---
title: Adding GIF animations
author: Alison Presmanes Hill
date: '2018-01-31'
slug: gif-animations
categories: []
tags: []
raw: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rbind/blogdown-demo/master/content/post/2018-01-31-adding-gif-animations.Rmd"
---

This post will show you how to include GIFs in a **blogdown** post from a website, and how to make new GIFs from R plots (base R and **ggplot2**) using **knitr** chunk options.

# Embed GIFs from a link

You can add a link to any GIF online, from sites like [giphy](https://giphy.com/), using markdown syntax in either .md or .Rmd posts. For example, to embed this GIF:

![](https://media.giphy.com/media/xUOxf7XfmpxuSode1O/giphy.gif)


You would find the GIF [online](https://giphy.com/gifs/broadcity-comedy-central-season-4-xUOxf7XfmpxuSode1O), then click on "Copy Link", and select the "GIF Link" to copy:

![](/images/giphy-gif-link.png)



Then use markdown to refer to that link in the plain text of your post (not an R code chunk):

```
![](https://media.giphy.com/media/xUOxf7XfmpxuSode1O/giphy.gif)
```



# Embed plot GIFs using R

To create a GIF animation of a plot made in R, you need to install [FFmpeg](https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html) on your computer. If you are on a macOS, you can install FFmpeg through [Homebrew](https://brew.sh) using the formula [`brew install ffmpeg`](http://brewformulas.org/Ffmpeg).

You can make a GIF animation using **knitr** starting in [version 1.15](https://github.com/yihui/knitr/blob/master/NEWS.md). A GIF animation of the plots in a code chunk will be generated for HTML output when you use the chunk options `fig.show = 'animate'`,  `ffmpeg.format = 'gif'`, and `dev = 'jpeg'`.

Here is an example **knitr** chunk with options:

````markdown
`r ''````{r chunk-label, fig.show='animate', ffmpeg.format='gif', dev='jpeg'}
for (i in 1:10) plot(runif(100), ylim = c(0, 1)) # for example
```
````

Which would produce the GIF below...

```{r random, fig.show='animate', ffmpeg.format='gif', dev='jpeg', echo = FALSE}
set.seed(0)
for (i in 1:10) plot(runif(100), ylim = c(0, 1))
```

Let's break those chunk options down:


* [`fig.show = 'animate'`](https://yihui.name/knitr/options/#plots): how to show/arrange the plots; `animate` wraps all plots into an animation if there are mutiple plots in a chunk

* [`ffmpeg.format = 'gif'`](https://yihui.name/knitr/options/#animation): the filename of the extension video you want to create. This `.gif` file is also saved in your `/static/post/` [directory](https://github.com/rbind/blogdown-demo/tree/master/static/post/2018-01-31-adding-gif-animations_files/figure-html). 

* [`dev = 'jpeg'`](https://yihui.name/knitr/options/#plots): the function name which will be used as a graphical device to record the individual plots that make up the above. These `.jpeg` files are each saved in your `/static/post/` [directory](https://github.com/rbind/blogdown-demo/tree/master/static/post/2018-01-31-adding-gif-animations_files/figure-html). 

You can also create GIFs using the [**purrr**](http://purrr.tidyverse.org) and [**ggplot2**](http://ggplot2.tidyverse.org/index.html) packages.

```{r message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}
library(purrr)
library(ggplot2)
library(repurrrsive) # for the example data below
```

Below is some sample code from an awesome [**purrr** tutorial](https://github.com/cwickham/purrr-tutorial) by [Charlotte Wickham](http://cwick.co.nz). From her `map2()` [example code](https://github.com/cwickham/purrr-tutorial/blob/master/04-map2.R):

```{r}
gap_split_small <- gap_split[1:10]
countries <- names(gap_split_small)
# For all countries
plots <- map2(gap_split_small, countries, 
  ~ ggplot(.x, aes(year, lifeExp)) + 
      geom_line() +
      labs(title = .y) +
      coord_cartesian(ylim = c(0, 100))) 
```

To show these plots as an animation, we would use this code chunk:

````markdown
`r ''````{r gapgif, fig.show='animate', ffmpeg.format='gif', dev='jpeg'}
# Display all plots
walk(plots, print)
```
````

Which produces the GIF below...

```{r gapgif, fig.show='animate', ffmpeg.format='gif', dev='jpeg', echo = FALSE}
# Display all plots
walk(plots, print)
```