Filesize of gif animation

Exporting & Previewing
1

Hi to all
I exported a gif animation on the computer in the office and got a file size of 1.6MB.
When exporting the same gif animation on the computer at home, I get a file size of 143KB.
On both Mac macOS 10.13.4 is running.
To you have any idea, why there is such a big difference in file size?
Thank you very much for your hints.
Best wishes, Urs

2

That’s odd. Feel free to post a zip of the .hype document and the two output GIFs.

There’s a couple of possibilities:

  • Hype v3.5- and v3.6+ use different engines for Animated GIF generation. If one of your machines has an older version of Hype then it will definitely have a different file size.
  • There is a hidden preference to use the v3.5 in v3.6 engine, so perhaps you set that at some point? You can go back to Hype’s default by entering this in the Console (assuming Mac App Store or Tumult Store versions of currently shipping Hype):
    defaults delete com.tumult.Hype2 AnimatedGIFEngine
  • They are not actually identical documents or have different export settings!
3

Thank you very much for your suggestions Jonathan.
Back in the office, I will have a look to the version of Hype.
In the meantime, I upload the Hype document and the gif files.
Thanks for having a look on it.
hype-and-gif-files.zip (354.4 KB)

4

Thanks for sending that along. Both do appear to have the same number of frames so there’s nothing intrinsically different about the export.

I tested the document using the v3.5 engine and got an even larger size than the 1.6 MB version, yet all my tests with the v3.6 engine resulted in the 143 KB size.

I’d be curious to know about any setup/configuration differences between your two machines like:

  • versions of Hype (and it looks like you already said macOS was 10.13.4 on both)
  • mac model number and display hardware used
  • display color profile
  • display resolution (that is, retina vs non-retina)?
  • any custom homebrew installations of libpng or imagemagick/convert?
5

Hi Jonathan
Sorry I’m coming back to this topic so late. Had too much other stuff around. Who’s not?
In the zip-file, I packed different screenshots, a little different (compared to the one you have) hype-Document and the two gif-Files in.
The filename let you know, if it is a file / screenshot from home or office.
Thank you very for all your work.

tumult.zip (1.6 MB)

6

Thanks for sending that information. The file size difference appears to be that a ICC color profile is being added to each frame of the “office” animated GIF which is ~3KB/frame.

It isn’t clear to me why this data would be added and I haven’t been able to reproduce this myself.

It would be useful if you could send full system profiles so I might be better able to understand the difference in your two systems. If you have a bit of time, could you send them to support@tumult.com? (please don’t attach here since there might be information or logs in the profiles that you may not want public)

  1. Go to the Apple Menu, choose “About This Mac”
  2. Click the System Report… button and the System Information app will launch
  3. Make sure it is showing the Full information - If the File menu shows “Show More Information” choose that, otherwise you’re good
  4. Choose ‘File > Save’ to save it somewhere (like your desktop), and then attach this file to the email

Thanks!

7

Thanks for your offer Jonathan.
I did it today.
Looking forward to hear from them.
All the best, Urs

9

Got it, thanks!