[Dave Nielsen]

I love this app, Niels. One thing I am struggling through is how to preserve my timing when migrating to After Effects. I’d like to do my initial animation in Animation Paper but paint in Photoshop. Unfortunately AE’s import options discard holds on PNG sequences with gaps in the numbering. Not quite smart enough!

Next I tried painting in PS and importing back to Animation Paper, hoping Animation Paper would rebuild the holds when there were numbers missing in the sequence. Unfortunately, Animation Paper is just as impartial as PS or AE when interpreting these sequences and doesn’t reconstruct the holds.

One workaround is to look at the original layer and quickly rebuild the hold durations based on it, then export the full sequence. Unfortunately this way, AE doesn’t know where the holds are, so if I want to do effects on specific “cels”, that process becomes more manual to manage. The ideal scenario might be an importer script that recreates the timing in Photoshop and/or AfterEffects. The creator of DUIK has attempted to create an open format for I/O between apps. Something like that could be a useful option. Additionally the creator of Rough Animator has built his own I/O setup for AE, Animate and Toonboom.

Understandably, this may come further down the line. I see you have an XML import for the X-Sheet in the works, so maybe this will make some of what I’m saying possible. Thanks for considering it!

[Niels]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for bringing this up. I totally agree with you.

And you are right, the XML export option (we call it Export > X-Sheet… in the menu) is part of our plan to support a seamless collaboration between various software – especially post production like compositing and editing. Internally we have import to Final Cut Pro via xml running super smoothly. So we are on it. What you bring up is my main focus for making Animation Paper part of a good pipeline.

And you are right on the other point too! Absolutely idiotic, that AP doesn’t even import using the same number system for skipping holds! Of course we need to correct that. Thanks a lot for bringing it to my attention. Kind of embarrassing I didn’t even… 🙂

If we quickly implement this addition to our importer, then you could color in, say Photoshop, and then reimport your colored frames into AP and export again in an unbroken sequence (or movie file).

I’ll see if we can make that happen quickly. I’ll let you know.

Best,
Niels

[Dave Nielsen]

That sort of thing is easy to miss! No worries. Adobe has decades of dev time and tons of good engineers and they assumed the user wants color bars to appear if frames are missing. I’m annoyed with their implementation, but hand-drawn animation is an after thought for that software.

You’re still in alpha with your small team and making a killer product! Thanks Niels.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Dave Nielsen.

[Niels]

Thanks Dave.

Today we agreed to prioritise improved import functionality (to respect skipping frame numbers for holds). So hopefully in a matter of days, you will have an update! 😉

Cheers,
Niels

[Dave Nielsen]

Awesome! Thanks.

[Niels]

Hi again Dave,

We just did an Alpha 4.1 release! Check it out: https://animationpaper.com/2021/08/20/quick-alpha-4-1-update/

Best,
Niels