Please remove "First Gif" from the fire hose contest. Main reason would have to be because it's not moving.
I tell ya, I really busted my ass on this one too. It was 11 pictures, and the hose went all the way around it's holder. But it was too big, so I shrank the pictures and animated them again, still too big. So I started removing them until it would fit and wound up with a two picture entry titled Test.
How do you keep your gifs under 125 kbs?

try a white border around the animated part

the file size needs to at least be 500 x 350.
make that your white box, then make the animation smaller within that area. Should be able to work it out.

FYI: The entry is animated on my end.

OK, here goes

Take a transparent background of the required size you are allowed to use. Then resize all 11 layers till they are small enough and center them in the background. Or put them in one corner, what ever floats your boat.

Go to the ImageReady (if you use Adobe) and make the gif in best quality.

Now see how much you need to loose to get down the 125 kb limit you need.

As long as you have the transparent background at the minimum size, you will be able to create a gif with more then 3 or 4 layers for sure.

Anna

He's using GIMP anna and it has an automated optimze function so he can't control any optimizing parameters.You basically have to pre-calculate the gif to be under the limit by limiting the colours, no dithering etc.

Ah, that's a shame....