Why not just get this small update out, so you can test and enjoy - while we relax on our summer holiday 😉 Here's Alpha 7 for you...
This is what's new:
Export Open Cell Animation (OCA)
Animation Paper now supports the OCA format. It's an open format, that eases the exchange of hand-drawn animation between different applications - both commercial and free.
OCA holds vital x-sheet info like layers, timing (exposure and reused drawings), color, transparency, framerate and more.
With a free Add-On you can easily import your Animation Paper work into After Effects, Blender or Krita. Add-Ons for Photoshop, TV-Paint and others are in the works too.
Export OpenEXR
Many studios prefer OpenEXR as their file format. Now you have a choice between PNG or OpenEXR when exporting your frames.
Right Click Context Menus for the X-Sheet
Easily reach all relevant Tools and Options for the X-Sheet. Right click your mouse - or the corresponding button on your pen - to open this drop down menu. It is context sensitive, so clicking over a drawing (thumbnail), a layer, or somewhere else in the X-Sheet pane, will give you different options.
One more option for Adjusting pen Size and Opacity
You already have several efficient ways of adjusting your current pen size or opacity, such as holding down D on your keyboard. But now there's one more way of doing it for those who prefers this method better. Just hold Ctrl (on Windows or Linux) or Cmd (on Mac) and drag left/right to adjust the size - or up/down to adjust the opacity. This workflow method is fast, but not as accurate as the D method, because you are controlling both your minimum and maximum pressure setting in one go.
Bug-fixes and improvements
As usual, we crushed a few bugs too.
Now go download Alpha 7 and enjoy! If you stumble across any weird behaviour or bug - don't hesitate to let us know. We can only get issues fixed if we are aware they even exist.
I wish you all an enjoyable July! We will be back soon - stearing towards beta!
Thanks,
Niels Krogh Mortensen
54 Comments on “Alpha 7”
How to change the Pencil Texture ?In reference video tutorials the lines which are drawn look very clean line but , when I tried I am not getting the same line shown in video.
The videos were made with Alpha version 1. We are now at Alpha 7. We updated the pencil texture at some point, because people asked for a more rough textured pencil. However, I worry I might have overdone the grittiness. 😉 What do you think?
The texture of the pencil will not be user adjustable for now. I might adjust it again though for the next alpha release. Especially if people, like yourself and others, want it dialled back to something closer to the previous version (the one in the video).
In the next major version we plan to integrate an actual brush system. So by then it will be fully customisable.
Let me know what you think please!
Best,
Niels
I just found out about version 7! what good news!
I wonder if this version has the color tool?
How do I animate
all I see I’d the site bragging
Hi Jonathan,
I am happy to help. But what do you mean? How you use Animation Paper? How you do animation generally? Do you need help downloading and installing the software?
Please let me know 🙂
Best,
Niels
How do I become the activation key?
Did you download, install and run Animation Paper? If you did that, the first thing you see is a small window asking for the Activation Key. In that same window there’s a link. Click that, register with your email – and you will receive your key right away.
Best,
Niels
I’m having some trouble with the new pen adjustment system, I find when using Ctrl+Z a lot, it lead to me accidentally changing the pen settings. Enough for it to be annoying. Could there be a way to toggle this feature? Thanks
Hi Matilda,
I don’t understand – adjusting pen settings are not part of the undo history. Can you explain what you mean in more detail?
Thanks a lot,
Niels
It’s about the undo shortcut itself rather than undo history. If I’m repeatedly pressing Ctrl+Z, redrawing the line, and using Ctrl+Z again, then the software can sometimes misinterperet me pressing Ctrl as holding it down so attempting to draw adjusts the pen settings instead. It’s just an issue with one key being used for two different shortcuts.
Oh, now I see. 😉 Thanks for explaining!
I really appreciate you telling me this. Nobody else seem to have had this issue – at least they haven’t told me about it. But it’s important – because, as you say, we use the Ctrl key (Cmd on Mac) for two different things here. I thought it was OK, but it’s not for you. And probably not for others then. So I will think about what to do about it. Thank you very much!
Best,
Niels
Hey Niel’s!
How was your summer? Hope it was great, ours feels like it just started, being California is just now getting hot, which is weird for this desert United State! Anyways, was just checking in, and was curious about how beta is looking. Any chance we’ll get it before the new year? Well as always, nice chatting with you. Looking forward to hearing from you!
~Respectfully,
Mike Stumbo
Animation Generalist
Hi Mike,
Sorry – I have been super busy and totally forgot to answer you!
Yeah, it’s been a record breaking hot summer for us in Europe. But my family and I where on vacation in the alps, so being in high elevation had the perfect temperature for a pale scandinavian like my self 😉 Great times!
We were on track to release the beta in October. However, unfortunately Frederik, our main programmer was forced to leave for another project right before the finishline. Unfortunate bad timing. We miss him a lot and he misses the project! Anyway, we had to get a new programmer, which we now have (Alex – is great!). So all is good 🙂 Just a little setback. Hopefully we should be able to go beta before the end of the year.
