[Niels]

I see – thanks a lot Mike! Sounds good!

[Niels]

Hi Mike,

I have been reluctant to do tools for shapes (circles, rectangles, etc) – because I see it as less “analogue” hand drawn and a more technical thing. It needs to fit the vision. 😉 My thought have kind of been, you can just draw the shape you need (free hand). However, I do appreciate that there’s a legitimate need after all.

A quick and easy line tool is already on our todo-list (requested by many). Since you are mentioning the circle specifically, I would love to ask you how you see a circle stencil work for super easy and efficient use, without the UX feeling too “technical”? It’s of course not hard to implement in Animation Paper at all, but it is interesting to think about how to do it in the best possible way. Also, it shouldn’t be “too clever” so it just feels alien to people – it could also be totally fine to make it work like it does in other software. But an intuitive, easy, efficient solution is of course ideal.

While I’m in the mode of nerd’ing details. 🙂 Our plan is to do “nudging” of the lines, so when you have very close inbetweens, you can push the lines subtly, to make them sit exactly where you need them (less wobbly lines). With our line engine we can do perfect nudging without the line getting blurry. I’m excited to get to this and try it out my self 😉 Any thoughts on this idea?

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Thanks a lot Mike – I couldn’t agree more.

We have had some pumps on the road the last year – so things have been somewhat slow. Should be very close to the last Alpha release (Alpha 8) now though – and from then on to the beta fase and finally the actual 5.0 release! So excited about getting there…

[Niels]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for bringing this up. I saw the presentation. It’s of course hard to tell exactly how well it works without having tried it – but it looks great.

In my opinion it was a very sales’y presentation – I mean, rosy language (but that’s what the presentation was for, so understandable ;)). Much of what was said, I felt, could apply to Animation Paper too – so it will be interesting to check it out. Procreate is obviously good and popular, so it will be interesting to see how Dreams does. A scary competitor for me of course. 😉 But that’s how it is – healthy competition.

The price tag is amazing. I think $20 is super affordable. They must me planning on selling large quantities. He did mention quite a few times, that this-and-that was only the beginning and more would come, which tells me that the various features might be somewhat limited – on the other hand, they have had 5 years to develop it all. Even though 5 years can go by quickly – when developing animation software, I can tell you! Hehe 😀

About your size discussion, I am not sure. Once it is all digital, I feel it is super individual what people prefer. People have different habits (zooming/not zooming/drawing from wrist or arm/etc etc).

Looking forward to read what others have to say on this… 🙂 Please participate folks! 🙂

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Thanks Augusto!

[Niels]

That sounds great Pablo! Can I ask of you to email me with a little about yourself and mention that you can do translations to Spanish? That would be awesome! Let’s talk more through email.

My email address is the one you got your activation key from.

Looking forward to it,
Niels

[Niels]

Thanks a lot for your suggestion Pablo! Actually this is how it behaves when going full screen on Mac. I will investigate what it takes to do the same in Windows (and Linux).

Cheers,
Niels

[Niels]

Yes, I understand. Can’t wait myself! 😉

[Niels]

Haha – that’s great! I love how you achieve a certain artistic style by using the three layer colors of the software. 🙂 Cool!

[Niels]

Excellent suggestions Augusto. Thanks a lot. The first 4 is actually already on our todo list. 🙂

The fifth is not something I have thought of before. Seems very usable though. As you probably already know, you can move the divider to show more of the x-sheet, also you can set your thumbnails to a smaller size to make room for more, and finally, you can detach the x-sheet to have it in a separate window and make it as big as you like – you can even use a second monitor and have the x-sheet full screen there.

Let me know if any of this helps your situation with point 5 – I appreciate it is not exactly what you asked for. 😉

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

That would be great! Thank you!

[Niels]

OK, I completely understand.

But please give me more detailed observations/explanations. I am here to help! Hopefully I can fix the problem for you. But first I need to fully understand what is happening.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

That sounds strange. To be precise – is it both generally lagging with everything you do in AP – AND only drawing the stroke when you lift your pencil? (The last is a known bug, that we have fixed for the next release (Alpha 8 coming soon)).

Would you mind emailing me the .ap file in question? My email address is the one you got your activation key from.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

Thanks for asking Karengem.

We don’t have plans for a symmetry ruler actually. Could you please elaborate a bit on why it would be important to you?

You can actually already just load images to use for reference. This could be a model sheet, backgrounds, layouts, perspective grids/lines, photos or even video. In the current version video must be imported as a sequence of png or jpg frames or an animated gif. This is good for video reference, rendered 3D animation that you need to fit your 2D animation to, rotoscoping and more.

When you load one or more image files (png/jpg/gif) they will automatically show up in a new “reference layer”. Ref-layers can not be drawn upon, but you can adjust timing for it, i.e. add clones, copy/paste, link, etc.

You are perhaps thinking of a separate window to hold your reference in, but having it as a layer is great for many reasons, like easily adjusting its opacity.

Let me know what you think!

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

Hi Mike,

I am SOOO sorry. For some very weird reason, your post only showed up just now. I have no idea why it took so long (months). Maybe it has been caught by some of my spam filters or something…

Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing your excellent 11 second club animation. It’s great! How did it do in the competition?

I would be delighted to hear more about your TweenMaker. Sounds interesting. You’re most welcome to email me about it. My address is the one you got your activation key from (for spam-bot reasons I don’t write it here directly).

Thanks again – and sorry for my absolutely ridiculous approve and reply time!
Niels