split an animated gif back to say png files.

Anyhow, enjoy what I have been playing around with.

Attached is also an animated gif made from a folder containing pngs which has been incresed in size to 140 percent.

Greets to DreamVB.

[circular]

Nice project 

One remark, the OptimizeFrames method is supposed to be called after adding the frames. You will get smaller output files this way.

[Fred vS]

Very nice project!
Note that if you want to export to a open-source format (GIF is not open source  :'( ), you may use animated PNG (APNG): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG
And, of course, BGRABitmap can deal perfectly with it.

[Boleeman]

Thanks Circular for that OptimizeFrames method advice.
I was referencing different threads on animated gifs and was unsure of where to put actually put it.
While investigating, I noticed some animated gif sizes seemed a bit larger than I was expecting so I see now why the OptimizeFrames method is called after adding the frames.


Fred vS, thanks for your nice reply. I also wanted to look at APNG but was unaware that BGRABitmap can deal with it. The quality of the APNG animation looks amazing.

I teach Basic animation at a college and wanted to maybe make a basic animator using Lazarus, and do some Squash and Stretch like your ball bounce example. I used to use Pencil animator, but have switched to Wick (Vector) Animator. This is based on Javascript. It would be nice to see something similar done in Lazarus.

[Fred vS]

Hello.
Yes APNG is great and can deal with transparency (Animated GIF cannot).

[Boleeman]

I wonder, is there any sample code that creates APNG in Lazarus ?

I know ImagingLib does it, but does TBgrabmp do it?

I am interested in trying it out.

[Fred vS]

I wonder, is there any sample code that creates APNG in Lazarus ?

I know ImagingLib does it, but does TBgrabmp do it?

I am interested in trying it out.

The demo testgif was updated to render apng.
https://github.com/bgrabitmap/bgrabitmap/tree/master/test/testgif

Note that I did not yet try to create a apng, only render it.

[Roland57]

I didn't know APNG. Very interesting. I see it's possible to create APNG files with ImageMagick.

[Fred vS]

I didn't know APNG. Very interesting. I see it's possible to create APNG files with ImageMagick.

Here some investigation-solution for rendering APNG with BGRABitmap: https://github.com/bgrabitmap/bgrabitmap/issues/105
Maybe BGRABitmap could be used to create APNG too.

[circular]

Yes, you can create APNG files, using TBGRAAnimatedPng class, also in BGRAAnimatedGif unit. 

[Fred vS]

Yes, you can create APNG files, using TBGRAAnimatedPng class, also in BGRAAnimatedGif unit. 

Wow, BGRABitmap simply the best and the best simple. 

[circular]

Thanks. Yes, simplicity is my motto. 

[Boleeman]

Now saving to APNG as well as animated Gif

 Might be nice to add a display animated png/gif to this demo.

[Awkward]

little offtoped. why you didn't check MNG for animation?

[Boleeman]

Now showing the Animated Gif/Png using FredVs gbrabmp Testgif code.

Attached is a test animated png of my H-Fractal.
The animated png is smaller in size than the animated gif.

What I also noticed:

Decreasing the size of the animated gif or animated png from 100% increases the size of the animated file.

Not sure why this happens ?

I naturally assumed that initially setting a smaller percentage animated image size makes the output animated image size smaller.

Also test making an APNG with tweens, from my tween program.