Animated Falling Snow GIFS

About Animated Falling Snow GIFs

Animated Graphical Interchange Format (GIF) images are computer graphics that appear to move. An animated GIF is actually a combination of multiple images that are displayed in a particular order. These special GIF files are known as type "GIF89a." Graphic designers can program the GIF to loop endlessly, or they can configure it to run through the loop once and then stop on the last image.

Designers use a variety of software tools that are capable of putting together multiple GIF images into one GIF89a file. There are also free software tools available for creating GIF89a files such as GifUp or Picasion.Webmasters and graphic designers create animated falling snow GIFs in a variety of styles and for a number of purposes. Some examples include:

• Companies can use them as a wintertime backdrop for web page ads.
• They can provide cozy winter ambience on your website.
• They are useful when embedded into an email for holiday messages or jokes.
• They are ideal for holiday or seasonal web pages and blogs.

Where to Find Animated Snow GIFs

While you could create these snow GIFs yourself, it would require some effort, and skill with graphic design, to create the individual image frames that form an overall animated GIF. Another option is to utilize the existing animated snow GIFs that already exist online.

Heather's Animations

Heather's Animations is one of the largest collections of GIF animations on the internet. Heather provides web visitors with thousands of animated GIFs, and hundreds of those are based on snow. Her creations are adorable cartoon frames that play out in well timed sequence.

Her images feature animated snow as well as snowmen, penguins, Santa, polar bears, and many more characters frolicking in the snow. All of Heather's animations are completely free, but she asks for donations from visitors to support the maintenance of her website.

Animation Library

Animation Library promotes itself as "The World's Largest Free Animation Collection." In fact, it does live up to that claim. The main page features 18 general categories as well as its own search engine. The library offers almost 14,000 free animations. Under the nature category you'll find the "snow" library. This section provides visitors with 25 snow animations.

All of them feature snowflakes in some form, and many of them feature falling snow. Most of the animated images are "transparent," so they will match with the background on any web page without looking out of place.

Dynamicdrive Snow Effect

Another very impressive animated snow effect is the snow image floating down the length of a web page. Dynamicdrive provides a javascript code that animates a snowflake GIF image location on the page to make it appear that transparent snowflakes are drifting down the entire web page. The effect actually feels like you're viewing a web page in the middle of a snowstorm. Another impressive feature about this effect is that it has no detrimental effect on the web page at all. Forms, chat rooms, and other web page functionality works fine even while these snowflakes are drifting down and around the page. This is a very fun effect that webmasters can use on any website. Another page on Dynamicdrive provides other methods of creating similar effects on the page using scripts with other images or no images at all.

AAanimations Snow Images

Another website that offers visitors a large collection of animated GIFs is AAanimations. This website carries thousands of various animated GIFs, but if you use the search engine on the site and type "snow", you will discover a huge variety based on snow. Many of the animations are provided on backgrounds of different colors so that they will match almost every website design. The designs are all unique and mostly all of them are created by the webmaster of the site. They are provided to visitors free of charge.

Installing Animated GIFs

Installing an animated GIFs featuring falling snow is very simple. These changing images can be used as a webpage background, icons, or throughout the page as web page decoration.

As a background:

<body text="#FFFF00" bgcolor="#000000" link="#FF0000" vlink="#FF6600" alink="#33CCFF" background="snowfall.gif">

As an icon or image:

<img SRC="snowfall.gif" height=17 width=432>

Note of Caution: Be careful not to use too many different animated GIFs on one page. This can make the page appear too "busy" and may drive visitors away.

Regardless which approach you use to display these fun snowy GIFs, they will always provide a boost to the atmosphere of any website. Animated GIFs are lively, creative, and fun. Used wisely they can turn a regular website into a fantastic one.