Unit 31 (P3) Scott Manton
Discuss the advantages and limitations of animated GIFs
What is a GIF?
Animated GIFs are usually 4 images stored together to create the illusion of animation.
GIFs are mainly made in a bitmap format, this is because all the pixels from each image can be stored in a fixed location to create the illusion of a real world photograph image becoming a GIF.
Different animation formats and tools
There are different types of animation formats when it comes to GIFs for example:
Flash
Flash is used to create animated GIFs because it allows you to create the animation frame by frame. Another reason it is the most used format is because it can also be used to add sound to the GIF.
A disadvantage of using flash animation is that it may slow the download speed on your PC and in some cases not even load the image on the webpages.
Shockwave
Shockwave was designed for 3D animation and is used in videos. Shockwave also has a fast rendering engine meaning it will play the videos in a smooth motion. An advantage of Shockwave is that is supports 3D animations unlike Flash that only supports 2D.
A disadvantage of Shockwave is that you have to download and install specific software to your webpages in order for it to work. Without this software downloaded you would not be able to watch videos on any website.
QuickTime
QuickTime is similar to Windows Media Player and because of this it's main advantage is it used to support; sound, animation and video.
QuickTime is an Apple made software which is one of it's disadvantages because it goes head to head with Windows Media Player, a software that more people use and is more well known.
Dynamic HTML
Dynamic HTML is primarily used on webpages and an advantage of this is that it can be used to create drop down menus and rollover images. Not only that but it can also be used to create online games.
A disadvantage of Dynamic HTML is that some web browsers read different languages and will not support the features on a webpage.
Advantages and Disadvantages of animated GIFs
Advantage
An advantage of using animated GIFs is they have loss-less compression, meaning the size of the file can be made smaller and the image will not lose any of its quality.
Another advantage is that animated GIFs already have a small file size. This allows you to use more GIFs on a webpage without it effect the download speed too much.
Animated GIFs support a transparent background, this is an advantage because it allows you to put a GIF over any background colour or even a picture and you will not be able to see a border or the picture being covered.
Animated GIFs are also suitable for online context. Meaning you can use GIFs on websites instead of lots of text and this will also help to grab the users attention.
Disadvantage
The main disadvantage of animated GIFs is that they only support 256 colours, this limits your options when it comes to using GIFs. Only having 256 could also be consider as an advantage because it makes the file size small.
Another disadvantage is the images can appear blocky when made too big or when zoomed in. This becomes a problem if you wanted to use GIFs for a larger and more colourful project.
Having too many GIFs can decrease your bandwidth, which will slow your download speed making it frustrating waiting for a webpage to load.
Also, having too many GIFs can be overwhelming and not aesthetically pleasing. Having GIFs will help a webpage look more interesting but overusing them will make it look ridiculous.
