GIFsquid

GunSquid · 2017-03-01T18:46:52Z

GIFsquid is great, but it isn't perfect. Please post here about any problems you encounter.

Squirt Animated GIFs straight from After Effects! · By GunSquid

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Please Report Bugs Here! Sticky

A topic by GunSquid created Mar 01, 2017 Views: 8,568 Replies: 151

Viewing posts 21 to 39 of 39 · Previous page · First page

aaronr936 years ago

BUG for GIFsquid and Project Cuddlephish: Squirting more than 1 gif at a time leads to unexpected results

Steps to reproduce:

Start squirting a long gif (so that you have time to switch projects and start another gif)
Switch to another project and start squirting another gif.
Examine the outputted gifs. Note that they may be cut short or contain frames of each other.
If you didn't get that behavior, for the second gif, try one that's small enough to finish rendering before the first gif finishes rendering.

Actual behavior: when squirting more than 1 gif at a time, the outputted gifs may have dropped frames and/or contain frames of other gifs that were rendered simultaneously.

Expected behavior: squirting multiple gifs at once works well.

My GIFsquid.log file is empty...

I realize this is probably a "feature", but I figured you should know about it. Thanks for the hard work on this.

GunSquidDeveloper6 years ago

Thanks for the report! Squirting more than one gif at a time is not yet supported. I'll add it to the possible feature feature list.

25letter6 years ago

I'm getting this error when trying to squirt a gif using Project Cuddlephish or GifSquid.

Caused by: Wrong syntax for filename, catalog name or volume label.

Here are the contents of GIFsquid.log and squidyavi.bat

https://pastebin.com/2AC8rFGY

Windows 10, Adobe CC 15.0.0

CPU: i7700K

GPU: GTX 1070

GunSquidDeveloper6 years ago

it looks like you are missing wmic from your system path. Verify that you still have your windows directory and system32 in your PATH environment variable.

25letter6 years ago

I was indeed missing the PATH environment variables. I added them and it works like charm now. Thank you very much, love the plugin.

Baiely6 years ago

Hey there, I tried to use GifSquid 0.6 because I wanted to makea transparent gif, basicly it's working, the png sequence is transparent despite my text. But when GifSquid is squishing the gif, the text is overlapping itself.

My GIf

I hope there is some solution for this ^^

GunSquidDeveloper6 years ago

ivI'vee only seen that when the crappiness is set too high. What was it set to here?

Baiely6 years ago

Hey. I am using Gif Squid 0.6 (the one that creates a png seqeunce), I don't seem to find a crappiness setting as in GifSquid 0.8. Only the fuzz option, but the output does not change wether or not I have a higher or lower fuzz input, the text is still overlapping.

Baiely6 years ago

hey there. I wanted to ask if there was any news regarding a solution. :)

GunSquidDeveloper6 years ago

Hello, I apologize, I didn't see your reply until now. I'm working on a solution that you may be able to implement, but please understand that I am not able to provide much support for older versions. One of the reasons newer versions of GifSquid don't support transparency is because it was so problematic to deal with. That said, i'll try to work out something for this particular case.

GunSquidDeveloper6 years ago

I was able to fix it in my test scenario. Here is how you can fix it on your side.

Please make a backup of the GIFsquid.bat file found in "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2015.3\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\GIFsquid".
Right click the GIFsquid.bat file and select 'edit'
Press Ctrl-A to select all the contents, then Delete to clear out the file
Copy all the text from https://pastebin.com/raw/Ubc8bdxF into the now-empty file
Save the new GIFsquid.bat file
Try squirting another GIF!

foregod6 years ago (1 edit)

Just bought it and I have AE CC 2015 on Win 10. After I extract all the files to the scripts ui folder and then open after effects I don't see GIFsquid in the window drop down menu, even after troubleshooting edit->templates->output modules. Any help?

Edit: nevermind bro my 7zip was tweaking lol

Mintshel6 years ago

COOL，I always got “104” errors at the beginning. The next thing I found was because I did n’t throw the entire folder into ScriptUI Panels. Maybe people who have this problem are because they only put the .jsxbin file.

xAceRPG5 years ago

I can't render a GIf. It's always saving it as AVI.

https://imgur.com/a/AF3QvTJ

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Great write-up with pics! After the avi renders, the script will convert it to a gif and delete the avi. It uses the last location you rendered to, so for now just set a location for the avi and render it manually, then delete the avi. Now gifsquid should be able to do everything itself. To be clear, when you squirt the gif, it queues up an avi, renders it, converts it to gif, then deletes the avi.

xAceRPG5 years ago

Thanks for replying! After I saved and rendered the AVI file to a folder, the command line script opens up and says that it can't find the path specified, and nothing happens. https://imgur.com/0tpnxAC

And for some reason, The GIFS that I make in Cuddlephish are rendered in slow motion, so I need some help with that. Thanks again!

