About four years ago I found Fred's Gif2SL tutorial and wanted to try it with fish, and it worked perfectly, you can find all sorts of animated fish, bugs, butterflies, etc that you can create beautiful animated gif creatures inworld. It is how I created my ants to walk on my countertop, and here is how:
Check out sites like Giphy for your gifs and save to hard drive, please read directions below.




How to Use GIF2SL to Animate Textures in OpenSim

Animating textures on a prim in OpenSim can add dynamic visuals to your builds, and the GIF2SL app makes it easy to bring GIFs into the virtual world. Follow these simplified steps based on Fred Beckhusen's directions.

Step 1: Download and Install GIF2SL

Download the GIF2SL app from Fred’s site. https://outworldz.com/Secondlife/posts/gif/Create-Gif-in-S...

Extract the downloaded files and ensure the application is ready to use.

Step 2: Convert Your GIF

Open GIF2SL and load your desired GIF file.

The app will automatically extract frames and generate a .TXT file containing frame data.

Save the output files to a folder for easy access.

Step 3: Upload Frames to OpenSim

Log into OpenSim: Use your viewer to log into the region where you want to use the GIF.

Upload Frames: Upload the PNG frames generated by GIF2SL and name them sequentially (e.g., frame_01, frame_02, etc.).

Step 4: Animate the Texture on a Prim

Rez a Prim: Create a cube or another prim in-world.

Add the generated gif texture to contents, then

Apply a Script: Insert Fred's animation script into prim.

By following these steps, you can bring animated GIFs to life in OpenSim with ease. For more details and troubleshooting, visit Fred’s site linked above.