Crowd Funding! Get Ready!

NielsAll27 Comments

[WE KEEP ALL ARTICLES FOR HISTORICAL REASONS – BUT BE AWARE THIS POST IS OUTDATED AND MAY NOT BE RELEVANT ANYMORE]

Today I am announcing that we will be running a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo, starting next week!

Let’s gather everybody to participate in making Animation Paper exactly as awesome as we dream about! The price for Animation Paper will be only $79 USD, once it is finished and sold online. But if you support the campaign by pledging $59 USD next week – you’ll get Animation Paper as a crowd funding perk!

I hope we can make it take off from day one: July 1st – Tuesday next week!

In the meantime I’m busy making the crowd funding campaign video. It looks something like this, when I am blabbering away in my office “cave” 🙂 (see below).

I’ll be back with more info in a couple of days…

… Here it is: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/animators-new-favorite-software-animation-paper

All the best,
Niels

videoShot

27 Comments on “Crowd Funding! Get Ready!”

  3. Can I enable to purchase PAP products from Mac App Store after the cloud founding campaign (meaning from August 2014), and Will you recruit to translate multi-language UI menu or manual volunteer ?

    1. Niels Krogh Mortensen

      Yes, you will be able to buy it online. Hopefully on Mac App Store, but this is undecided at this point. It will not be finished in august though. 😉 March, 2015, probably.

      Different language versions is something we will consider when we get a bit further in development – including how/and who to recruit. Thanks!

  4. I’m excited also! I hope to be able to support your crowd funding campaign but will be waiting for the Windows version. Will the pledge work for that also?

  5. I informed the Corel Painter community at Painter Factory and the ArtRage community at the AR forum. Your soft is worth all support. Can’t wait for the Win version to come. Will the Mac and iPad be a first release?

  6. Hi, first comment. Super excited the new Animation Paper! I really loved the old software, my only issues were the un-intuitive user interface and lack of exporting options to make a gif for quick WIP purposes. Before I pledge I’d really like to know more about those.

    Maybe my questions will be answered in your upcoming video, so I await that eagerly! Either way I’m really looking forward to this and so happy it’s going to get done. Good luck with the crowd funding!

    1. Niels Krogh Mortensen

      Thank you very much!

      I am sure you’ll find the new version much much better than PAP in every way. I trust you will find the workings of the interface very intuitive indeed.

      About exporting options: You will be able to export as single frames (a sequence of single image files). And as Quicktime/AVI. And maybe even directly to youtube or vimeo. (Also you will be able to export X-Sheet data – but that’s another story). 🙂

      To export as one big gif file is something I’d like to discuss with you some more – it seems to me that this would not be practical? Normally you would work in high resolution and with many frames. Wouldn’t you agree that other formats than gif would be better suited for that? Of course you will normally have plenty of white space around your animated lines, so in that respect gif would compress that fairly well. But still.

      Please let me know what you think and why exporting in gif matter to you. I’m definitely listening. 🙂

  7. I understand a bit better now. I really am more of a hobbyist and in no sense a professional, gifs were just my ‘go-to’ format of exporting animations in say flash for example to show to my friends or art websites. I hadn’t considered how useful AVI would be in conjunction with Youtube. Whatever exporting options come will be welcome and a great step up from PAP’s capabilities I’m sure.

    Anyway I can’t wait for the campaign to start. I can only tell a handful of friends but I’ll make sure the word is spread, and I will pledge and hope that it becomes a smashing success! (Mainly because I run windows and I hope we get to that stretch goal…)

    1. Niels Krogh Mortensen

      You can pledge the 1+1 reward, but at this point I can’t guarantee that you will be able to change one of the licenses for Windows or Linux. I mean, no problem to change it if the stretch goal are reached. But if not, that will be up to if we come up with a policy and technical ways for people to change their license. We might do that – but I don’t know for sure. Sorry I can’t give you a better answer right now.

  9. I ve been looking for while now for a good affordable alternative for tvpaint to animate on mac, so this sounds like a dream coming true 🙂 how/ where is the crowdfunding? you have any thoughts on when the first version might be released?

