Animated PNGs

[If this is the wrong section, please go ahead and move this.]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5519

I hate GIFs. I hate their crappy compression, I hate their all-or-nothing transparency, I hate their 8-bit color. So when I stumbled upon this, I wondered what the pineapple the whole world is still using GIFs for.

 Demonstration: APNG vs GIF

On the left is the Viper skill, Demolition, rendered as an animated PNG. On the right is the same thing in GIF.

Note: Usually, GIF animations with semitransparent parts (like this one) would be made on a black background instead (example, this is from Fiel's 4th job skill tables):



The advantage of APNG over this method, however, is that it can be used on ANY background.

So... who's gonna hate GIFs with me?

And yes, I do realize that my avatar's a GIF. But I made it a few weeks ago, and as you can see the lack of partial transparency killed the lollipop's shadow. If I still had the images and didn't feel lazy, I'd make it again. Stupid lollipop.

It's a free download?

Yes. Firefox add-on.

I'm a noob when it comes to file extensions. What are the advantages of PNG files?

I'm a noob when it comes to file extensions. What are the advantages of PNG files?

For a demonstration, check the updated first post.

Hehe I made the Dragon Breath animation

Sweet thanks I'ma try this out tomorrow.

Depends on its need. I don't really need a longer download time for something I won't use for a sig.

I fully support animated PNG but they're simply not well supported enough.

So when I stumbled upon this, I wondered what the pineapple the whole world is still using GIFs for.

This is my theory -

Browsers only recently started supporting the APNG format.

KSquirrel as of version 0.7.2 (October 3, 2007)
XnView as of version 1.92 (December 19, 2007)
Opera as of version 9.5 (June 12, 2008)
Mozilla Firefox as of version 3 (June 17, 2008)

And the regular PNG format is something Microsoft couldn't seem to figure out until IE 7.
lolmicrosoft

 Spoiler

Internet Explorer, before version 7, has a fair share of issues, which prevent it from using PNG to its full potential.
4.0 crashes on large PNG chunks.
4.0 does not include the functionality to view .png files, but there is a registry fix.
5.0 and 5.01 has broken OBJECT support.
5.01 prints palette images with black (or dark gray) backgrounds under Windows 98, sometimes with radically altered colors.
6.0 fails to display PNG images of 4097 or 4098 bytes in size.
6.0 cannot open a PNG file that contains one or more zero-length IDAT chunks.
6.0 sometimes completely loses ability to display PNGs[24], there are various fixes
6.0 and below fails to display PNG images used as CSS background.
6.0 and below has inconsistent/broken gamma support.
6.0 and below has no ICC-profile (iCCP) support.
6.0 and below has no color-correction support.
6.0 and below has progressive display of interlaced images (replicating method).[citation needed]
6.0 and below has broken alpha-channel transparency support (will display the default background color instead). However there are various fixes

Microsoft does hold a chunk of the browser market. 48.6%, although only 22.3% still use IE6, which means 77.2% of users can view PNG properly (Thats regular PNG and not APNG). When 22.8% of the market can't view a PNG and 55.4% can't see APNG, problems arise for web developers when making webpages. Once more browsers support APNG, then more sites will start using it.

Again, that was just my thoery.

Personally, I do hate GIFS and would love to see them replaced by APNG.

I fully support animated PNG but they're simply not well supported enough.

lol, just realized my reply was pretty much the same as this one.

3rd party support for animated PNGs in Opera has existed since at least 2002, really you can blame Firefox for it taking so long :/ It's too bad the 2 most popular browsers are also the worst for meeting standards.

WOW, that's cool. I didn't know this sh¹t is exist.

This is my theory -

Browsers only recently started supporting the APNG format.

