Problem with importing animated gifs

[DigitalSoju]

Hi i'm trying to use an animated gif in my project. Basically my after effects project is just a countdown from 10 to 0 while the animated gif spins continuously during the countdown. My problem is when I use the animated gif the background it is no longer transparent and the background is instead white. How do I make it transparent again in after effects? Next the animated gif is about a 2 second loop, it won't let me drag the bars to extend the time to 10 seconds. How do I loop it for 10 seconds?

These aren't musts, but if anyone could, help would be greatly appreciated:

1) For the text effect 'numbers' (which I used for the countdown effect) it always renders really shaky and bouncy when i preview it. Is that normal?

2) It has the time as 00:00:00:00 (type: timecode 30). How do I make so it only shows 00:00 ?

Any help would be awesome.

Thank you

[Mylenium]

My problem is when I use the animated gif the background it is no longer transparent and the background is instead white.

Correct. As a conmpositing program, AE requires proper Alpah transparency, not palette-based transparency. File must be converted to an image sequence with Alpha channel.

Next the animated gif is about a 2 second loop, it won't let me drag the bars to extend the time to 10 seconds. How do I loop it for 10 seconds?

Footage interpretation --> Loops

1) For the text effect 'numbers' (which I used for the countdown effect) it always renders really shaky and bouncy when i preview it. Is that normal?

Yes, it's normal if you are using a non-monospaced font. Use a suitable font.

2) It has the time as 00:00:00:00 (type: timecode 30). How do I make so it only shows 00:00 ?

Use multiple layers and effects and mask them out.

Mylenium

[DigitalSoju]

Mylenium thank you for your response. Is there an easy way to convert the gif to a image sequence with an alpha channel?

Thank you

[Mylenium]

XnView, ACDSee, Irfanview or any image viewer/ converter via their File --> Save as... options or batch processing. If you have Photoshop, you can do this by adding the GIF as a video layer and exporting to an image sequence (TIF, PSD etc.).

Mylenium

[DigitalSoju]

I imported the gif to photoshop and saved it as a psd (it doesn't let me click on a checkbox for alpha channels, is that ok?)

Next how do i exactly get after effects to see it is an animation even though it is a psd? I thought it would be simple and just put import as footage, but then it asks me layer options and all that other stuff. I tried playing around with a few options, but it just seems to come in as a still image.

Thanks again

[DigitalSoju]

help?