shefalinayak/processing-gif

GIFs with Processing

Making GIFs with Processing

This is a set of Processing sketches to generate GIFs. I make a GIF with Processing maybe once every few months, so every time I come back to it I have no idea what's going on. I've created a script and some template sketches to make this somewhat easier.

The base template is modified from a tutorial by Etienne Jacobs, which in turn is based on a motion blur template by beesandbombs (dave).

Instructions for use

The create script requires the following:

• processing-java to build and run Processing sketches from the command line
• ffmpeg to generate GIFs

Commands

task	command
generate new sketch from template	./create your_sketch_name new [--noise]
run sketch in interactive mode	./create your_sketch_name play
generate frames	./create your_sketch_name frames [--debug]
generate GIF	./create your_sketch_name gif [--debug]
remove frames	./create your_sketch_name clean

Notes

• Remember to run clean if you reduce the number of frames.
• If you run gif with an empty frames/ directory, the frames will be generated first
• If you plan to use noise, running new --noise will add OpenSimplexNoise to the new folder
• If you want to compare different parameters, you can run frame --debug and each frames will include parameter info in the top-left. You can also run gif --debug directly with an empty frames/ directory.
• You should be able to pass command line arguments to your Processing sketch but I haven't tested it

ffmpeg

The script is setup to use a custom palette for the GIF. Sometimes you may want the dithering and standard color palette, in which case you can always go for the simplest conversion:

ffmpeg -i egg/frames/fr%03d.png egg/output/new-egg.gif

Standard	Custom palette

Useful resources

• High quality GIF with FFmpeg
• Hexagonal Grids from Red Blob Games