How to make animated artwork look good

[Katja]

I am pretty new to making animated steam artwork, I can make it look good in photoshop / after effects but when I render it into a 5mb .gif it looks awful, I see plenty of people with super clean looking artwork so Im curious what export settings you all use to make it look so crisp

[Nuniq ᓇᓄᐃᑦ 🪶]

Use APNG format :D to do this, visit ezgif here: https://ezgif.com/

While the change may be small when converting from .gif to png/apng, it can help alot. Not to mention, APNG is a better format anyway (:

Canvas height can matter too. 630 px should be your width though. Grey borders are ugly.

You also might be seeing workshop showcases. You can upload 5 showcases up to a maximum of 25mb (5mb x 5mb = 25mb) Workshops are more clean looking but I personally like artwork showcases better.

If you want to upload workshop cases, I suggest you check Zelocity's tutorial for this: https://youtu.be/5pboA8E1DJs

See where this gets you!

[✟PAPAMEME✟]

What settings are you rendering in photoshop, cause there are ways to optimize it

[Katja]

I usually make the animation in AE then I render it as a PNG series then pull it in to PS and export it for web as .gif. I use 256 colors and pattern dither but it just doesn't look good. I have a couple examples on my profile currently. The workshop ones look great but the artwork ones dont.

[Katja]

Ive tried taking the PNG sequence and making an APGN using ezgif and it looks good but its wayyyy too big. by the time I get it down to 5MB it looks worse than a .gif. Im not sure how to proceed really, I guess my big artworks are going to need much fewer frames or have this screen door look to them

[Nuniq ᓇᓄᐃᑦ 🪶]

Originally posted by Katja:

Ive tried taking the PNG sequence and making an APGN using ezgif and it looks good but its wayyyy too big. by the time I get it down to 5MB it looks worse than a .gif. Im not sure how to proceed really, I guess my big artworks are going to need much fewer frames or have this screen door look to them

How big is the showcase you want to upload?

[Katja]

Originally posted by Nuniq 芬兰苔原:

Originally posted by Katja:

Ive tried taking the PNG sequence and making an APGN using ezgif and it looks good but its wayyyy too big. by the time I get it down to 5MB it looks worse than a .gif. Im not sure how to proceed really, I guess my big artworks are going to need much fewer frames or have this screen door look to them

How big is the showcase you want to upload?

630x820 the ones I have in my profile now are 506x820 with the 100x820 right sides to reduce the size (but the bar In-between them does look kinda ugly)

[Nuniq ᓇᓄᐃᑦ 🪶]

Originally posted by Katja:

Originally posted by Nuniq 芬兰苔原:

How big is the showcase you want to upload?

630x820 the ones I have in my profile now are 506x820 with the 100x820 right sides to reduce the size (but the bar In-between them does look kinda ugly)

I meant file size :D

[Katja]

Originally posted by Nuniq 芬兰苔原:

Originally posted by Katja:

630x820 the ones I have in my profile now are 506x820 with the 100x820 right sides to reduce the size (but the bar In-between them does look kinda ugly)

I meant file size :D

The 630x820 APNG is 28.7MB maybe there is too many frames? is 90 frames too much for a 3 second animation?

[Nuniq ᓇᓄᐃᑦ 🪶]

Originally posted by Katja:

Originally posted by Nuniq 芬兰苔原:

I meant file size :D

The 630x820 APNG is 28.7MB maybe there is too many frames? is 90 frames too much for a 3 second animation?

I usually set my work between 35-45.

28 MB?? You might have to remove some effects. Compression won't do much for you if it's that high.

[Katja]

Originally posted by Nuniq 芬兰苔原:

Originally posted by Katja:

The 630x820 APNG is 28.7MB maybe there is too many frames? is 90 frames too much for a 3 second animation?

I usually set my work between 35-45.

28 MB?? You might have to remove some effects. Compression won't do much for you if it's that high.

That makes a lot of sense! I am still very new to this so I was doing a lot of effects to learn new things. Ill remember less is more with my new projects.

[Nuniq ᓇᓄᐃᑦ 🪶]

Originally posted by Katja:

Originally posted by Nuniq 芬兰苔原:

I usually set my work between 35-45.

28 MB?? You might have to remove some effects. Compression won't do much for you if it's that high.

That makes a lot of sense! I am still very new to this so I was doing a lot of effects to learn new things. Ill remember less is more with my new projects.

As am I. Still practicing myself and been working on this stuff for 3 years, still new. If you want, I can help you in the future. You need only to add and ask me. :D

Also check out Snaws if you want a good showcase aswell. He's really good and friendly and has a big talent for stuff like this :D

[Skullfrick Peechrist]

try to render in apng if possible. if not, spend a good few minutes messing around with gif optimizations. use built in ae optimizer.