Some webp alternatives

[rich2005]

The Gimp webp plugin is very adequate. You can export your image and make animations easily although  sometimes a bit slow.  This is about some command line (CL) programs that might come in useful as alternatives.

The webp format does come from Google, their official offerings are here: https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/download
The download provides utilities  cwebp: encoding tool / dwebp: decoding tool / gif2webp: gif conversion tool /  vwebp: webp viewer / webpmux: create and extract anmations   I have to confess that the only one I use regularly is the viewer, vwebp

ImageMagick v.7  (IM) supports webp. There is a page with all the details here: https://imagemagick.org/script/webp.php  Converting an image to webp is as simple as;

Code:

magick filename.ext  -quality 50 filename.webp

What is the advantage over Gimp ? Easy to batch convert with IM

Where it might come in useful is with simple animations, You can string several images together to make an animation with variable timings.

Code:

magick -delay 100  fileA.ext  -delay 200 fileB.ext -delay -delay 50 fileC.ext -quality 50 animated.webp

 

You need to experiment but a low quality settting can provide a smaller filesize than the comparible animated gif, with equal quality and no 256 colour limitations. 

A very simple example: