With GIF animations all the rage on the web, you need a good animation utility to make things do just what you want. GIF Movie Gear is an excellent choice for such a utility.
   What I really like about this program is that it doesn't have a whole lot of extraneous stuff, but does have every bell and whistle you need to make GIF animations. The interface is easy to deal with, the transitions are simple to make and there are enough options to get the job done.
   This is a very simple GIF animation which sets a bolt of lightening flashing on the screen. It is probably one of the most simple animations you can make because, actually, there is no movement per se. Yet, with GIF Movie Gear you can vary several of the elements to make it look a lot more realistic.
   As an example, we could easily have done this animation with one two frames, one with the lightening bolt and one without (we've set the frames to show up vertically, you can have them be horizontal or vertical with GIF Movie Gear). But, if you do that, you end up with the same image flashing on and off for the same periods of time.
   We can take advantage of the program's ability to have different frames on the screen for different times to make the flashes look random. So, the first lightening frame is turned "on" for a short period of time, the first blank frame for a longer period and, then, vice versa for the next two frames. We set the third lightening frame halfway in between, but had the last blank frame the longest yet – and then told the whole thing to repeat over and over. The effect is of random lightening flashes rather than of a turn on-turn off blinking picture. Looks good.
   What is nice about this program is that it is easy to set the options in each frame and then to run the animation to see what you are doing. GIF Movie Gear is so well organized that this whole process is quite seamless: you can spend your time creating rather than hassling with how it is supposed to work.
   You do have to construct your art before you begin playing with GIF Movie Gear but there is a nifty utility which lets you optimize the entire animation to save download time.  This is more of a bonus than you might think: many "GIF optimization" programs do not work on an entire animation, only on the first frame.
   We think you will find GIF Movie Gear an excellent choice for animation projects.

   Link to GIF Movie Gear web site.