Blending two animations together
By Koalemos
@Asylum (47893)
Manchester, England
February 15, 2016 11:27am CST
What I am referring to is placing two animations side by side and amalgamating them into a single file. This is something that I have never attempted before, simply because I have never had any reason to.
Today I was considering this in order to create an image to be used on St George’s Day. The idea was to add an animated knight to an animated dragon to simulate the slaying of the dragon. This proved to be far more demanding than I expected.
I began by creating a new template, height equalling the tallest image and the width slightly greater than the sum of the two, thus being able to accommodate both side by side.
The first issue was that the number of frames in each animation differed, so the shortest one disappeared for a while and returned. This was easy to deal with by simply amending the frame count to match.
Of course I had overlooked that each animation had a different frame rate, which became equalised and resulted in one animation running too slow. This time I had to restart with the original and duplicate frames individually to reset the overall effect.
This is likely to be a long process, but I refuse to concede.
I combined two appropriate images to display here and demonstrate what I mean, with one dinosaur chasing another.
11 people like this
9 responses
@BelleStarr (61463)
• United States
15 Feb 16
You just gave me a headache!! I will never figure this stuff out. Now if I was there you could teach me and I would learn but I need to be shown in person to learn things.
2 people like this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
15 Feb 16
@BelleStarr An animation would have a certain amount of individual images which are displayed for a given period of time.
If one animation had 7 images set to be shown at 0.1 seconds each and another has 18 images set to display at .3 seconds each, the number of frames in each need to be set the same and the time displayed set to the same.
This can be tricky to create a balanced result.
1 person likes this
@BelleStarr (61463)
• United States
15 Feb 16
@Asylum lol I don't even understand the terms!!
1 person likes this
@RasmaSandra (97912)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
15 Feb 16
@Asylum bit too complex for me. I just stick to posting multiple photo when I can.Good luck to you.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
15 Feb 16
@RasmaSandra It can be a little convoluted at times, but good fun all the same.
1 person likes this
How i wish i have that ability and knowledge .@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
16 Feb 16
The combination of the above two images was fairly simple because one had 10 frames and the other had 20, both of which ran at the same speed. All that as really required was to duplicate the frames in the first and lay it along side the second.
It is the odd number of frames and varied speeds that can be laborious to deal with.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
16 Feb 16
@SIMPLYD Basically an animated gif is a series of static images that are displayed at set intervals to give the impression of movement. This is the same principle that is used with DVDs, television and every other motion display that we view.
To marry two animated gifs together requires harmonising the number of frames and the speed at which they are displayed.
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I don't understand any of what you said . Sorry , when it comes to those i really am at a loss . Not a techie person .
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
5 Apr 17
I did not actually draw these, there were originally animated clipart that I downloaded. There used to be many sites offering free animations, so I have accumulated a large collection.
Of course the two dinosaurs were separate animations and combining them was quite difficult.
1 person likes this
and I forgot to celebrate my husband (Giorgio - George). Of course is not today it's the 23rd of April.
@ElizabethWallace (12069)
• United States
16 Feb 16
As long as this is fun for you, then have at it. It would make me nuts though, but then I don't have the background in technology that you have. 
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
17 Feb 16
@ElizabethWallace Fortunately we all have our own preferences, so what seems like annoyance for some becomes entertaining for others.
I made some comment in discussion earlier today about my avatar walking in the wrong direction and leaving the discussion. This got me thinking about how easy it would be to reverse it. This is something that I have never had any reason to with an animation, but it should be quite simple so I am considering doing so.
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12069)
• United States
17 Feb 16
@Asylum I am happy that this is fun for people like you, so people like me can enjoy the fruits of your labor, without the annoyances.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
15 Feb 16
An animated gif is simply a series of still images that are displayed in rotation with each one showing for a specified period of, just like the original Walt Disney cartoons where each frame was hand drawn.
The problem with combining two is that the number of frames differs and the length of time per frame is different, so quite a few amendments are required.
1 person likes this
