How To Make Animated PNG

A short guide on how to render high-quality APNG animations.

Intro

                 Before you start...

        Please, do not upload any content to Steam if you are not the creator of it,
            do not have a copyright for it nor do not have a permission to upload it!

            For more information, read this article on Content Rules...

         Alright! I can see that I will have to teach you...

     Okay, so you might think: What the heck is APNG and what are the advantages of it?
           Let me begin with a brief explanation of what APNG actually is:

Автор сообщения: Professor McArtwork

                            APNG (Animated Portable Network Graphics)

It's an extention to already existing PNG format that adds
a special option for images to be animated like GIFs are!

        Alright, so APNG is just PNG but animated... What's the big deal?
     It actually turns out APNG is a much, MUCH better format than the GIF format is!
          Now let's see the main differences between GIF and APNG formats:

GIF

APNG

An old technology created in the late '80s mostly for web animation for weak Internet connections. Color palette reduced to max 256 colors (or max 255 colors + 1 empty), however this limit can be bypassed with a help of blocks: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#True_color . Notable noise while applying dithering which sometimes may be unpleasant. Doesn't support partial transparency. The pixels of the animation can either be rendered or not. Because of the limitations, GIFs can be really small in size.

A new technology of the 21st century that extends the standard PNG format. The file extention is .png which makes it backward-compatible with a regular PNG format. Software unsupporting APNG can still open and treat it like a still PNG frame. True-color palette (16,777,216 colors) without a need to separate the animation into blocks as for GIFs. Supports partial transparency via the alpha channel. This lets you create "see-through-glass" effects. Because of the new possibilities, APNG can be much larger in size than GIF.

        For more detailed information on APNG format, please refer to this Wikipedia page:
                  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG

Render a PNG sequence

            First, render a PNG sequence...

           As you can tell, APNG animations work similar to GIF ones.
           That means it's a sequence of images that are swapping
            with a constant frame rate giving an illusion of movement.


      Our first step is rendering your After Effects project into a sequence of PNG images.

         Select the composition you want to render and press Ctrl+M.
         Click the text that says Output Module and choose the format as "PNG Sequence":
            After that, select the Channels option to "RGB + Alpha".




          Select the output path you want to put your sequence in
        and press the "Render" button located to the right side of the panel.

Convert the sequence to APNG

                    Second, convert the sequence to APNG...

            Now you have your PNG sequence ready to be assembled into an APNG animation.

       To compile an APNG file, download a pack called "APNG Tools":
                    APNG Tools[beta.shibe.host]


         Unpack all files and run the "APNG Renderer" app. A window will pop out:




        Open your folder with previously rendered PNG sequence, select all images
       and drop them into this white area that says "Input files (drop here)":




             Now we have to set the frame rate of the animation. There is a button
         that reads "Delays - All Frames". Click it. A new window will pop out:




    Now listen closely: Here's a lit-- I mean, there are two values that can be modified.
     Leave the first value always set to "1". No, don't touch that! The second value,
       it's "10" by default, is your desired frame rate. Simply change it to any value
            that matches the frame rate of your artwork or anything else.


  We're almost ready! Name your PNG file in the "Output file" and click "Make Animated PNG".
           Your destination file will be located in the same folder where your PNG sequence is located.

                  Disclaimer...

                 APNGs have tendency to render waaaaaaaay too long
                  so a lot of patience is requred!


     If you want to use APNG as your Steam Artwork, please refer to this guide below:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2175748848

Compress APNG animations

                                                          APNG Compressor!

                              Now if your APNG is bigger than 8MBs, compress and lower its size using the new compressor!
                                                                                                                          Open the Compressor folder, and put your animated png in there.
                                                                                                                                           Now open the compressor file and follow the 2 simple steps

                                    Insert your compression ratio 1 being the most compressed and 100 the lowest compression.

                                                                                                                                                                                                              Now insert the name of your animated png file.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Examples...   
     
                 Uncompressed 18.75MB
                 Compressed 5.72 MB (80)

Outro

                  Credits

             Yuv  ·············  A concept for the guide <3
             DFM  ························  Graphics + Content

           Mind stopping by one of our guides?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=952096997 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2187387847 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2211095105

          Here, catch a nice meme from us ^-^

[Topolino Hackerino]

When i upload apng, it upload just a still image

[LIZERGIN]

˚∧＿∧ 　+ —̳͟͞͞💗
( •‿• )つ —̳͟͞͞ 💗 —̳͟͞͞💗 +
(つ　 < —̳͟͞͞💗
｜　 _つ + —̳͟͞͞💗 —̳͟͞͞💗 ˚
`し´i wish you have a nice weeknd!
text art here! Like and Fav

[Plær1]

@Google AI Overview, why doesn't mayo do "the trick" anymore? pls help. it's destroying my marrage.

[Henry of Skalitz]

@Delta
4 random noname vendors claim it's a trojan while every single other vendor, some of which are the absolute most popular antivirus vendors say it's clean.

Yes, sure, I'm gonna believe those nonames. Uh-uh.

Oh, guess what, the apngasm program from the github page you named also shows a trojan on some noname security vendor, and another marked it as malicious.

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/59086b95474a36dd4c173cc6d97ee01b868727c00f721fa04d8ec3c1535f48cc

[Delta]

I ran the apng tool through virus total and it flagged 4 malware (3 being trojans)
(ran the original apng assembler from the official website and that was also flagged as malware with the same set of trojans)
Just download it from the github page made by Kagetsuki, dont trust random links on the internet kids

[issu3]

Works good, but does featured artwork support apngs? Cant seem to get any animation working

[Solid Cake]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3117783185 Guys,Check my screenshots and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3117781835 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3117781653

[Expired.Pesto]

Apng compressor says "Done!" but I don't see any images. Where is the output file path?

[SylveonTheFurry]

Comprssor didnt work for my apng might need help

[stuewirth]

rated