Why GIF?

[Evazan]

I just noticed that the comics are posted as GIFs. Is there any reason for that? PNGs should be smaller and have greater flexibility with color.

[Elder Tsofu]

Perhaps png wasn't that widely used in 2003 when the comic began?

[Tiiba]

PNGs are lossless, why would they be smaller?

[Seppl]

PNGs are lossless, why would they be smaller?

So is GIF. But PNG uses more modern compression algorithms that generally perform better.

[oball]

GIF supports animation, and Rich likes to leave little animated easter eggs in the comics. They don't repeat very often, though, so you usually have to watch each comic for a long time before seeing them. But they're worth the wait!

[DaggerPen]

GIF supports animation, and Rich likes to leave little animated easter eggs in the comics. They don't repeat very often, though, so you usually have to watch each comic for a long time before seeing them. But they're worth the wait!

You're terrible.

[oball]

Yeah, I know it's always less fun to have someone just straight out tell you, and I should let people discover them themselves. But there's so much stuff they're missing out on!

I mean, if it wasn't for that fraction-of-a-second bit in the background of the strip where Redcloak gives the speech to the hobgoblins of Gobbotopia, we still wouldn't know what his real name is.

[Mandrake]

Yeah, I know it's always less fun to have someone just straight out tell you, and I should let people discover them themselves. But there's so much stuff they're missing out on!

I mean, if it wasn't for that fraction-of-a-second bit in the background of the strip where Redcloak gives the speech to the hobgoblins of Gobbotopia, we still wouldn't know what his real name is.

Lies?
Link.

[DaggerPen]

Yeah, I know it's always less fun to have someone just straight out tell you, and I should let people discover them themselves. But there's so much stuff they're missing out on!

I mean, if it wasn't for that fraction-of-a-second bit in the background of the strip where Redcloak gives the speech to the hobgoblins of Gobbotopia, we still wouldn't know what his real name is.

That's the one you're going with, really? The one in 299 where we get to see MitD without the umbrella was the best one for me.

[SavageWombat]

I'm ashamed of you all.

Children read this website.

[oball]

Oh come on, it's not like the MitD without the umbrella is *that* scary, I'm sure the kids can handle seeing it.

[DaggerPen]

I just really wish that they were a little more related to the comics they were in. I mean, as nice as it was finding out what was up with Haley's heritage, why on earth did we find out in 502?

I guess I shouldn't complain, though, easter eggs are easter eggs.

[Flame of Anor]

Really though, five hours for the one with Miko's return was just excessive.

[137beth]

That's the one you're going with, really? The one in 299 where we get to see MitD without the umbrella was the best one for me.

My favorite was the on in 825 where we see what is behind the Osmium elemental's eyes:
It's the MitD.

[Emanick]

Really though, five hours for the one with Miko's return was just excessive.

Five hours? Really? I gave up after three and a half.

I guess I know what my plans are for tonight now... :smallsigh:

[DaggerPen]

What, you guys still wait for the animations? Guys, you can just right-click and save the images and open them up in GIMP or something to find the animations. I do it with every strip, way easier.

[oball]

But then you take away the impact! That's like separating the Mona Lisa into layers of each individual pigment.

[Gift Jeraff]

If you wait a week it'll show you the next strip.

[King of Nowhere]

The animations are just a cover up for the REAL stuff.
If you take all the gif files, take the 666th byte of each one, and open it with word 2001 xp edition 2.1.15, it will read as an hymn to satan. Though if you instead take the 1332th byte of each file and read it as unicode under open office it will provide a prayer for the banishment of demons, so it is not clear on which side rich is on

Really, oball, what you did was evil. People could have believed it and spent hours of their lives looking at oots and hoping to see something. THat's hours lost for potentially thousands of people, so by doing the math, you could have even caused the loss of ENTIRE LIFETIMES! (that is, enough hours lost among enough people that they would total more than the life of a single person).

[DaggerPen]

The animations are just a cover up for the REAL stuff.
If you take all the gif files, take the 666th byte of each one, and open it with word 2001 xp edition 2.1.15, it will read as an hymn to satan. Though if you instead take the 1332th byte of each file and read it as unicode under open office it will provide a prayer for the banishment of demons, so it is not clear on which side rich is on

Really, oball, what you did was evil. People could have believed it and spent hours of their lives looking at oots and hoping to see something. THat's hours lost for potentially thousands of people, so by doing the math, you could have even caused the loss of ENTIRE LIFETIMES! (that is, enough hours lost among enough people that they would total more than the life of a single person).