Thanks for your support Mike – and for checking in with me!
Cheers,
Niels
Can’t wait for the upcoming brush system! I hope you can also add a feature where the user can choose a whole gamut of colors for the pencil and the brush.
And also, are you going to add a feature where we can import video files for reference purposes?
I love drawing with the pencil. For me the texture is perfect. It feels like a normal pencil on paper and is a lot better than several pencils I used in other software!
Thanks for letting me know Bert!
PLEASE a bucket tool (with an adjustable bleeding property) and a stabilizer D:
Some of us don’t have a tablet and pen and use our trackpad (me) 🙁
(and make the stabilizer go up to very high numbers, in my drawings my stabilizer is set to 100, no joke). Please and thank you.
About everything else, I love it 🙂
Thanks Pamela! Both of your requests are already on our todo list. 😉 But I do think you will not regret the investment of a drawing tablet. Even the very cheapest are soo much better than a mouse or a trackball.
Anyway, thanks a lot for letting me know what you are looking forward to the most. Noted!
Best,
Niels
Could you also add an option for *automatically* thinning out the ends of a brush stroke instead of it relying on pressure? (i forgot what that’s called)
Hi Niels!
We use your software with my students. They like it and I like their works!
BUT! Some of the students have problem with video export a(mp4 or mov)
The same machine, the same software sometimes exports, sometimes not. Has anyone had this problem? What can be the solution?
Thanks!
Zsolt
Hi Zsolt! Thanks for introducing your students to Animation Paper!
Yes, we found a bug in the exporter. Sometimes it won’t export – it just shows the progress window, but the progress bar never increases (stays at 0%). Is that would your students experience too? We do believe we have fixed this problem, so if you download and update next time we do a release (Alpha 8) you should be fine.
(I guess you have AP installed on more than one computer?) So, as a workaround for now, I suggest you simply load the ap file on another of your computers and export from there. Sorry for the inconvenience! Also experiment with the destination for the export, I mean, I know that exporting directly to Google Drive could provoke this problem.
Let me know how it goes. If you are still having problems, then we could do a special interim build just for you until you can get the official Alpha 8. It is probably a few weeks away – but it is not yet decided what to include in it yet, ie. how much we still need to do before releasing it.
Thank you for your answer!
Each student registered and downloaded their own program.
We tried to share the ap file, but I couldn’t export it. I didn’t get the error before on my computer.
I could not figure out the logic of the error. I can send pictures about the export settings.
Finally, we exported a sequence of files, which we finished in Premiere pro.
I like the program, I would like to continue using it for teaching. It would be nice if we could also do the post-production with this.
Cool. Thanks!
So you couldn’t export it on just one computer or a few? Sorry I’m asking, just want to make sure I get the details 😉
We are an animation group in Kaposvár, Hungary. Animation Paper is a very easy to use program. I can teach students key-phase animation with it. 10 students are working with version 7. We make simple animation exercises. One student more. There are students who can export one but not the other. All exports have been successful on my machine so far (with version 7), so I asked them to help.
On my machine I could export completely different animations than they could, but I couldn’t do all of them on my machine either.
We are waiting for version 8, until then we will solve it by interposing Premiere Pro.
We can export PNG sequences.
(they also study that program at least)
(Unfortunately, my English is not perfect, so I used google translator to be able to explain it exactly. I hope it worked.)
Thanks a lot for clearing that up and for taking your time to write all this to me. Much appreciated!
Keep an eye out for Alpha 8. I will try to make sure we are releasing it earlier than later so you don’t have to wait too long for it.
Thank you Zsolt!
Is the export movie clip feature broken? I can’t export my frames as either an mp4 or mov. It hangs. I’m using Kubuntu 22.04.
Hi Lou, thanks for mentioning this. We did find a bug in the movie clip exporter that causes this. It has been fixed by now, so with the next update you should be good again. Next update (Alpha 8) is only a few weeks away.
Did you have audio when it hangs? I wonder if the export works if you don’t include the audio? Would be great if you could confirm this.
I didn’t have audio included. It failed to export and the progress bar didn’t do anything, forcing me to click cancel. When I said it hung I meant the progress bar hung. I only had a few frames where I was trying the feature out.
OK, I see. I just wanted to rule that out. Thanks for clarifying!
How are the color palette and other features coming along, may I ask?
What we are working on at the moment is finishing a lot of smaller yet important features as well as fixing bugs. Aiming for the beta release. The paint/coloring features are coming as the first free update after our official 5.0 release.
Hello there, kind developer!
I just discovered this software and I am having an absolute blast. The trackpad zoom feature has always been very important for my workflow and I am so glad AP runs so well!
Can’t wait for a full release! However, the most recent updates are from summer 2022. So I am bit worried on how is the progress going. So I dearly hope, that it’s at least going, otherwise I would be oh so upset…!
