FEATURE: Allow Gifs to be uploaded like overlays

Feature + Art Suggestions Writer's Portal Features
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This is probably the most epic update episode could get with the simplest execution.

People want dragons, horses, dogs, cats, and so many other things in their stories. They want werewolves that can turn into wolves, vampires that can turn into bats and most importantly! They want looping backgrounds that work, and T.V’s that can play actual “movies” and broadcasts on the screen! Running facets, beach waves, clouds that move, smoke, fire, guns that flash when they shoot, the possibilities are endless! All we need are gifs!

They already load like images so why doesn’t episode update to be able to play them? Most basic websites can play gifs, tumblr, facebook, pintrest to name a few and yet-
Plus even their own creators, go out of their way to put gifs into their episodes. The Kiss list has tons of gifs in it! Of which the creator probably took hours if not days to create. And even still that is limited animation!

Worried about copyright? Let us load them as overlays. You check over them anyway, there would be no added work! Plus you’d stop getting tons of requests for animals to be added to the game because people would have the freedom to add their own! Want to add a comodo dragon to your story? Make a gif of one and bam! You’re done! Everyone is happy, no update needed. Plus how cool would it be to be able to make and share your own gifs!? Even create your own character animations if you’re really good.

Need Tina to do a cartwheel in this scene but there isn’t already a cartwheel animation? Make it yourself! It would save the creators AND the writers so much more time and give the writers soooo much more creative freedom! It might be a little tricky but once implemented think of all the story possibilities!

Seriously how is this not in Episode yet!?
I mean even this forum allows for you to upload gifs as images!

example

girl-cat_87_2_42

See? You can have a little animal friend! Also, want to get more reads? Imagine animated cover art, even books don’t have those!

I’m just saying there is a lot of missed opportunity here. Like A LOT.

Support if you agree :+1:

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Omggg support we frfr need this

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Support!

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Support! Episode stories could be even better with this!!

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Support

But uhm

I do get what you mean and this would be amazing if we get it but uhmmm it wouldn’t be as simple as you say…I mean, those websites that have it aren’t trying to make stories ya know what I’m saying? Like I just feel like this wouldn’t be that easy.

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Support

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huggggggggggggggggggggggggggereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee support!!!

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Maybe not, I don’t pretend to know how episodes programing works or what code it would require to implement it. But it can’t be harder than episode programmers and artists having to make brand new assets and animations for the thousands of different animals people want and to deal with the constant income of animation requests, and asset requests form creators. Episode is a small company even still and it’s difficult for them to keep up with demand. At least this way we have a chance to make our own stuff , no different than fan made overlays and backgrounds. I’m just advocating that this is something to put effort into. Also have you ever tried animating in the episode portal??? It’s a nightmare! Give us writers a break too!

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i ofcourse support but i agree here that it is not a simple task to be done.

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Yes I have done overlays. They are hard yes I agree but to me feels pleasing when I am proud of the outcome.
And I have already said that I support this and that I think it would be amazing to have.

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(please note I am not trying to start an argument merely stating my opinions about this and supporting it fully)

And this:

It would also make the portal glitch slightly more which we already have problems with.
But as I said before, if Episode can really pull this off and make it so the portal isn’t as glitchy, then amazing. Perfect. I would love this feature and would really be amazed to see it added and put in.

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I don’t think we can be sure that it would make it more glitchy. Actually, I would argue the opposite as less reading would be necessary for the program to play the animation as opposed to a wall of commands necessary to animate overlays on top of each other. A gif is an independent program, like a png or a jpg. It would have virtually no effect on the program it’s self as it is not apart of the programming. But really we can’t be sure as nothing similar has been attempted before.

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But it would still have to be a part of the program in order for the writers to implement it into their stories. And please if you would like to further this discussion please do so in pm that way your thread will not get clogged up. Thank you and have a great day

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The code in order to play the gif would be apart of the programming, the image would not. It’s ok, I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion and after all this is all speculation so I don’t think discussing it any further is necessary. Neither of us really know how it would work in reality. lol

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Bump + Support

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bumppppppp

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Support!!!

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A nice idea would also be the ability to add apngs (animated pngs) since as far as I know, gifs don’t really have alpha transparency??? (correct me if I’m wrong please)

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Yeah, actually I think that would be a lot better! I did some research on apng and it seems it has a lot more capability than a gif including color capability, resolution and easy transparency. Though gifs are able to be made transparent they lose resolution easily and you have to delete the background to make it transparent manually. Though apngs would require the team to upgrade their system to play them I don’t see that as a problem since we are already suggesting that they upgrade to play gifs. If anything apngs would be easier since they are closer to the png format and keep resolution when blown up.

In fact, this is probably what they use for their weather effects already so yeah. I think using apngs are a lot better than gifs. Thanks for your input this really got me thinking and I think this is a much better idea!
So hopefully if they ever consider doing this they will use apngs.

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:raised_hands: