Feedback Bring Back The GIF GM 7

[Nathan Matthews]

Is there anyone else out there who agrees that the ability to save sprites as GIF images was too good to get rid of? Also what about the ability to merge games I used that all the time? Probably irrelevant now though because I'm pretty sure there won't be any GM8 updates lol but maybe Studio??????

 

[Sam (Deleted User)]

I would say I agree but the GIF's GM7 exported didn't loop. They only played once. Also, GIF is a lossy and compressed format. Animated PNG would probably be better. Also, why would you want to merge a game? You can already do that in GM8 by exporting/importing your resources, and in Studio you can import existing resources. It's basically the same thing, but it gives you more control over what you import by selection, as aposed to a whole project file.

 

[Perseus]

It's already on their roadmap for GMS 2.

 

[FrostyCat]

Is there anyone else out there who agrees that the ability to save sprites as GIF images was too good to get rid of? Also what about the ability to merge games I used that all the time? Probably irrelevant now though because I'm pretty sure there won't be any GM8 updates lol but maybe Studio??????

For one I would NOT want GM7-exported GIFs to return. It wasn't standards-compliant and it didn't play properly, that's why it was removed. It was anything but too good. GIF export is on the roadmap for now, but I don't want it unless it is done right this time.

Your use case for merging has been superceded by the Extensions mechanism, which now supports embedding resources. Resources can also be transferred between projects via drag-and-drop.

Also, GIF is a lossy and compressed format

GIF is lossless if you remain under 255 colours and have binary alpha.

 

[Pumped about GameMaker]

I'd rather have a few features removed and more bugs be fixed instead :-D
What exactly would you be trying to do with sprites exported as GIFs? Post on Twitter?

Sorry, I did not make myself clear, please let me try again
This is not an insult!

I know Twitter and other social media are essential for marketing. I did not intend to downplay the usefulness or the whole act.

Instead I genuinely wanted to find out about their plans - because a GIF of a sprite does not necessarily show enough of the gameplay / of the game itself. I'd rather use a more versatile system that is not bound to sprites only, but can gather backgrounds or whole scenes as animated GIFs (or mp4 or some other filetype).

I am sorry if my wording sounded like an insult, that was not my intention. In fact I have done social media GIFs (and similar) for marketing purposes myself. Sorry about my wording. English as a 2nd language here.

 

[Mike]

What exactly would you be trying to do with sprites exported as GIFs? Post on Twitter?

Yes - this is exactly why it's useful. In today's world, advertising and promoting via social media is vital for any game to do well, and so posting your work is important.

 

[Pumped about GameMaker]

Yes - this is exactly why it's useful. In today's world, advertising and promoting via social media is vital for any game to do well, and so posting your work is important.

English as a 2nd language here and I realized my post was very badly worded. I edited my post to further explain.
My question was not meant as an insult.
Instead I wondered if the OP wanted to fetch GIFs of their gameplay - which would be hard to do if all you can fetch is a sprite. I now understand my intention was very unclear and I beg for apology.
To sum it up: If any GIF-fetching capability was apparent, I'd rather have it versatile enough to fetch far more than just a single sprite.

 

[Nathan Matthews]

I'm not that great at using forums and stuff but I want to try reply to the relative things lol so please forgive my messy and informal method of replying...
@Samuel Venable Yea but I feel that the ability to save GIF's was useful for sending my art to places and stuff, I never really like the .gmspr simply because they are so incompatible with everything except game maker. I also agree with the animated PNG too, I just feel I would make great use of those types of features and I use the merge game feature as a quicker way of making squeals and stuff like that because it literally copies the whole thing but I do remember a few problems with my codes because sprite names etc.
@Ragarnak That's cool haha I've been meaning to get Studio some time. I've seen so many features that I'm jealous of not having.
@Pumped about GameMaker No bother I never felt like you were insulting me haha. I don't know why I just like it as a feature and think it's useful to be able to save an animated and compatible version of your sprites to do a wide array of things. Also it would be good for posting on Twitter and stuff. It's just that I always find myself trying to find something to make GIF's so I can share my sprites or do all sorts of things really. I would generally use a screen recorder to fetch footage of gameplay and save GIF's of sprites. But seeing since I have no screen recorder and it always turns out in bad quality because My computer is literal Poo, I just so happened to use the GM7 GIF feature to show gameplay HAHA. I simply played the game and took a few screenshot's then created them from file in sprite editor lol ironic.

 

[YellowAfterlife]

May want to install ShareX and record GIFs of whatever you want. The software is being actively developed for >10 years now so it's pretty good at it's thing.

 

[Pumped about GameMaker]

May want to install ShareX and record GIFs of whatever you want. The software is being actively developed for >10 years now so it's pretty good at it's thing.

Good thing about ShareX: free & open source. The GIF recording always gives me FFMPEG errors sadly.
GifCam has its limitations but for small GIFs it is fun to use imho. And it is available for free, too.