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

the "can't find path" is normal, it just means there were no files to clean up. After that the "nothing happens" is your gif being made! It is very slow and there is no progress bar.

Framerate issues are usually from trying to compress at an invalid framerate for the gif format. Stay between 25 and 50 fps for good results.

JimboMonkey12345 years ago (1 edit)

I haven't been able to get this to work yet, I'm using Adobe After Effects CC 2015 on Windows 10.

When I click on "Squirt GIF" I get the "It may appear that After Effects has crashed..." message, but when I press "Yes" the popup closes and nothing happens.

I read the other bug reports, and I found that my c:\ProgramData doesn't have squidyavi.bat, so I figured it was having trouble writing to the file system. I tried reinstalling the script, making sure that "Allow scripts to write files" is checked, and even tried running After Effects as administrator, but nothing's changed. I also tried "Enable JavaScript debugger" but that didn't do anything either.

Anything else I can try to troubleshoot? Where does squidyavi.bat come from, is it downloaded from the Internet at runtime?

Update: solved! The issue was that I had the video file selected in the Projects tab (instead of the Composition).

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

c:\ProgramData\squidy.avi is generated by the plugin after rendering your comp to an AVI. It sounds like the render is never kicking off, but there is a workaround: Manually queue your comp for a render to AVI, and set the render location somewhere project-agnostic, like c:\projects\GIFs. Render your comp out, clear the queue, and delete the render. Squirting should now work.

The reason this workaround works is because GIFSquid/CuddlePhish render to the last location you rendered to.

Also if you haven't already, join the High Quality Gifs discord where lots of folks share tips and give advice.

JimboMonkey12345 years ago (1 edit)

Thanks GunSquid, I should've mentioned that I had tried that too. Tried again, no change. For the render I did "File > Export > Add to Render Queue", in case there's another way to do it. I rendered as AVI (but I'm guessing that doesn't matter since you said to delete the render anyway).

I'll try posting in the discord!

Update: solved! The issue was that I had the video file selected in the Projects tab (instead of the Composition).

volive5 years ago

GIFSquid 0.6 is not working, and it is the only one that would be useful for me, because of the transparency.

I’m using Windows 10 Home 64-bit , version 1903 and After Effects 2020.

When I hit the Squirt Gif button, an alert pops up. It says that AE may crash and I shouldn't be afraid because a DOS window should pop up and finish the the job.

After a very long time, it doesn't happen. It just adds the project in the render queue, as an .avi and nothing else happens. I've already checked: - The project isn't in the root, it's in subfolders - I've checked the "allow to write script from network" - I've tried to run AE as an administrator - I've been searching for something into the c:/programdata, and "squidyavi.bat" is there

-I have installed all of the files, in my Script UI Panels folder, and I have the gifsquid.jsxbin as well as a Gifsquid folder.

As AE is not rendering my project after queing an AVI, I’ve tried rendering it manually and clearing the render queue before squirting, but that didn’t work either.

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Hi Volive, I'm sorry you're having issues. Old versions of Gifsquid are no longer supported, but we can try to get you working. The first thing you'll need to do is replace the 'GIFsquid.bat' file in ScriptUI Panels\GIFsquid with the one here https://gist.github.com/hellphish/95a16d940f96a0bf8f6f3b3d16258708

Next, make sure you have imported the PNG sequence output template from the zip file, instructions are in the readme.

Last, before you press Squirt, be sure you have a comp selected in the project panel.

0.6 doesn't generate a squidyavi.bat file and should not be queing an AVI file. It should queue a png sequence, and the file it generates in programdata is called 'squidy.bat'

EdileNaga5 years ago

Hi,
Just bought the plugin today and nothing happens when the comp is on queue. I've tried everything that was said, even your latest message yet nothing works.
I have lots of render to do for tomorrow and I feel kinda cheated as I placed high hopes in this script...

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Do make sure that your comp is selected before attempting to "squirt" a gif. It should add a render to the queue, render it, then use the rendered Avi to create the gif.

EdileNaga5 years ago

Yes the comp is selected and "squirting" it does add the render to the queue. But I have to launch it manually, and of course it gives me a really heavy .avi file. But no window opens, and no gif is rendered anyhow. I know it was a discount, and I probably missed something that would make it work, but for the moment I just paid 7.5$ for another render button :(
I did try everything that was said on this thread but it still doesn't work...

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago (1 edit)

Can you check for a file called "squidyavi.bat" inside c:\programdata (this is a hidden folder). If it exists, can you open it in notepad and paste the contents here? If it doesn't exist, try restarting AE, reopening your project, and manually clearing the render queue.

BTW, where did you buy the script from? I have never charged more than $5 for it, and you said you bought it yesterday but I don't see any transactions in the past 6 days.