KSquirrel as of version 0.7.2 (October 3, 2007)
XnView as of version 1.92 (December 19, 2007)
Opera as of version 9.5 (June 12, 2008)
Mozilla Firefox as of version 3 (June 17, 2008)

And the regular PNG format is something Microsoft couldn't seem to figure out until IE 7.
lolmicrosoft

 Spoiler

Internet Explorer, before version 7, has a fair share of issues, which prevent it from using PNG to its full potential.
4.0 crashes on large PNG chunks.
4.0 does not include the functionality to view .png files, but there is a registry fix.
5.0 and 5.01 has broken OBJECT support.
5.01 prints palette images with black (or dark gray) backgrounds under Windows 98, sometimes with radically altered colors.
6.0 fails to display PNG images of 4097 or 4098 bytes in size.
6.0 cannot open a PNG file that contains one or more zero-length IDAT chunks.
6.0 sometimes completely loses ability to display PNGs[24], there are various fixes
6.0 and below fails to display PNG images used as CSS background.
6.0 and below has inconsistent/broken gamma support.
6.0 and below has no ICC-profile (iCCP) support.
6.0 and below has no color-correction support.
6.0 and below has progressive display of interlaced images (replicating method).[citation needed]
6.0 and below has broken alpha-channel transparency support (will display the default background color instead). However there are various fixes

Microsoft does hold a chunk of the browser market. 48.6%, although only 22.3% still use IE6, which means 77.2% of users can view PNG properly (Thats regular PNG and not APNG). When 22.8% of the market can't view a PNG and 55.4% can't see APNG, problems arise for web developers when making webpages. Once more browsers support APNG, then more sites will start using it.

Again, that was just my thoery.

Personally, I do hate GIFS and would love to see them replaced by APNG.



lol, just realized my reply was pretty much the same as this one.

I believe Chrome is incompatible with APNGs, too. Doesn't seem to be working right now.

I believe Chrome is incompatible with APNGs, too. Doesn't seem to be working right now.

Yep, it doesn't work with Chrome. The only two browsers that support APNG are Opera and Firefox. Here is a list of browsers and what supports what.

3rd party support for animated PNGs in Opera has existed since at least 2002, really you can blame Firefox for it taking so long :/ It's too bad the 2 most popular browsers are also the worst for meeting standards.

It's because it's not an officially supported part of PNGs.

GIFs are crap (or do you like dithering, artifacts, and pomegranate transparency?), but apngs aren't really supported either. All in all, it's an improvement, but it still needs official support yet.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG

ps I don't mind the filters, but can you guys at least keep them consistent? Confuses the pineapple outta me when I'm proofreading my post.

1. I use black backgrounds for my GIFs not because it's required by the GIF spec, but because it allows for high contrast between a black background and the image itself. You'll notice that in your APNG, you really can't see what's going on too well due to the light background. However, using a black background, as in the GIF, will allow the viewer to see much more of what's going on. The southperry database has a black background for a damn good reason.

2. I created that GIF you're using in a GIF creator and obviously it has no problems with transparency. You need a better GIF maker (I use uLead, you should too).

3. The principle problem with APNG is that those images will actually be larger than their GIF counterparts even though APNG uses zlib! GIF can compress across frames, whereas APNG cannot. This is a fundamental flaw of APNG, since every other animated design on the planet can compress across frames. The main reason why I still use GIFs is because it's easier on bandwidth, APNG isn't well supported, and APNG goes against the principle purpose of the original PNG format.

0. Hiya Fiel!
1. okay
2. I made the actual frames in PDN, and Unfreez'd them. If I did them on black (or white or any other color, for that matter) there wouldn't have been any issue with transparency. The reason my sample looks like it does is because I "tried" to use a transparent background, and GIF doesn't do partial transparency no matter what editor you're using.
3. Mozilla didn't like MNG. Oh well.

ps I don't mind the filters, but can you guys at least keep them consistent? Confuses the pineapple outta me when I'm proofreading my post.

Only "pomegranate" was changed, I believe.

I also hate the fact that APNGs are not supported by some/most browsers.