Well hey, I told them how to get the quick fix. Not my fault if people want to wait. :P

Actually, the GIMP trick does work, but the comic still does not have any animated bonuses.

[Carry2]

Regarding the original post- I have a dim recollection of the author saying something about technical hangups, bad photoshop export compression, and/or not being worth the effort.


I'm ashamed of you all.

Children read this website.
Tormenting others- wrong but fun!


Really though, five hours for the one with Miko's return was just excessive.
EXPLAIN THIS TO ME IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL

[oball]

The animations are just a cover up for the REAL stuff.
If you take all the gif files, take the 666th byte of each one, and open it with word 2001 xp edition 2.1.15, it will read as an hymn to satan. Though if you instead take the 1332th byte of each file and read it as unicode under open office it will provide a prayer for the banishment of demons, so it is not clear on which side rich is on

Clearly he's True Neutral and is trying to maintain cosmic balance.


Really, oball, what you did was evil.

Hey, if staring at a comic for a couple of hours waiting for it to animate is the worst way someone learns the lesson "don't trust what random people on the internet say", they're lucky. Think of it as a vaccination against gullibility!

[Balain]

I believe Rich stated He knew what a gif was and had no clue what a png was when he started. So that is what he uses.

[Flame of Anor]

Regarding the original post- I have a dim recollection of the author saying something about technical hangups, bad photoshop export compression, and/or not being worth the effort.


Tormenting others- wrong but fun!


EXPLAIN THIS TO ME IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL

For the first minute, nothing happens.

For the second minute, nothing happens.

For the third minute, nothing happens.

For the fourth minute, nothing happens.

For the fifth minute, nothing happens.

For the sixth minute, nothing happens.

For the seventh minute, nothing happens.

For the eighth minute, nothing happens.

For the ninth minute, nothing happens.

For the tenth minute, nothing happens.

For the eleventh minute, nothing happens.

For the twelfth minute, nothing happens.

For the thirteenth minute, nothing happens.

For the fourteenth minute, nothing happens.

For the--


Can I stop now?

[Chronos]

Plus, for images like this comic, that typically have large expanses of uniform color, usually without gradations, GIF is generally pretty good already. So there's not much advantage to be had by going to PNG.

And even if PNG existed in 2003, it wasn't universally supported by webbrowsers. Back then, it was a really unwise idea to use anything but GIF and JPEG, lest you lose a big chunk of your audience for no good reason.

[Peelee]

http://files.myopera.com/minigamer1896/albums/576508/thumbs/I%20love%20this%20thread%20SO%20MUCH.jpg_thumb.jpg

Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.

[Copperdragon]

First, .png is better than .gif. It gives better quality which would improve gradients (mostly special effects as overlay) and probably (slightly) smaller filesizes as well. But this has been discussed before and Rich answered:

The reason we do not see .png is here is that the site does not support it (it does not give Rich the choice to upload a .png if I remember correctly) and Rich has a workflow how he creates the comics and how he stores his vector-graphics as "something else" that he does not want to change.

Personally, I do not see an issue since .gif totally does its job and if you want the comic in a higher quality - you can buy the prints.

[BroomGuys]

Hey, if staring at a comic for a couple of hours waiting for it to animate is the worst way someone learns the lesson "don't trust what random people on the internet say", they're lucky. Think of it as a vaccination against gullibility!

Maybe, but it's the kind of vaccination where the doctor does it because he really enjoys stabbing people with syringes. :smallwink:

[The Giant]

The answer has been given before, but it comes down to the fact that PNG was not widely supported by web browsers in 2003, when the comic started.

When former our webmaster wrote new scripts (in 2005, maybe?) that upload the comic, he somehow specified .gif files because that's what I was using. That webmaster is no longer with the site, and no one can make heads or tails of his code to make a small adjustment.

So we'd be looking at full development of a new script to fix something that just isn't that important. If we ever get around to writing it anyway, we will probably include allowing PNGs, but it's just not worth the effort by itself.

And since the rest of this thread is super-spammy, I'm locking it.