[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

[Niels]

OK, sad to hear even Alpha 7 doesn’t work for you. I’ll talk with the programmers and see if we can find a reason for this. I might be in touch if you can help test a possible fix.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

Hi Herb, sorry to hear that.

Did Alpha 7 work on your new tablet PC? If you haven’t tried it, can I get you to test? I have uploaded Alpha 7 for you here:

https://animationpaper.com/files/a7/AnimationPaper_x64.exe

It’s not that I want you to use Alpha 7 – it’s just to home in on what is wrong so we can fix it.

One thing to try with Alpha 8: I know that we have had problems earlier on some tablet PC’s. It might be a long shot, but try to locate the file “qt.conf” (probably here C:\Program Files\Animation Paper\qt.conf). Delete it or rename it (to save it). Then launch Animation Paper (Alpha 8) again.

This will force Animation Paper to use Windows Ink. Maybe that will solve the problem. Please let me know!

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

You might be right about the people wanting the faint cursor is probably the ones with a Cintiq or other screen tablet. Thanks again!

[Niels]

Thanks a lot for telling me this Harry. Normally it has been the other way around – people letting me know the cursor is too visible and distracting when drawing. But this is natural of course, people are different and have different preferences.

Apart from making the cursor “faint” or not, you can change it to a dot (which is fully opaque). Maybe that helps you?

Anyway, I will consider having more cursor options. Thank you!

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Hi Diego,

I have used Google Translate, and your message looks like this in English:

“Yesterday I started using the application, I activated it normally and it works quite well, I saw some tutorials and I already know how to use it, at night I closed the App which was supposedly activated, today when I am going to use it again it asks me for a Key, I assumed it was the one from my email and I used it worse it didn’t work, I don’t know what to do anymore”

That is strange indeed. When you use your activation key, Animation Paper is not supposed to ask for it again. But if it did, because it was reinstalled or something, it is totally fine to use the same key as used the first time. So I’m puzzled.

Did something change from yesterday to today? Does your computer have multiple users/logins?

Please let me know, and we can try to figure this out and help you!

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

Hi Barbora, do you have an older Windows PC with onboard graphics card by any chance? Please confirm to me what hardware you have and I can probably help you.

Also please email me. If this is what I think it is, I need to email you back with further instructions. My email address is the one you got your activation key from.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

Hi Kiki, thanks for your questions!

1) We have special stabilization build into the core of Animation Paper. It doesn’t work as the traditional smoothing algorithms that other programs tend to use – which is having drawbacks in certain situations. The Animation Paper stabilization takes more factors into account and it works automatically all the time. This is why it doesn’t have any settings. It works in a very subtle way, and often people don’t even realize it. But in fact it makes a big difference.

2) Yes, earlier in development we put in the names of features and tools to come into the menu (greyed out) – so people could see what was coming up later. However, as we are getting closed to the finished product and only a couple of things remained greyed out, it was more confusing than informative. The coloring and paint features are coming soon, but in the current version it is not yet done. To color your animation you can easily export your frames and color them elsewhere in any paint program. AP has great export options for taking care of timing and reused frames, etc. Also you can re-import your colored frames if you need to output it all as, say, an mp4 movie file.

3) Yes, when you export, your transparent areas will stay transparent. Just remember to turn on the “Include Alpha (transparency)” option when exporting. The alpha channel is available when exporting a sequence of png or OpenEXR frames and even with movie clips when exporting MOV ProRes.

Let me know if you have further questions!

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Well, that is kind of working against how AP works. Actually the reason for having the “clones” are exactly what you were trying to do with blanks.

So, you add and use the clone drawings (aka held frames) to do the timing of your key drawings. You can now keep the timing all the way through your work. So no need to delete anything and lose the timing. When you start to do breakdowns and in-betweens the clones will gradually be made into original drawings and the timing will stay the same all the way through.

Just stand on a clone and hit Clear Drawing, then it turns blank and you can draw your breakdown.

I can explain much more, if you want me to 🙂 I hope the above makes sense. Please let me know.

Thanks,
Niels