Creating .GIF animations is not something I do very often but the couple of times I've done one for a unit I've done it simply by cutting and pasting from the story board to create individual frames. It was, obviously, sort of monotonous which leads to my question, is there an easier way to spit them out? Maybe by just cropping to the line (direction) in the storyboard I want animated?

If you want create only a preview you could use Animation Shop. It's a program that you have with Jasc Paint Shop or as a single program. There is a post in C&C from Gary Childres were is the new that one can dowload this program for free:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=308901
I use Animation Shop for my animated preview and it is very simple to use and very fast.

Ok imperator, I'll try that, thanks. :)

well, how I do it is, I export the flc files as individual .pcx files, and I just delete all the files I get exported except for the SW .pcx's

then I convert those to .gif, and I use "unfreez" to make an animated gif

though that is kinda tedious and I can't seem to find a good, free convert program :/

well, how I do it is, I export the flc files as individual .pcx files, and I just delete all the files I get exported except for the SW .pcx's

then I convert those to .gif, and I use "unfreez" to make an animated gif

though that is kinda tedious and I can't seem to find a good, free convert program :/

If you're copy and pasting every frame like I was mentioned I was doing I'm completely with you on the "tedious" part.

Animation Shop, which Imperator linked to above proved to above, made the process run a good deal smoother. It took me a little while to figure out that it would be easier to convert the .flc itself rather than the storyboard. All you do is open the .flc and do a File > Save As and save as a .gif.

You'll want to know which number to which number of frames on the storyboard you want used so it would be nice to have the storyboard open for that. For multiple animations I would paste several storyboards together (probably after increasing colors on all) then maybe crop to the direction you want, generate the .flc and go from there though I can't say for sure if that will work as I've yet to try. Just to reiterate Animation Shop is free. :)