Help with imageready!

radiowaves · Thu 07/08/2008 00:22:31

Hello!

I have a problem. This Adobes Imageready is driving me nuts! I know you can make some web pages with it, but I need it only for animation and PNG files with alpha-channel. It has so many unnecessary menus. But that isn't the main problem.

the thing is, i draw all my sprites with oldschool style, on a single sheet, using nothing more than MS Paint! So far it has worked great if I use single frames. I know the frames work as an animation, so don't argue. But now I am in a point i need to put this stuff into gif animation so I could get the right timing and a programmer could implement it into a game more easily. I use Imageready and this doesn't let me paste the sprites. Oh, well, it does, but when I have a layer selected and a layer selected, it automatically makes a new layer and pastes everything into all layers! I have about 100 of them, so manual editing is a no-no. Fuck. How can i paste things only there where I want them to? Grr. Fuck this shit, I am throwing my computer pout of the window right now!

Oh, I can't place the stuff because as I mentioned, I select, copy and paste it from a single sheet, I don't have the sprites as separate bmp files because saving them would be pointless extra work.

All this big program and nothing but time waste...

HELP?

Lionmonkey · Thu 07/08/2008 00:29:53

If you seek simplicity, how about UnFREEZ?

MashPotato · Thu 07/08/2008 00:30:49

Quote from: radiowaves on Thu 07/08/2008 00:22:31
Oh, well, it does, but when I have a layer selected and a layer selected, it automatically makes a new layer and pastes everything into all layers!

I'm a little unclear on what you mean here. Do you mean it appears in all frames, rather than layers? Imageready is a weird thing to control (I'm certainly no expert at it, even though it's the animation program I use), but if you turn off a layer in a frame, it will usually apply to all the frames after. Just make sure you're not confusing layers with frames

radiowaves · Thu 07/08/2008 00:50:35

Yes, frame I meant.

It appears I do have to seek other programs... Oh well. I don't want my computer to be stuffed with all kinds of programs and logs of endless uninstalls. Fuck.

Unfreez seems to be great choice though, Thanks Lion! But As i do stuff in paint, I can't save files as GIF, and extra file saving is extra unnecessary work.

Lionmonkey · Thu 07/08/2008 01:15:30

Quote from: radiowaves on Thu 07/08/2008 00:50:35
As i do stuff in paint, I can't save files as GIF

Well, whaddayouknow:

radiowaves · Thu 07/08/2008 01:19:27

What do you know, now try with lots of colours and see if they remain clean. Black and white already are the primitives. And you wasted a lot of space there.
Do you use XP or Vista?

Lionmonkey · Thu 07/08/2008 01:26:29

Quote from: radiowaves on Thu 07/08/2008 01:19:27
Do you use XP or Vista?

Oh, sorry, I didn't know, you use Vista, since I'm an XP user. Ok, so you're saying that after you create file in mspaint and then save it as GIF, it loses colors?

ThreeOhFour · Thu 07/08/2008 05:38:00

As far as I remember, Radiowaves, unFREEz imports both .gif and .bmp files, so you should be able to save your frames as separate .bmp images and then import them in like that, should you wish to. And no, don't use paint to export .gifs, it often ruins the palette entirely

Oliwerko · Thu 07/08/2008 09:28:36

Quote from: radiowaves on Thu 07/08/2008 00:22:31
it automatically makes a new layer and pastes everything into all layers!

I hope I have understood your problem clearly.

As MashPotato said, IR has some nasty functions, one of them is that when you make a new layer in an animation, it becomes visible. And if you make a layer visible in a frame, it becomes visible in all next frames, if I'm not mistaken. Isn't it this case? In case of pasting, it creates a new layer. Then you need to review once more in which frames is this layer visible, that's all. You can select like 50 frames and click the eye to make the layer invisible in these.

ThreeOhFour · Thu 07/08/2008 09:51:50

Failing all this, if you have a little bit of money, why not consider GraphicsGale? It is super cheap (under $20) and there's a free version of it you can try to see if you like it. Best of all, it is damn simple, without lots of features that you'll never use

. You might even be able to get away with just using the shareware version for a month and find that fulfills your needs

.

radiowaves · Thu 07/08/2008 11:29:41

I never claimed to have Vista. I use XP. I know Paints in Vista and XP are a bit different, thats why I ask.

And, I should have Graphics Gale here somewhere, I even remember installing it.

But Isn't there a place in ImageReady where you could just turn off the stupid functions?

OneDollar · Thu 07/08/2008 12:10:22

Bound to be, its whether you can find it or not

. I've not used ImageReady, but I do know (for example) that the default paste in Photoshop (ctrl+v) pastes into a new image and ctrl+e pastes onto the current layer in the current image. There's probably a different option and shortcut *somewhere* on the edit menu.