Image question

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Alright, I'm trying to make a decent looking avatar sized picture. 5 frames of pictures 128*128, but every time I try to export or save or make the image a animated .gif the quality of the pictures are terrible! 8bit!
I used Flash MX 2004 Pro, is there a way to change something? Because its frustrating :cussing: getting all this output crap.
thanks.

 

[x42bn6]

If you output to GIFs, you will always be restricted to 256 colours (8-bit). If you want more colours, you will need to use Flash.*

 

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ERRR ERR ERR!

Why is it that some of my work (gifs) turn out very nice, while others turn out pretty bad. e.g. Wing's old avvy compared to his new one?

Is there some trick I can do to make the images still look decent by using 8-bit colors? I mean like, converting the colors or something. ..Something.

 

[x42bn6]

Ah, you've noticed a fundamental problem with paletted images. GIFs, because they are limited to 256 colours, use dithering to blend colours. However, dithering patterns vary between images even when there is only a little difference. And when it involves a colour change (i.e. motion blur), the colours used to dither are different. Which is why it is almost impossible to get a good quality GIF that is animated (although people at 4chan seem fairly capable - but you can always see patches of colour flashing about because of dithering).

256 colours in a still is, believe it or not, more than adequate for most purposes and use of dithering and textures can actually make 256 colours look very similar to 24-bit PNGs or TGAs.*