Hello, i need to do a special clock animation. Can you let me know if my
following method sounds right, or if i should be using a different program or
technique?

i'm using an image of an old clock (bitmap), it will have an hour hand and a
minute hand. the minute hand will change 59 times, and the hour hand will
change 11 times. that's 649 frames before the image starts over!

If I separate the hour hand and the minute hand into separate layers, i will
only have to make 70 separate images. So I was going to make 59 frames with the
minute hand layer changing and the hour hand layer staying the same. Then i was
going to copy and paste all 59 minute frames, but change the hour hand layer to
the next hour. I was going to repeat this process till I got to 11:59.

can animated gifs even do 649 frames? will this be pretty straightforward in
fireworks? or should i be using flash? flash with bitmaps didn't seem right to
me. i'd rather do an animated gif since every browser will show it (like
iphones)... and cs3 has that flash-like capability now.

thanks for any advice you might have! forgive me if i'm a fool!

May I ask what are you going to use this for? Is the clock suppose to be
accurate?

alex

clockwerker wrote:
> Hello, i need to do a special clock animation. Can you let me know if my
> following method sounds right, or if i should be using a different program or
> technique?
>
> i'm using an image of an old clock (bitmap), it will have an hour hand and a
> minute hand. the minute hand will change 59 times, and the hour hand will
> change 11 times. that's 649 frames before the image starts over!
>
> If I separate the hour hand and the minute hand into separate layers, i will
> only have to make 70 separate images. So I was going to make 59 frames with the
> minute hand layer changing and the hour hand layer staying the same. Then i was
> going to copy and paste all 59 minute frames, but change the hour hand layer to
> the next hour. I was going to repeat this process till I got to 11:59.
>
> can animated gifs even do 649 frames? will this be pretty straightforward in
> fireworks? or should i be using flash? flash with bitmaps didn't seem right to
> me. i'd rather do an animated gif since every browser will show it (like
> iphones)... and cs3 has that flash-like capability now.
>
> thanks for any advice you might have! forgive me if i'm a fool!
>

hi alex, no, it doesn't need to reflect real time, I just wanted it to run, i
was going to give each frame 100/100 seconds so that it would tick naturally,
but just start at noon. so it won't run for 24 hours, it will just run for
almost 60 minutes before restarting. thanks.

70 separate images,649 frames... is going to end up as a pretty/very big
image. Those numbers alone would make me think that Flash is a far better
option.

Peter
_____________________
"clockwerker" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:fpn45d$sk5$1@forums.macromedia.com...
| hi alex, no, it doesn't need to reflect real time, I just wanted it to
run, i
| was going to give each frame 100/100 seconds so that it would tick
naturally,
| but just start at noon. so it won't run for 24 hours, it will just run for
| almost 60 minutes before restarting. thanks.
|

"clockwerker" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:fplnrk$b35$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Hello, i need to do a special clock animation. Can you let me know if my
> following method sounds right, or if i should be using a different program
> or
> technique?
>
> i'm using an image of an old clock (bitmap), it will have an hour hand and
> a
> minute hand. the minute hand will change 59 times, and the hour hand will
> change 11 times. that's 649 frames before the image starts over!
>
> If I separate the hour hand and the minute hand into separate layers, i
> will
> only have to make 70 separate images. So I was going to make 59 frames
> with the
> minute hand layer changing and the hour hand layer staying the same. Then
> i was
> going to copy and paste all 59 minute frames, but change the hour hand
> layer to
> the next hour. I was going to repeat this process till I got to 11:59.


What about this:

Have a static gif, bmp, or jpeg in one layer. Have a transparent gif on top
of that which shows the hour hand (or you could combine this with the
background). Layer a gif on top of that which shows the minute hand.

I'm not sure what software you're planning to run this in, but in HTML you
could probably use absolute positioning to achieve this.

HTH;

Amy

Another kludgy factor about animated gifs is that different browsers
will render the same animated gif at different speeds.
So I agree, Flash is a more appropiate solution.

PJR wrote:
> 70 separate images,649 frames... is going to end up as a pretty/very big
> image. Those numbers alone would make me think that Flash is a far better
> option.
>
> Peter
> _____________________
> "clockwerker" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
> news:fpn45d$sk5$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> | hi alex, no, it doesn't need to reflect real time, I just wanted it to
> run, i
> | was going to give each frame 100/100 seconds so that it would tick
> naturally,
> | but just start at noon. so it won't run for 24 hours, it will just run for
> | almost 60 minutes before restarting. thanks.
> |
>
>

thanks everybody! i'm going to see about flash, too (no offense, fireworks!).
it might be nice to do mouseover effects for the hour and minute hands in flash
instead of the ticking clock of an animated gif.

oh and amy that's a good idea! that will keep the file size down. at first i
was thinking "duh," heh heh. but then i actually read your post, and i
realized i can have 3 separate images on the page.

i can use the absolute positioning with CSS, and the Z-order of the images
doesn't matter, since the they are all transparent and they don't overlap. the
minute hand file will still be large, but it will only be 59 frames, not 700
frames. man i was being an idiot before. this way is much better.

if there's any wait for the minute hand image, the hour hand and the
background will load really fast in the meanwhile.

thanks again alex, pjr and amy...