[svandamme]

the trick to a good avatar, is finding something that

A looks good in the limited pixel size , 50x50

B can be animated short enough so the filesize is acceptable
on PP , it's a rather limiting < 20 kb

the pixel size cannot be worked around
the file size, sort of can

with Animation shop pro , you can apply several compression techniques
but the most handy one is frame reusing

if you try to make a one directional loop , eg , trying to find frames where the beginning matches the end for a smooth transition , it's usually not going to work out with the filesize

so what i usually do , is i take a movement
for example , man raises his hand and back
1234567890
in this case, forget about the back part

in animation shop pro
delete all the frames that make up the lowering of the hand
(67890)
all you need is the start frame, and all the frames up to max height of the hand
12345
1 you select all frames, and copy them to the clipboard (12345 copy)
2 delete frame number 1, and the ending frame (234)
3 paste your clipboard at the end of your little animation (23412345)
4 keep the pasted frames selected, and then mirror then (ctrl+m)
(23454321)
at this point , you have an animation of a man raising and lowering his hand, a smooth loop , no visible cuts
and you got a 8 frame animation , but only 5 unique frames
so only 5 frames need to be saved

next you can save the file

it will ask you what compression you want
there is a wizard, you can run the wizard untill you find an acceptable size, you can usually drop the number of colours a bit , due to the low pixel resolution , you can get away with lower colors but this depends on the animation you started out with

obviously there is a point where you compress to much , and end up with garbage... if that's the case , and you need a smaller file , then your only option is to cut more frames ...

you could try interleaving
eg , if you have
123456789876543210
135679765310

note , if you delete a frame in the upgoing movement
you have to delete the same frame in the return
because identical frames , count as one in the compression stage

if you only delete one out of 2 , you win nothing
eg 13454321

if you delete 2 different ones , you still win nothing
eg 1345321

also check when deleting the beginning , or the ending

123456789876543210
12345678987654321 > you loose a frame , but your loop is wrong
1234567898765432 > you loose a frame, loop is right
if you want to trim more, you need to cut from the other end:
234567898765432 > loose a frame , loop is wrong
34567898765432 > corrected