Also, if you haven't yet, come join the High Quality Gifs discord where lots of people share help and advice. https://discord.gg/Yzcw7Q

EdileNaga5 years ago

Hello,
Sorry for the very long time, had plenty of work and forgot about this.
There's no squidyavi.bat there :/
I actually bought it from this very website, it was a bundle GifSquid/Cuddlephish that cost 6$ and there was 1$20 of taxes (I just found my paypal receipt with all details).

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Hello. I'm away from my PC for the next few days, but I'll get a new version uploaded which has more debugging features. Hopefully it will help us get down to the issue.

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Sorry for the delay getting back to you, I've uploaded a debug version of GifSquid that may give us more information about your issue. It is version 0.80b

takotime5 years ago

I havn't been able to install the ScriptUI Panel for 1.2 and now 1.3. Everything works great, I just have to go into the sub menu and choose "Run Script File" each time. When I do click on Cuddlephish under the Windows menu I get this error: "Unable to execute script at line 121. Invalid image data." For 1.2 I think it was something like line 88. Let me know what I'm doing wrong please

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Generally you should launch scriptUI scripts from the "Window" menu in AE, not from the "File" menu.

The error you are seeing can be caused when the script is not fully installed (you must unzip everything in the zip to your ScriptUI folder). It can also be caused by using an unsupported OS.

What OS are you running?

takotime5 years ago

All fixed! And I am on w10.

The problem was the unzipping, I was unzipping all the files into their own folder in my ScriptsUI folder instead of putting all the zip contents directly in there.

Thanks!

manicmario5 years ago (1 edit)

Hi, unfortunately I can't get Gifsquid to work without turning on Turbo mode. I tried everything I could find in previous posts. I installed new beta version from 4 days ago and still the same problem. Updating ffmpeg to the newest version didn't help as well :(

Here is my GIFsquid.log (not working):
convert.exe: UnableToCreateTemporaryFile `E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\nabeuprmxfull.avi': No such file or directory @ error/delegate.c/InvokeDelegate/1876.
convert.exe: UnableToOpenBlob `C:/Users/Mario/AppData/Local/Temp/magick-13732pkjotHz6EYya.pam': No such file or directory @ error/blob.c/OpenBlob/2705.
convert.exe: NoImagesDefined `E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\GIFsquid_Output/nabeuprmxfull.avi-2020-08-17_23-44-49.gif' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3257.

and squidyavi.bat (not working):
cd\
cd "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2019\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\GIFsquid\"
GIFsquidavi.bat 30 2500 "E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\nabeuprmxfull.avi" "E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\GIFsquid_Output" 0.5 475x "" "nabeuprmxfull.avi" false
exit

CUDDLEFISH no problems at all but the size is a killer, at least with longer clips

GIFsquid.log (TURBO - working):
cd\
cd "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2019\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\GIFsquid\"
GIFsquidavi.bat 30 4500 "E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\nabeuprmxfull.avi" "E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\GIFsquid_Output" 0.5 475:-1 "" "nabeuprmxfull.avi" true
exit

and squidyavi.bat (TURBO - working):
cd\
cd "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2019\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\GIFsquid\"
GIFsquidavi.bat 30 4500 "E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\nabeuprmxfull.avi" "E:\PROJECTS\AFX\NotABeatEmUp\GIFsquid_Output" 0.5 475:-1 "" "nabeuprmxfull.avi" true
exit

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Thank you for the detailed report! From what you've shown me, I believe the issue lies with ImageMagick (convert.exe) it looks like it is unable to open the intermediary AVI file. Can you check that convert.exe isn't being blocked by Antivirus? It is in the gifsquid/bin folder

manicmario5 years ago (2 edits)

Thank you for your swift response!
Added whole GIFSquid folder (inside ScriptUI Panels) to exception, convert.exe to trusted files + set to Administrator but still no luck.
Closing completely Firewall and Antivirus made no difference.

UPDATE (Problem Solved!)
It seems there was a problem with both Avast antivirus and Comodo Firewall you can add the whole folder to be trusted and it doesn't work.
I tested few free alternatives that work and can recommend:
Firewalls: TinyWall or Simplewall
Antivirus: Bitdefender Antivirus Free or Kaspersky Cloud Antivirus
Solution: Add convert.exe to exception and something that was not mentioned here,
do the same with cmd.exe ( ! ) (you can set it for an hour or time span needed to convert file if you don't want to allow connections permanently)

It's all good now,
Thank You :)

manicmario5 years ago

Hey is there a way to export Gif with transparency? I would love to avoid feeding Photoshop with image sequences. Nothing compares to GifSquid/Cuddlephish combo

bdavey3115 years ago(+1)

Hi - On AE CC 2020 Windows 10 and the latest version of GIFsquid 0.8b. Once I click continue to render then get this error - http://prntscr.com/ujnd0q

[debug] SquirtGIF failed with: null is not an object

My GIF is about 8 seconds long. Any thoughts?

manicmario5 years ago

Try run AFX in Administrator mode, make sure your composition's name doesn't include any special characters and don't forget to add exceptions to your firewall.

