Construct Animate feedback thread

I would agree however, there are many games that do VERY well promoted as GIFs on Twitter/Discord and help generate wishlists/sales/visibility.

just perusing through twitter...something like this scene would be nice to have gif export, especially if all the art/animation is made in the game already.

https://twitter.com/MrMorrisGames/status/1485993360577937415

Again, GIF is dead - that tweet actually shows an MP4 video. Services like Twitter add to the confusion by displaying an MP4 video, and sticking a "GIF" label on it. The actual .gif file format is no longer actually used on Twitter. Nowadays "GIF" has come to mean "short, silent, looping animations", which are now generally done by videos; it does not generally refer to the actual .gif file format any more.

So if you want an animation like that, in a future Construct Animate update you'll be able to export an MP4 video and upload that to Twitter. Even if Construct did export actual .gif files, the first thing Twitter would do when you upload it is convert it to MP4, so you may as well cut out the slow inefficient format in the middle.

I have a feeling I'll be explaining this a lot over the next couple of years...

I have a feeling I'll be explaining this a lot over the next couple of years...

Isn't that a little presumptuous ?

A giphy file:

i.giphy.com/media/mLZ6kvGkH31z0BAKUX/100w.webp

With fall back on error:

i.giphy.com/mLZ6kvGkH31z0BAKUX.gif

I mean, for example in giphy, their fall back is the gif file, right?.

I remember trying to grasp that magical transparency concept from gifs ... like ... a life time ago (mid 90s) and it's still here.

And if internet has taught me anything about itself, nearly anything is never truly gone .... especially not a medium that has been used and applied in countless of projects, sites, applications ...

if anything ... at some point ... someone will likely make a better gif '^_^ ... I could be yoking ... but I got myself doubting on this one :\</p>

MP4 video support is ubiquitous, so that alone means no fallback will ever actually be needed. Even if MP4 support was missing in some case, then another video codec fallback like WebM would still be a better option than GIF. The only exception I can think of is if you need to download it and import it to another tool that only understands GIF and doesn't understand videos. But I suspect that case is rare these days.

But I think we might just add an export to GIF option anyway because I am sure every new customer is going to keep asking these same questions.

But I think we might just add an export to GIF option anyway because I am sure every new customer is going to keep asking these same questions.

As far as time saving practicalities go, this one's up there.

And who knows ... perhaps this will cause the great GIF revival :O lol

GIF hasn't been updated in 30+ years, so I don't think there will be a GIF revival. It's a terrible image format. And there are so many better options now. I don't understand why you are pushing so hard for it.

I wasn't really pushing it tbh, merely asked a question with a bit of supported information.

I could go on about user experience on apple devices, and how a huge amount of users experiences issues starting videos as images; having to touch the screen or images after load in order to start it (something to do with the audio tracks).

Whereas a gif, just plays, everywhere, anywhere no extra input required.

Not to mention compatibility, I haven't looked into to it, but I can pretty good guestimate; that gifs are more widely compatible on a wider range of devices, then most video formats, performance aside.

But we'll let that in the middle :P

So, the current use and application of gifs maybe low, it is still out there, terrabytes in size. And dead as it maybe for modern content developers, it is still very much alive among older generations.

gifs are awesome and platforms convert them to those other formats because they can't be taken out of their platforms with a right click like a gif can to be shared with your friends, I know ur like all kind of brain poisonned by big platforms that try to keep their users engaged and never leave their site but gif is not actually dead, they'Re just telling you it is because they're trying to kill it for profit.

Hope that helps

They're after me lucky charms.

GIFs are a smaller files I can upload much easier opposed to an MP4.

MP4 videos can be literally 10x smaller than a GIF and better quality, so a lot easier to upload on a slow connection.

Also there's animated emojis that seem to use GIFs on Slack, Twitch, Discord etc...

I tried adding a GIF on Discord and... it's an MP4 video again.

It's always in website owner's interest to use and support videos. They are literally 10x more efficient while being better quality. It can substantially reduce hosting costs by reducing bandwidth usage so much. As I said, these days everywhere you see something labelled "GIF", it's usually actually a video.

I'd be interested to hear any cases where some software or service accepts a .gif file but not a video.

I gave this a bit of research, as I was under the impression that gif's were still used.

I now agree with Ashley, they're obsolete. It's like asking for Windows XP support for Construct.

But I do see that general online culture recognise the word "gif" as meaning "a small animation on the web", when this is not exactly true, its a old file format with basic animation support. But culture doesn't care, like where everyone loves chatting about pronunciation of gif being gif or jif - I'm sure half the people chatting about that don't know exactly what a GIF is or the specs and limits of it.

BUT, I'm all about including things! If it's surprisingly easy for Scirra to implement GIF support, then heck yes why not!

I'd be interested to hear any cases where some software or service accepts a .gif file but not a video.

Just chiming in on this one (I'm team MP4, well webm/avif, but a man has to have dreams)but the big one has, and will always be, email marketing - though even then gifs have to be used with a lot of caveats and fallbacks in mind