How to give a .gif animation variable frame delay speeds in Gimp?

Question

When exporting an animated gif in Gimp (each layer is a frame of the animation), you can set the speed between each frame (layer) as a fixed number, by default 100 milliseconds. How do you instead specify:

• 100 ms between layers 1 and 2
• 200 ms between layers 3 and 4
• 500 ms between layers 4 and 5

and so on? If not .gif, then how about .png animation?

Answer 1

To add a delay to a specific layer you put the duration at the end of the layer name: Layer1 (200ms). This is the time this layer remains visible until it is covered by the next frame. The duration set there may be ignored/changed by browsers/players if too short or too log.

You can use the same principle to set how the layer is used:

• (combine) to add it over image displayed so far
• (replace) to replace the whole image.

So for instance, an image with the following layers:

Will show

• a blue square for 3 seconds,
• then a black square is added and is visible for 1 second over the blue square
• then a red square with a transparent center (through which you see the white of the GDSE page) replaces everything for 2 seconds