Transparent Gif Problem

[ronh100]

I am trying to make a transparent gif of a butterfly using ImageReady but when I play back the animation other layers are visible in frames. I turned off the "eye" of the unwanted layers in the layers flyout for each frame but I am still getting the unwanted visible layers in frames. I have attached a copy of the gif file. Your help greatly appreciated.

[doubrovski]

Hi ronh100
Wouldn't you upload the source PSD?

[chuggs]

I just saved and opened your gif file in Imageready. To be honest, this is a wierd one. I see that you set the animation to only show one layer per frame, which it should be. But it almost looks as if you somehow had duplicates of every layer and they got merged in each frame of the animation. Basically what I'm saying is that Frame 1 looks like it contains Layer 1 and Layer 2 even though only Layer 1 is turned on. Then Frame 2 looks like it contains Layer 2 and a copy of Layer 3, and so on.

It's been a while since I've worked in Imageready, but let me see if I can clean it up for you.

[chuggs]

Well, I don't know if I was 100% right in my diagnosis, but I was able to clean it up based on the thought process I had at the time. It still needs some fine tuning around the tail though. I hope this helps.

[ronh100]

Andrei, I have uploaded the psd. Chuggs, your fix looks good to me. How did you do it?


Thanks,
Ron

[chuggs]

If you look at each frame of your gif file after the first frame, you can see the outline of the extra layers towards the outside of what is intended to be the current layer. I simply went through each frame / layer zoomed in at 400% and used the polygon lasso to select the excess. Once satisfied with the selection, I hit the delete key to get rid of it. For some reason or another, I couldn't get my eraser tool to work.

[ronh100]

I just joined the forum today and already got help with my problem. Thanks Chuggs for cleaning up my animation. If there is a way to accomplish transparent animations without having to modify each frame so they don't overlap when played back I would appreciate knowing it. Andrei, if you know a way to do it without having to erase each frame, let me know.

Thanks all!

[turvas]

Are you sure you didn't have some of the other layers visible in the first frame? There is something to ImageReady and first frames. He likes to make stuff that's visible in the first frame visible in all the frames. But taking "the eye" off usually does it... But when removing the eye doesn't help just put a clean white "clean up" layer between every "butterfly" layer and then use "the eye" accordingly (make sure to have none of the white layers visible on the first frame). Hope it helps.