[Niels]

Hi Roman,

Paint and coloring (and color palette) features are on our roadmap and will come in version 5.1, which is a free update from v5.0 licensholders.

This means you are not able to color using the current free pre-release (Alpha 8). However, you can easily export your animation using one of several ways – to get your animation into any paint program you might have already or any free one.

Let me know if you want me to go into more detail about exporting.

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Understandable. And then Animation Paper will be a relief when you finally switch over. 😉 Even though stuff will be somewhat different and therefore habits have to be unlearned.

Fun info – First version of Plastic Animation Paper was actually done in 1996. Over a period of 8 years we developed it and lot’s of people loved and used it for professional music videos, TV series, commercials and even feature films. But at some point we had to abandon it, it was getting old (just look at the UI!) :D, so we decided to release it for everybody and make it free. Many years later I decided to start over and create the modern and much improved version of it, found the right partners – and here we are. Soon releasing the finished Animation Paper v5.0 and hopefully start getting some income 😉 Then we of course keep developing it towards v6.0 and also expanding it to iPad and Android devices.

Anyway. Thanks for using our software – old or new! 😉

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Oh, I am so sorry to hear that Ksenija. If it wasn’t saved at all, then there’s nothing we can do. We do have an autosave function, but unless you turned it on, then that is not much help either.

Remember, Animation Paper is in development, so bugs like this must be expected – even though it is very unfortunate. You need to save once in a while – or use the autosave.

Do you remember what it was you were doing when it happened? Did it show any error message or something else? Did Animation Paper just suddenly close? Please describe it as best as you can. Also what computer OS and version you are using. Important information, so we can rid of this problem. Of course it doesn’t hep you with your 2 hours of work. Sadly.

[Niels]

I’m happy you found a solution, Angelo! I was worried I wasn’t able to help you, because PAP 4.0 is 20 years old and with all the new Animation Paper 5.0 development I can’t remember such details 😀

Have you tried any of the alpha releases of Animation Paper yet?

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Coloring will come in the first free update after the major release we are working on now. So the major release is the official version 5.0. This is the one all the alpha versions are leading to. This will be in a relatively few months from now and it will be sold for $79 usd for the full license (no subscription). After that we will do the 5.1 with paint and coloring, which will be free for all 5.0 owners.

I am not suggesting you wait with your coloring projects, so in the meantime you can use the excellent export possibilities in Animation Paper – to get your animation over in any other software that you can color in, i.e. any paint package, free or commercial.

[Niels]

OK, thanks a lot for telling me. Valuable hints for us to understand the problem. And I’m glad it works for you now!

[Niels]

Thanks Landon. Then I like your first suggestion better. Haha 😀 I mean, giving almost the main software away for free and then do a version that has the most pro features, but still is very inexpensive doesn’t sound like we will get our efforts paid for unfortunately. Of course we could then have the pros pay more, but what I wanted was having one version that is the same for all – and have it so inexpensive that virtually everybody could afford it.

If a free version should make sense for me, it should be a SUPER slimmed down version. We actually did this with the predecessor, Plastic Animation Paper. Back then we had PAP:Free, PAP:Home and PAP:Pro. I still believe one version is better these days.

[Niels]

That’s great to hear Tomasz! Thanks.

[Niels]

OK, thanks a lot for letting me know, Haribamus. This is important, because we don’t see this problem on our Win11 installs. We might get back to you, to get a possible fix tested, if that’s OK?

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

I appreciate you share more about how you work and use various software throughout your workflow. That’s great! Thanks a lot.

Yes, the Scale setting when exporting movie clip is what I meant. Of course it makes sense to have the same option when exporting a sequence of frames and this is what we already plan to implement and (if all goes to plan) will be included in our next release.

Thanks!
Niels

[Niels]

Thanks a lot for mentioning this Beatiz. Noted! Earlier AP supported up to 8K, but at some point we decided to set lower limits because of compatibility issues on some older hardware. However, we are working on changing a few internal structures, to make super high resolutions possible. Of course how smoothly this will run is of course dependent on how fast a computer people have, how many layers, etc – but at least the option should be available.

For now, are you aware that when you export your animation (if you like to composite your scenes doing the camera panning etc) – you can export in higher resolution than the one you worked in? So if you worked in say, 2K resolution (with a low res version of your layout/background), you can easily export in 4K, 8K or even 16K, thus getting the frame sizes you need for the panning. As you may already be aware of, all your lines will be re-rendered when exporting, so everything will be crisp and high resolution (not blurred upscaled “garbage” as some might expect).

Anyway, thanks again! Your request is very relevant and something many people will need. We will do something about it!

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Well, it is not much work at all. But I don’t understand how you could check if a program is right for you, if it is a completely stripped down version. My hope was that I made it so inexpensive, so virtually everybody could afford it. Also, I wanted to keep it all simple, so only having one version (the real full version), that is made for the pros, but so easy to work with that beginners will love it too. Everybody would use the same and have the same reference. The price could easily have been much higher as many of my competitors software are.

Please let me know more. I am genuinely interested in fully understanding your point. It is not out of the question to make a completely free version.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

Yes, the alpha stage is soon over (meaning we are feature complete). Then we’ll have the beta stage. Only for as long as it takes to iron out the last remaining bugs (a few months).

Then we will start selling Animation Paper. It will only be $79 USD (introductory offer). And this is not a subscription – it’s a lifetime license.

We will have only the one version. However, we will have a fully functional trial, so you can try it for free for 2 weeks before possibly buying it.

The official version coming out costing $79 is called v5.0. We will keep developing and release a v5.1, v5.2, etc. All these point-upgrades are free for v5.0 license holders.

All alphas and betas will eventually stop working (license expire).

I hope you think this is very fair?

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

So far it seems to run just fine on the Win11 we tested ourselves – and I haven’t heard from anybody but you about it. But still, we need to investigate this further to make sure.

[Niels]

Hi Klinger,

I am not sure what exactly you are asking. Sorry. But if you were trying to register for an activation key, I have just done it for you. So please look again in your inbox/spam folder for it – it should be there now.

Thanks,
Niels