Hi
Do many people use .gif images in their projects?
VP does not handle this type of file correctly as it interprets it as a video clip of a single frame. Consequently you cannot extend the duration and this makes it virtually useless. Unfortunately .gif images can be created with a transparent background making them very useful for logos and "object" animation where movement over a background is needed. In VP, although the background comes up transparent, you can't do anything with them since as I said, they come up as a single, unalterable frame clip and not an image which is a great pity.
Why not, you may say, convert them to ,jpg format. Well in short, the transparency would be lost which is one of the main points of usefulness with gifs. It also means you have to use a green screen to take out the now, white or black background and the borders are then never very good.
Transparent background png images don't (at least here) show up correctly on my PC but DO load to VP. Anyway, the Draw program I use to generate .gifs won't give a transparency to pngs although it will export them.
Animated gif files (which I use a lot in illustrated talks) DO play in VP but as they are constructed with single images, timed individually and several similar images placed one after another often being used to create suitable pauses in the animation, they again, don't play properly in VP as each image is still a single frame of around 0.1 second. You can convert then to .avi but, again the conversion does not create pauses in the action properly where a single gif has had its duration set in the creator program. i.e. it has been given a duration of, say 2 seconds but VP makes THAT image 0.1 second.
If you have worked with .gif files you will know what I mean.
Any opinions out there?
Nat