Nevertheless, I just hope you are at least alright and AP will not just die and sink into abyss.
This is a REALLY promising project here.
Thank you very much Sofiia!
Yeah, we had a very unfortunate thing since last release, our main programmer had to move to another project, so we had to find a new great developer. This has taken some time sadly. But we are not sinking into the abyss! 😉 We are back at it with Davide our new guy! We are creating great features and improvements – and we hope to release Alpha 8 very soon!
Best,
Niels
I’m very impressed and excited about this software. It feels amazing to use and has so much potential still to be discovered.
I really hope you guys manage to get to full release with this.
Thank you very much. Yes, we are getting very close now. 😉
Hey there Niels! Just trying to know if there is any problem with the export feature of the application because when i try to play the exported files they can’t seem to play.
Hi Korolla, yes, I’m sorry, we are aware of a complex problem within the exporter of MOV and MP4. We are actually working on fixing it at the moment.
Luckily most people do not experience this problem at all. A few have it with MOV only and even less with both MOV and MP4 exporting. For some the exporter freezes and no file is ever created. For some, the export results in a file, but a corrupted one, that will not play (it seems that’s your situation) or will play with visual errors in it. So this is super annoying and frustrating for the people who have this problem. I have had it a few times my self, but far from always.
Do you export with audio included? This can have an effect if it works or not.
My best suggestion (other than to wait for our next update, that will hopefully have this completely fixed) is to export as a sequence of png files – and convert them to a movie file elsewhere.
And if you have only tried exporting as MOV, try if it works as MP4 – or vice versa. This is at least easier than the sequence of png’s.
I hope this helps you just a little. Let me know how it goes.
Best,
Niels
By exporting the file in a different location and it seemed to work.
Adding my voice/vote to the pencil roughness discussion — I think the lines are too dificult to get a clean line even after layering the lines several times over the texure gaps are still there. So it’s more like drawing on rough paper, not so much like drawing with a softer pencil. It makes using the lines in another program more difficult as well, if I want to inknpaint my stuff, becaue the broken lines don’t fill correctly.
Can’t wait for v8!
Thanks for your vote, Randy. I agree. It’s much better in my internal version now. Can’t wait to release Alpha 8…
Great software project! Simple and very very close to traditionnal ACME methods and tools.
Since 80’s, I have worked with every process in cartoons (line test on 16 and 35mm b&w negative, fantastic first video japanese linetest called NAC System Quick Action Recorder etc..and finally dedicated digital softwares..I’m dinosaur now ah ah!) Thank you for your work. Still can’t wait for the final release and to be continued my silly cartoons.
Federico Vitali
Cartoons director
Thank you Federico! Much appreciated. Make sure to tell me, if you find anything in Animation Paper that you find illogical or strange. I would love to hear your opinion.
Best,
Niels
Hi Niels! I wonder if the final version will have the option to print the x sheet? This would be useful for me to export the keyframes or the entire animation and send the sheet to an assistant for line cleaning or coloring or compositing.
It’s not something I have thought about. However, we do have, what I believe is maybe better ways to relay X-Sheet information. There are two methods: 1) You export as png files with alpha, where the naming of the individual files, includes info on which layer and frame number (with gaps in the number sequence if there are clones not to be painted). Maybe you have tried this already? The other method 2) is to export as OCA (Open Cell Animation format) – which saves the individual drawings like before, but also does a file that includes all the information for timing, layers, etc. This format can be imported by all animation software that supports OCA via a free plugin, like After Effects, Blender, Fusion, Krita and OpenToonz/Tahoma2D. This file is text based and can be read by your assistant as well. Read more here: https://animationpaper.com/animation-paper-oca-export-for-mac/ Let me know if this helps or if I misunderstood anything. Thanks, Niels
Thanks Niels! I’m going to try using the second method! Greetings!
By the way – if it is going to be read by somebody, they might want to import the file into a spreadsheet (csv), so you get the information nicely in rows and columns.
Oh I see, Thank you Niels!
Loving the program!
Any eta for Alpha 8 (or the full release? )
H T
Thanks Henry! We are on summer holiday right now – we only need one more issue to fix when we are back and then we can release Alpha 8. So during August at some point. Next up after that is the beta release and then the final!
Hola Neil cual es el código para abrir el programa!? Buen día desde México
Hi Robert,
You need to click the link and register – then you will get the activation key right away in your email inbox.
Hi! I don’t wanna be impatient (you can’t rush quality) but I’m just wondering if there are any updates on Alpha 8? You said sometime during August, and now it’s September. Did you run into any unexpected issues?
Yeah, you guessed it. I even said April at first – if I remember correctly. 🙁 We are now only struggling with one particular, but important, issue, that we just HAVE to fix before we can release it. At the same time we have been forced to change lead programmer – which causes all kinds of delays. That’s how it is on an indy-project like this. Unfortunately. But no worries. We are on top of things! 😉 We have our new guy and we will fix that annoying issue. After Alpha 8 we are aiming for the last features and going beta!