Hey all

Argghhh .. I'm a absolute newb to animated forum signatures, and sadly this programme to.
I need help in inserting an image for a forum signature then, inserting an animated gif on it if possible.

If possible would also like a link to show how to animate my own image, like blinking stars. Not looking to make cartoon or anything, lol.

If I could just get a step by step guide on how to insert images ( I can do this part) then insert a gif (can't do this part) would be great, thanks.

Does anyone have a link to someone inserting a stationary image, then adding a gif on top of that image using inkscape maybe?

Experience:- 0/5

Operating System:- Windows Vista 32 bit
Installed Programmes:- MS powerpoint 2007, MS paint, Synfig,Inkscape
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Welcome to InkscapeForum!

I don't know of any tutorials for that, but I'm sure there must be many. I can give you the very general process, but unfortunately, Inkscape can neither produce animation or save GIFs. I would recommend a raster graphics program, which like Inkscape, is free and open source, called The GIMP http://www.gimp.org/. It can do both GIFs and animation. And there are many forums for The GIMP. I'm not very familiar with them. I know I used to get some help at GIMP Talk, and they used to have a really lot of tutorials. On one hand, I found many members to be immature (one posted a message saying that my topic was boring -- for goodness sakes, I was asking for help, not a popularity contest!) but on the other hand, they did refer me to Inkscape

First you would draw all the images that you need for the animation (frames), putting each image in a new layer. Then Save As GIF, and GIMP will guide you to animate it. At some point, you'd have to import your stationary (background?), but I'm not familiar enough with GIMP, to know exactly when during the process that should be done. There is, or at least used to be, some special animation plug-in for GIMP (called GAP, I think). But it's not necessary for a simple animation.

It is possible to use Inkscape to draw all the images or frames for the animation using Inkscape. After you finish each image/frame, you can use Export Bitmap, which will save a PNG. Then open each PNG as a layer, in a new GIMP doc. Open as Layer is a special feature of GIMP which I wish Inkscape had, lol. When you get them all in there, next, Save As GIF. The dialog that comes up will guide you through setting up the animation.

So after you have your animation saved as GIF, you would open the forum's user controls area, and insert the GIF into the signature area. Unfortunately, this forum prevents us from using images in signatures that are bigger than 60 px wide. That's why you don't see any of those nice signature images here. See the one in my signature is the largest they can be!

Anyway, good luck