Help Creating Animated and Transparent Images

Hi everyone! I want to create some special effects for my game and was playing around with different formats to save the files. Apparently the only format to save an animated image with transparent background is a gif. But the gif is limited to the subtleties of what I want to make. I wanted to save a video, but after trying for a couple of hours I read that you cannot save a video with transparent background. I tried an online tool called APNG but it doesn't work like I was hoping either. This is an example of what I want to make: <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/14122/animated-fire-set-v-dot-2" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/14122/animated-fire-set-v-dot-2</a> <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/7380/animated-moonbeams-and-fireflies" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/7380/animated-moonbeams-and-fireflies</a> See the subtle transparencies? That's what I want, but I have no idea how to make them. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

What you're looking for is creating WebM format videos with transparency.&nbsp; If you do a google search on that, you'll come up with a bunch of different tools for it.&nbsp; I don't know what the best tool is for you, or if there are free tools that do it (I assume there are), but that should get you started on your search.

Thank you!

Ok, made the image and it looks so pretty! I can't post it here, but I'm really happy with how it looks. Thanks again :D

Glad to hear it worked out. I work primarily with Transparent animations, and Indeed I use .webm. For what it's worth, there's 3 types of animated formats that work with Roll20 last I checked. .MP4, .gif, and .webm Of the 3, .MP4 has no transparency, but easily the highest quality. .gif is usually pretty easy to find, but is limited to a max of 256 colors, which is much less than you think it is when you really get to work with it. Especially if you implement partial alpha in your colors. .webm is great at being file size efficient, and transparent, but the format is compressed really heavily and sometimes you can get some compression artifacts or color drifting. ESPECIALLY if your animation is a lot of small dots moving around, like for example, snowfall. One last bit to keep in mind. For whatever reason, at least on the Marketplace side, the vp9 codec isn't supported in marketplace packs. A codec is basically a slight variant on the .webm standard. Last I checked, vp9 animations worked for personal use, but if your players report issues seeing the animations, try vp8 codec which I know works in marketplace and also personal games. If you have any questions about animation stuff in Roll20, feel free to send a DM my way, and I'll try to respond when I have a free moment.

Thank you, Mino. So far there has been no problem with my players seeing the animations, but it's good to know in case something like that happens. I was very happy with the webm results, because it was like animating a png, which is what I really wanted to do. Wish it wasn't so much work, but it's worth it.