Animated Banners?

[Nerasian Empire]

I was putting some new banners and saw that it accepted the Gif format, but sadly on the nation main page, it didn't worked, looks like a normal image. There is any way to put an gif or any animated format there?

[Nerasian Empire]

/bump

[United Calanworie]

No.

[Falloa]

No.

Why no? Cause I saw an animated flag on a Season 4 card.

[Nerasian Empire]

No.

Why no? Cause I saw an animated flag on a Season 4 card.

The key word is Flag, I was talking about banners, I just don't know why Banners accept gif format in the first place.

[Refuge Isle]

I'll elaborate on the previous...somewhat terse response.

Why no? Cause I saw an animated flag on a Season 4 card.

The key word is Flag, I was talking about banners, I just don't know why Banners accept gif format in the first place.

In 90% of cases, no one cares what the format of their image file is, they just want that image as their flag. Flags accept gifs even if they won't display as gifs. If a flag is uploaded as a gif, but it doesn't meet our gif requirements, it's resized and loses its animation -- re-saved as a jpg. Similarly, nation banners always compress and save images as a jpg.

Jpgs are a reasonably efficient format for storing image files. Conversely, gifs are a notoriously poorly optimised format; out of the twenty or so most-used image formats I can immediately think of, I'd rate gifs as the third most hellish. If you wanted a 1400x400 animated banner, it would probably end up being some 30-50MB depending on the complexity of the image and frames of the animation. We don't have the capacity to store that much for 300,000 nations, and I suspect mobile users' data plans would not enjoy it either.

Since MP4s are vastly more efficient for displaying moving imagery, it's more likely we'd pursue that, but the format of nation banners themselves make this a little out of place. I can't see us implementing animation in banners unless NationStates' UI got a complete overhaul (to at least make the whole thing visible on all resolutions). In which case, that overhaul would be the priority and not this. Therefore we cannot pursue animated banners at this time.

[Nerasian Empire]

I'll elaborate on the previous...somewhat terse response.

The key word is Flag, I was talking about banners, I just don't know why Banners accept gif format in the first place.

In 90% of cases, no one cares what the format of their image file is, they just want that image as their flag. Flags accept gifs even if they won't display as gifs. If a flag is uploaded as a gif, but it doesn't meet our gif requirements, it's resized and loses its animation -- re-saved as a jpg. Similarly, nation banners always compress and save images as a jpg.

Jpgs are a reasonably efficient format for storing image files. Conversely, gifs are a notoriously poorly optimised format; out of the twenty or so most-used image formats I can immediately think of, I'd rate gifs as the third most hellish. If you wanted a 1400x400 animated banner, it would probably end up being some 30-50MB depending on the complexity of the image and frames of the animation. We don't have the capacity to store that much for 300,000 nations, and I suspect mobile users' data plans would not enjoy it either.

Since MP4s are vastly more efficient for displaying moving imagery, it's more likely we'd pursue that, but the format of nation banners themselves make this a little out of place. I can't see us implementing animation in banners unless NationStates' UI got a complete overhaul (to at least make the whole thing visible on all resolutions). In which case, that overhaul would be the priority and not this. Therefore we cannot pursue animated banners at this time.

Honestly, after this I don't blame you, I wouldn't pursue this either, while is a improvement, is too much work for something that already is fine at is it, thanks for your time and you can close the topic if you want.

[Verdant Haven]

I just don't know why Banners accept gif format in the first place.

While it's far from a great format, it was quite common 22 years ago when the game was made for websites to use the .gif format for still images. There's not much point in removing compatibility retroactively, so it sticks around as an option.