  10. I am so ready for this! I’m especially looking forward to testing it on my Galaxy if we get that Android stretch goal. I saw the videos you put up on Youtube promoting this and I noticed those animated clips you put in. Is there anyplace I could see a full version of this animated short, or were those shots all you had to offer ?

  12. Hi Niels.

    I have been following your crowd funding page and I Loved when you added the Windows goal for those of us who work on a PC/windows machines.

    I would also like to comment some of my feelings, if you don’t mind Niels.

    There is something that makes me feel that you made a (kind of) mistake when you realized that your campaign was going to nowhere without Windows users. In fact this funding campaign was for a Mac version only. “There is no way a Windows user would help them”, I thought, and you came and did a good thing giving also a priority for a windows version… but I think it was not enough.

    The sad part is that I believe this crowd funding campaign will not reach its goal, not even reach the 35k. It started way too soon, firstly without a proper knowledge of to who would be delivered the new software and secondly, the lack of somehow marketing along the Internet some time Before your own blog announcing the rebirth of PAP

    I was a Blender3D´crowd funding follower, and what I have wrote to you here is only based in my experience following that campaign. The did not reach their goal, as you may know that, and one of the comments that I Kept reading all the time was this lack of publicity/marketing as well, linked with the lack of time giving to announce it.

    Well, I only hope that I am mistaken because this software of yours is like a dream to me: a cheaper version of TVPaint and easier to use.

    Thank you for reading

    Carlos

    [do not post this comment please. It is only for you to read: Thank you]

  13. Hello! I pledged $59, but I’m a Windows user. Will I still be able to choose the Windows version when Animation Paper is released? Thank you!

    1. Niels Krogh Mortensen

      Hi Kat – thanks for your pledge!

      Unfortunately I can not promise you that. You might be able to, but we don’t know yet. As you know, first we aim for the Mac version, and then the Windows version. If/when both versions eventually is made, we will have to work out a technical solution, and policy, to let people change their license from Mac to PC or vise versa.

  14. Hi Neils,

    I wanted to share some thoughts with you. I’ve been spreading the word but I’ve ran into a few issues.

    Firstly is the name, it was very confusing trying to explain to people because it is very vague and hard to find in Google, at one time the person I was speaking to thought I was talking about actual, real animation paper for example. There seems to be a lack of identity. People tend to just call it “the new PAP” instead.

    Second issue is targeting Mac first, I know this has been mentioned many times already (sorry) but I spoke to at least 8 animators in person about it and not one uses a Mac, myself included, for various reasons. Since they thought the stretch goal was unrealistic they wouldn’t pledge to support a Mac version.

    I don’t really know what advice to give, I hope you’re successful with it because I really want to use it but I don’t think there are enough Mac users to really get this going at the amount you need.

    Good luck.

  15. This is pretty dumb, as someone who is trying to pick up on animation, and is looking for the simplest free software to use, with the only good freehand one being Pencil, I must ask, what’s the point of crowd funding, if you’re just going to have people PAY for the software anyways? It would be nice if you at least made the thing free, and accept donations like most free and opensource software, but the fact how this ISN’T free, and you HAVE to pay for it, and than they will give you the option to give money to the developers, and for WHAT? There aren’t any mentions so far that I see, of you going for a goal, to make this software free, so I really don’t see the point in crowd funding this.

    Though it’s literally installing right now, I would stick with your OLD version of PAP, though you should release it as a free version, and update it a bit…

    1. Niels Krogh Mortensen

      Thanks for your point of view. Animation Paper is going to be a commercial product. This way I can keep developing it.

      If it wasn’t for crowdfunding I couldn’t make it so inexpensive as it is going to be. For pro animators – and even most hobby animators, $79 (or $49 on Kickstarter) is very cheap. I hope you agree?

      And I am giving the old version away for free – as you know. It used to cost 695 euros back in the day!

      Anyway, I hope, you will find, when the time comes, that you get a very fine piece of software – even though it will cost you a little bit.

      Thanks,
      Niels

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