For some reason, animated GIFs have become an important part of the ds106 experience. Everybody, it seems, loves looking at them. And the process of making them is not as daunting as most may think. Prior to ds106, I never thought I could do one.

I remember with glee the moment my first effort at making one finally “played” the way I’d hoped it would. It took a long time and many mistakes were made along the way. But it was a learning experience. These little moments of personal accomplishment are valuable and important. One of the things that I most adore about ds106 is that it affords these sorts of opportunities for those willing to dive in.

So I was wondering what sort of role animated GIFs would play during this Camp Magic MacGuffin version of ds106. I was blown away when Ol’ Hatchet Jack made one from my first campsite photo from Second Life. I typo on my part in the comment on his blog referred to his effort as “an animate GIFt.” But in a sense, that what his remix of the photo was: a GIFt.

This morning I asked myself if it was possible to work with animated GIFs in the virtual space. As I didn’t know the answer, Google was used. It turns out it’s easy peasy. Perigrine Salon has a web application that will upload and convert your GIF file into the appropriate file format and provide a script of making the animation run once it’s attached to an object in Second Life. Well maybe it’s not easy peasy until you get the hang of it. But it works like a champ.

The video above was another chance for me to practice doing machinima and to demonstrate how the Buddy Holly GIF I created a few months ago look in Second Life. If you want to see it in person, all you have to do is teleport in to Corona Cay.