NEWSFLASH

Now available for both 26-bit and 32-bit versions of RiscOS.
NEWSFLASH

Now works
on Linux!
(And NT and
Windows 95)

InterGif 6.15

GIF creation and optimisation

INTERGIF 6.15 is a program for making GIF images from RiscOS sprite files (2bpp to 24bpp), or from Draw files, or from other GIFs, or from files produced with Iota Software's (commercial) animation program The Complete Animator. It can also convert from GIFs back to sprites, and can optimise animated GIFs so they take less time to download.

As far as I know, InterGif is the only released program available for Acorn computers -- freeware, commercial, or anyware -- that can make animated GIFs. R-Comp's Web Designer's Toolkit can do it, and so can IMS's WebMaster, but only because they both include copies of InterGif! (Respect to the companies involved, who asked me before including it even though the licensing conditions allow them not to.)

The Windows and Linux versions of InterGif won't cope with sprites or Draw files, but can still be used for joining GIFs together (for animation), or splitting animations apart, or for optimising animations created by other programs.

	How good is it? The optimisation is often better than that performed by either GIF Wizard or Website Garage's GIF Lube.
	Download page Get the InterGif source code, or ready-to-run applications for Acorn RiscOS, Windows 95, Windows NT, or Linux.
	Desktop usage How to use the RiscOS desktop version of InterGif.
	Command-line usage How to use all the other versions of InterGif.
	What's new in InterGif 6.15 Indispensable reading for users of old versions. Includes the to-do list.
	Hints and tips New page! Indispensable reading for users of all versions.

Features

	The RiscOS version can be used either on the desktop, or from the command line. The Windows and Linux versions run from the command line only (or the console, as Windows calls it).
	Supports the animation, transparency and interleaving features of GIF89a.
	Eliminates unused palette entries.
	Minimises the final size of the GIF with a devious and cunning optimisation routine: almost every animated GIF I've found on the web ends up smaller when run through InterGif.
	Can also make GIF images from Draw files (RiscOS version only). Areas of "page background" come out transparent, but areas explicitly plotted white still come out white.
	Can forcibly reduce a GIF's palette to the standard Acorn 256-colour palette, or to a 216-entry "web safe" colour cube (as used on the Macintosh and by most Windows browsers), or to a palette file you supply. Alternatively, it can calculate the best palette for displaying the GIF, and then reduce to that. From version 6.03, this also works with 16bpp and 24bpp input images -- and with GIFs which use more than 256 colours in total. (GIFs can only use 256 colours per frame, but each frame can have its own palette.)
	Lets you trim away any wholly transparent rows or columns from the edges of your GIF (whether single-frame or animated).
	Can automatically preprocess its input files using ChangeFSI, with user-supplied parameters (RiscOS version only). This means that any input format that ChangeFSI understands (which is a lot) can be used with InterGif.
	Can dither 16bpp or 24bpp input files to whatever palette is required (error diffusion implementation kindly donated by Martin Würthner).

For instance, here's Don Slaven's "Little Arnie" animation from Iota Software's animations archive. The whole animation is just 3K in size: not bad, eh?

This was made from a sprite file containing six sprites all the same size, with identical palettes. In fact, InterGif ignores the palettes on all but the first sprite.

You can make such a sprite file using !Paint, but
<shameless plug>
a much better way is to use The Complete Animator, which I helped write! It's available for both RiscOS and Windows 95.
</shameless plug>
From version 3.00, InterGif (both the RiscOS and Windows versions) will accept Animator files directly.

Note to Webmasters

If you want to put a link from your page to InterGif, please link to this page rather than direct to the archives themselves: this means that the link won't go out of date when new versions are released.

InterGif 6.15

GIF creation and optimisation

Features

Note to Webmasters

See also