Animation in Avatar acting strange?

badams52 · April 2, 2003, 23:04

I searched through previous "avatar" posts and didn't see anyone ask/notice this before, so I hope this hasn't been answered.

I got my avatar up and with animation, but I noticed that sometimes when I load a page it seems to start on the 2nd/3rd/4th etc. frame, which kind of messes up the point of my avatar. Does anyone know why this might be?

If I could, I would make the fist 30 frames the same...

ixnay · April 2, 2003, 23:47

You can set the frame lengths for each frame, so if you wanted to set the 1st frame to have a longer delay you could do that.

badams52 · April 2, 2003, 23:53

unfortunately, that's not the problem. I first set the delay on the first frame to 180 seconds. But sometimes the avatar starts on frame #2 which begins the quick animation sequence, sometimes on frame #3, etc.

in my second attempt, I set the delay of the first frame to 90, duplicated it in the second and set it to 90, but then sometimes the animation starts on frame 3 or 4. I don't get it.

Won't happen the first time I load a page I've posted in, but in subsequent page loads it does.

ixnay · April 3, 2003, 00:14

Does the animation loop through? If so it's not a big deal.

badams52 · April 3, 2003, 00:37

Yeah, it loops through, just wanted to have a long delay before the animation. I wanted a subtle custom avatar that most people wouldn't notice. Oh well.

ixnay · April 3, 2003, 01:15

Ah. I had a blinking avatar once that caused many people to think they were hallucinating, made with one extremely long frame (10 seconds or so) and a couple short frames.

CapitanGarlic · April 3, 2003, 02:43

Damn that blinking avatar...

ixnay · April 3, 2003, 03:13

It served it's purpose.

DrSpike · April 3, 2003, 05:20

What browser are you using Badams? I get sporadic animation problems in Opera.

FrustratedPoet · April 3, 2003, 05:47

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
What browser are you using Badams? I get sporadic animation problems in Opera.

Yeah, me too. The displaying of animated gifs seems a little erratic in Opera, which is a little annoying at times.

Sometimes the animated smilies don't loop, either, or get stuck on Frame 1.

DrSpike · April 3, 2003, 06:07

I posted to tell Skanky I'd spotted him mucking about with the speed of his avatar animation. But since it has never happened apart from in opera I'm a little unsure now.

Alex · April 3, 2003, 10:47

I'm having the same problem in Opera. Some of the smilies are not animated as they should be, or their animation is in slow motion (like this one:

)

badams52 · April 3, 2003, 11:31

My avatar probably looks different in opera and ie, but I hate ie. Currently, I'm using Nutscape 7.02. (decided not to fix the typo

)

[edit: just tested IE for a bit, and my avatar seems to work as advertised

]

What does my avatar look like in opera? You probably won't notice the animation if opera is that slow, then the 3 minute delay setting would seem like forever. But if you opened a second window, then a third...you might actually get to start on the 3rd frame where the animation actually starts.

It's just strange to me how these browsers interpret animated gifs. Maybe it's in the caching.

Oh, and when i was using a mac's IE (sometimes I have to use macs at schools if I want to enjoy apolyton), there is no animation at all. Makes the site quite interesting.

badams52 · April 3, 2003, 11:38

Quote:

Originally posted by ixnay
Ah. I had a blinking avatar once that caused many people to think they were hallucinating, made with one extremely long frame (10 seconds or so) and a couple short frames.

sorry I missed that one. I'm sure you got lots of feedback from people you didn't know.

Kind of like the effect I was going for. Maybe they're spending a long time on a particular thread, like an AAR thread, and then out of the corner of their eye notice something strange with my avatar. They're not sure what they saw, but they saw some kind of movement. Then if they wanted to actually see it happen again, they'd have to wait another 3 minutes or so for the cycle to repeat.

But if they were computer savy, they could just download it and open the animated gif in a program that allows one to edit them...

ixnay · April 3, 2003, 12:25

Which is what I did...

Excellent avatar

Alex · April 3, 2003, 12:48

Hm, I did the same thing but still couldn't notice it. Maybe I'm not that patient at all...

Alex · April 3, 2003, 12:50

I demand Markos fix this smilies behavior in Opera!

badams52 · April 3, 2003, 12:53

thanks ixnay,

Alexnm, change the time on the first two frames and the last to make them last maybe 1 second each... Then the animation will happen faster.

Alex · April 3, 2003, 13:11

I guess that I don't have that good of an image program (I'm using IrfanView, which is nice but very basic).

Anyway, the smilies are now displaying their animations correctly. Maybe it has something to do with caching...

ixnay · April 3, 2003, 13:36

I've found in Opera that animated gifs won't start animating until you scroll past them and then scroll back to them. Very bizarre and annoying as hell.

Skanky Burns · April 3, 2003, 18:01

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
I posted to tell Skanky I'd spotted him mucking about with the speed of his avatar animation. But since it has never happened apart from in opera I'm a little unsure now.

For what it's worth, I hadn't changed my avatar at all.

DrSpike · April 3, 2003, 18:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns

For what it's worth, I hadn't changed my avatar at all.

So I now realise. The experiences of other Opera users confirm my suspicions.

CapitanGarlic · April 4, 2003, 01:29

By the way, ix -- your neck in your current avatar seems freakishly long...just thought I'd point that out.

At least this one doesn't blink.

ixnay · April 4, 2003, 02:05

Well here's the original pic I worked with. Neck size was unchanged:

http://ffmedia.ign.com/filmforce/image/scoobydoo-shaggy-scooby.jpg

Quote:

At least this one doesn't blink.

OR DOES IT???

DrSpike · April 4, 2003, 09:17

Btw is anyone using an old version of Opera? I didn't have this particular problem with 6.01, though of course there were sometimes others.

Hueij · April 4, 2003, 10:28

In 6.01 the last frame of an animation kept showing throughout the whole sequence. Kind of funny in the "bowing down" smiley

Okay, so we found something in Opera that doesn't work as it should, but there is nooooooooo way I turn back to Internet Exploder

DrSpike · April 4, 2003, 10:40

's funny, the avatars in 6.01 worked perfectly for me as I said. Still, there have always been intermittent problems with Opera and 'Poly.........maybe this one will go away soon like so many of the others.

Hueij · April 4, 2003, 10:48

Quote:

Originally posted by DrSpike
's funny, the avatars in 6.01 worked perfectly for me as I said. Still, there have always been intermittent problems with Opera and 'Poly.........maybe this one will go away soon like so many of the others.

The question is whose fault that was. I have a feeling the problems were to blame on Apolyton (sorry Markos

).

DrSpike · April 4, 2003, 11:00

I don't think so....there are problems with lots of sites, because they are made predominantly to be compatible with IE.

Alex · April 4, 2003, 11:06

Skanky's avatar is definitely funny in slow motion.