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Thank you for providing this advice. However I must point out that gifsquid does not phone home or use the internet in any way.

manicmario5 years ago

I know that, yet convert.exe was blocked by default in Comodo Firewall, Tiny Wall and some antivirus software. That was causing my export problems.

AG_Bendac5 years ago

Tried this and still had the same problem.

Leonides025 years ago

I'm also getting this error on the new version and on AE CC 2020.

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

are you using the US English version of AE?

AG_Bendac5 years ago (1 edit)

I am also getting this problem, I do get a pop up box saying that After Effects appears to have crashed, which it has not. Press yes and then get this error I am on AFX 17.5.1 (Build 47) - I can turn on debugging and send a report if required.

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

Hello. Firstly, that pop up is not saying that AE crashed, only that it may APPEAR frozen. Secondly, make sure you have a comp selected when you press squirt and that there are no special characters in the name of the comp or the path of the project file.

AG_Bendac5 years ago

Thank you for your reply @GunSquid. I renamed the comp with the title "Test"
Pressed "Quirt Gif" and it loads the comp to the Render Queue

However it doesn't render the project out, and does not load up DOS like it does for Project Cuddlephish.

samkrepps5 years ago

Having the same problem here. Suspected Adobe broke something, but I backed out to After Effects 17.0.6 and did not resolve the issue.

samkrepps5 years ago

Additional troubleshooting step: I attempted to squid a project that previously created a gif successfully. Same broken result

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

If you are having the problem where it queues but doesn't render, try rendering the queue manually once, then resquirting

samkrepps5 years ago

That did it. Thanks, GunSquid!

Lorx5 years ago (1 edit)

Hello! I've just purchased GifSquid but when i'll try to Squir GIF it gives me the warning of the DOS process first and then it gives me an error saying "Lossless is not a valid model name"

(Edit: It gives the error in Italian ofc, i just translated for asking support purposes)

How can i make it work ? Do i need to run AE with english language ? (I'm not native english and i use Italian version)

GunSquidDeveloper5 years ago

yes, unfortunately Gifsquid doesn't work on international versions of the software.

Lorx5 years ago

Ah... That's unfortunate.

I managed to set the language to english_US and now there's another error "Null is not an object", and i can't even render manually from the queue.

titusgroen4 years ago

Is it possible to get transparent backgrounds? I'm not entirely sure how to do so at the moment with GIF Squid.

GunSquidDeveloper4 years ago

Not currently, sorry.

titusgroen4 years ago

No worries. Thanks for the quick response!

Availablepaper4 years ago

Hello I'm getting very slow motion gifs out of cuddlefish no matter what FPS is set from 20-50. Original file is 60fps MP4.

BzzLghtyr4 years ago

I'm also dealing with this. It was behaving properly and seems to have just decided to take forever. Not sure if some temp files need cleaned out or what.

jennga4 years ago

Hi there! I'm sorry I know this thread is a bit old, I seem to be having the same issue as a person had about 3 years ago. These are the steps I have done/ whats going on if it helps.

1) Project in subfolders (tried a couple locations)
2) "allow to write script from network" and java debug on
3) AE as an admin
4) Scriptui has all files
5) it creates the bat file in program data
6) I did the output module loading aom file
7) it opens with the window warning of the possible crashing, etc, opens render que with avi (I have not rendered yet otherwise) and nothing happens it seems. I have a performance overlay, the CPU and GPU stay at 0-3%, occasionally the gpu spikes a little but I dont think its from gifsquid.

Its so strange because I have previously had a few machines, it worked on all of them from windows to mac, i remember having an issue one time a year ago but I somehow fixed it.
My specs: GIFsquid v0.8 AE CC newest version I think Win 10 Home / Version 2004 / OS 19041.928

I feel like I heard something about AE actually being able to export gifs now so im going to check that out, I just loved being able to specify everything and keep it around a specific size. Anyway, thanks for making this!

pawnzz4 years ago (1 edit)

Not sure what's happening, GIFsquid was working fine but now it just hangs on the DOS window. I'm not sure if it's always said this but at the top it says: 'Dennis' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Anyways it'll get to Pre-cleaning and Squirting GIF but then nothing else happens. In the past it would usually squirt a gif in under a minute. Last night I left it for several hours and nothing happened.

I updated Ae recently and thought that could be an issue, so I deleted GIFsquid and re-added it to the ScriptUI Panels folder.

Also, not sure if this helps but Cuddlefish will output a file but it's 0 bytes. So seems like both are having issues right now.

Any thoughts?

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