Hi everyone.
I have a couple of quick questions about using an animated gif on a watch face I’m having a dabble at. For starters I’m not the greatest at programming and formulas etc.
I created a 25 frame gif in after effects which works well when I put it into the face creator. I’ve extended it’s duration to 3 seconds to get the most out of it.
My first question is, is there a way I can reverse the gif back to the first frame rather than it jumping back to the first frame after the 3 seconds? (Giving the impression the animation lasts longer)
2nd question. Is there a way once the gif has done its 3 second animation it disappears and is replaced by a new gif? Once the 2nd gif is done it just loops back to the start of the first gif and starts again?
Apologies if this doesn’t make sense. I’ve only beem on facer for about a week or so and am still getting used to how things work.
I haven’t used the new gif tool yet - still using the older method pioneered by @eradicator09. To work your way back to the beginning, you can do that in the frame images. 12 of the frames animate forwards, then the last 13 frames run in reverse to get back to the first frame.
I’m not sure about running two gif sequences. Can you combine both sequences into one 50 frame sequence that runs for 6 seconds, instead of 25 for 3 seconds?
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Thanks @jmorga106. I’ll have a look reversing the last 13 or so frames and see what it looks like. As for the 2 gif sequence, I think it’ll be a whole lot of trial and error for me. If anything it will get me familiar with how everything works.
I haven’t had the best luck using the built in animator if there are going to be more than one sequence. It is possible to build it using code, but it does take some forethought.
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I’ll have a new free face I’ll be releasing in my Forever Gaming Series that has a couple of examples of animation types.
Awesome @eradicator09. Can’t wait to check them out. I’d be ok if the animated gif being uploaded wasn’t capped at 25 frames. I probably only had to get another 10 frames for what I wanted to do.
Check out the Defender design I just released. Essentially I stick with a 1+1+Dim approach. One start screen, followed by a animation that loops, then a separate dim screen.
The difficulty with any animated design is trying to fit it all in a 5 second window. If you have a WearOS watch, you can get the StayLit app to make this interval longer between wake and dim, but I try to stick to the 5 seconds. Also you dont want things to be too busy otherwise, the user won’t know where to look for the actual watch detail.
Just had a look. It’s awesome. Love it. So basically it’s an animation when the watch wakes which leads into a new looped animation.
Correct. I’m using my technique for long duration animation (Here), then the 2 second looping animation described (Here).
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Cool. I’ll have a play with this method this weekend. Thanks for your advice @eradicator09
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