#DailyBloggingChallenge (262/300)
While looking back at the blog post on how to create a #GIF via #Gimp (<https://bf5.eu/post/how-to-make-a-gif-with-gimp/>) in regards to make #beforeAndAfter animations for #OpenStreetMap, I noticed that there are a couple of things that irk me that I have ignored previously.
These things include animation quality and process time.
#DailyBloggingChallenge (263/300)
The #Gimp guide still has its place when dealing with images that are minorly misaligned. This is because on will need to adjust the images in such a manner that they overlap on top of each other.
This practice can be extended to the point that once a set of standardized images exist, then the ones that are misaligned can be filled and cropped to align with the standard.
#DailyBloggingChallenge (264/300)
If one continues to use #Gimp for sorting the images for the animation, then the [export-layers-plus tool](https://www.gimp-forum.net/attachment.php?aid=7309) can ease the process of exporting all layers at once.
The user script can be saved in the _script-fu_ directory. The directory can be found by visiting `Edit > Preferences > Folders > Scripts`.
It is recommended to pad the layer number with zeroes. The suggested one is `%6i`, which will pad the number with zeroes until the number has a length of 6.
Script from the [Gimp forum](https://www.gimp-forum.net/Thread-exporting-all-the-layers)
#DailyBloggingChallenge (265/300)
Now with the layers as frames one can use #FFMPEG to merge them together to create a desired animation file.
```
ffmpeg -r 1 -i %06d.png -c:v libx264 out.mp4
```
This will create a MP4 with 1 frame per second. It is important the import naming `-i %06d.png` aligns with the export of layers modal.
To have a smooth looping experience, make sure to set the starting and ending frame be the same image. Just copy and past the start image and rename it so that it becomes the ending image.
