How to convert ANM format to GIF

December 3, 2005 11:17 AM

How to convert late 1980s/1990s vintage ANM Deluxe Paint animations to animated GIFs/PNGs?

I have been doing a spot of archeology on my server's disks (long overdue!) and found a whole cache of "ANM" format animations. These were created, using the old Electronic Arts program, Deluxe Paint, on a PC around 1990-1992. Although I can run the viewer under DOSBox, I'd really like to strip out the bitmaps and convert them into animated GIFs or PNGs. Any ideas? I've tried EA's own very old "anim2pcx" utility under both native Windows and DOSBox and it just silently dies without producing any output. Neither Irfanview or XNView recognise the ANM format. I can't find an old copy of Deluxe Paint for the PC. Am I out of luck?

posted by meehawl to computers & internet (15 comments total)

I'm not at all familiar with the format, but I figured I would chime in anyhow. It is not completely clear to me whether you are able to play the old animations or not. Assuming you can, there may be an easier way, but I'm guessing you may be able to rely on the following, somewhat convoluted, method: If you have a computer with some sort of video out, you may be able to capture it on some sort of digital recording device (a DV cam would do the trick). Once captured, it is in video format and can be imported into the computer and put into the format of your choice.

As for stripping out the bitmaps, worst case scenario, as long as you can view the old files, you should be able to do screen captures and take them into an image editor. Otherwise, I've got nothing. I hope my thoughts weren't completely usless, but I'm prepared for them to have been. Good luck.
posted by bwilms at 11:41 AM on December 3, 2005

does this work?
posted by suni at 11:54 AM on December 3, 2005

does this work

No, that contains the anim2pcx utility referenced above. I also considered the capture to video method but that's got quality issues. Not to mention being a PITA.

I'm beginning to think the best thing to do is to create a virtual Windows 3.1 install and see how the utility runs within that.
posted by meehawl at 11:57 AM on December 3, 2005

You probably know far more than me, but have you tried that thing where you check a box so that the program runs in '95 compatibility mode.
posted by lunkfish at 12:01 PM on December 3, 2005

ftp://ftp.externet.hu/pub/mirror/sac/graph/anmformt.zip
downloads.mikekohn.net/programs/unanm-2005-07-08.tar.gz
lobger.com/anm/index.php
posted by suni at 12:03 PM on December 3, 2005

mainactor seems to be able to load and save anm: www.mainconcept.de/downloads.shtml

some other programs that might be able to open/read/play/show anms: game editors, lightwave, 3dstudio max, quicktime, rpgtoolkit, morphink
also try amigaos or atari
posted by suni at 12:40 PM on December 3, 2005

The lobger.com DirectShow filter shows promise, but my MS Media Player 10 crashes absolutely consistently when attempting to open the ANM files...
posted by meehawl at 1:16 PM on December 3, 2005

Hm. And GraphEdit crashes out as soon as I feed an ANM input to the DirectShow filter pin. Maybe these are non-standard PC ANMs? Possibly Amiga/ST origin (even though the PC viewer does display them correctly).
posted by meehawl at 1:19 PM on December 3, 2005

hope you'll be successful : )
posted by suni at 1:32 PM on December 3, 2005

GIFFY (by Yuri Margolin, apparently not updated since 2002, and I can't find an official homepage) purports to handle ANM files.

Alternate link
posted by xiojason at 2:17 PM on December 3, 2005

anma allows watching anm files frame-by-frame, hope it works :)
posted by suni at 3:17 PM on December 3, 2005

anma allows watching anm files frame-by-frame for screenshots, hope it works :)
posted by suni at 3:19 PM on December 3, 2005

Could you upload the files somewhere? Sounds like a fun project.
posted by holloway at 3:28 PM on December 3, 2005

Okay, so "GIFFY" works, but not the Margolin "GIFFY", which does just BMP->GIF conversion, but the older "GIFFY Animation Builder" by "WWWeb.Ready! Corporation", which reads in ANMs. This is a working link:

http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?500000001910

Anma also works.

About half the files complain about corrupt EOFs, apparently (probably as a result of sloppy conversion from Amiga). I'm beginning to think I may indeed have to fire up an Amiga emulator and convert them on that end - I gather the Amiga ANM format was more canonical, and that more programs exist within that OS to read these files.
posted by meehawl at 10:12 AM on December 4, 2005

nice to hear of partial success :)

also try to run deluxe paint in dosbox (grab it on emule, i could also put it on yousendit or rapidshare in case you don't use emule)
posted by suni at 1:33 PM on December 4, 2005