[Niels]

Thank you Overton.

[Niels]

Hi Michelle,

It looks like you are using the lasso tool a lot – is that maybe the case?

I tried your ap file (your drawings look great by the way!) – and I get this warning:

 

Did you get this warning at some point? The problem is that every time you use the lasso, your data that is used to rebuild your drawing is multiplying. This is normally not a problem, but if you keep copying with the lasso on the same drawing eventually it will start taking up a lot of memory. This makes it slow when undoing and more lassoing.

There is no need to export/import as you suggest (although this would work) – the better way forward is to trace your drawings on a new layer. I mean, probably all your drawings have the lasso problem, if you keep building the next drawing with a lasso copy of the previous one. So create a new layer (shortcut N) and do a clean up pass, as you often would do anyway. I.e. redraw every drawing without using the lasso, just draw/trace using your rough layer below as reference. Once you are finished, you delete your rough layer and save as a new file. Then you should be down to a small file size and a fully working animation.

For those who like to use the lasso a lot, I know this sounds like a weird problem. There’s many very good reasons why we chose to make Animation Paper like this. Like the ability to change resolution or scale up with the lasso without having the drawing degrading or blurring in any way. But not being able to use the lasso freely seems to be a problem for some people who are used to this way of working. That way of working is of course fine – and we want to create a solution for you. So we plan to do this for one of the next alpha releases.

But for now, it is the redraw/delete method that works best. 😉

Let me know if this makes sense and how it goes!

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Thanks for the specs – you understood correctly.

I don’t believe is would make any difference if you reinstall. But you are welcome to try – if it somehow works please let me know, because that will be a hint to us as to what is causing the problem.

 

[Niels]

Wow – thank you very much for your kind words. I just really love what I’m doing – especially forming Animation Paper is a lot of fun!

[Niels]

Hi Bo,

This is a known bug, that happens only for a few. Others who have reported this was able to export as a sequence of png files instead.

Thanks for letting me know! And sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll fix it for Alpha 6 which should be released in a few weeks.

Can I ask which system and hardware you are using?

Cheers,
Niels

[Niels]

Layer opacity is already in. I admit it could be easier to spot! I am trying to think of a better way to display it… 😉

Anyway, it’s at the bottom of each layer (column) in the x-sheet. You click on the checker/color thingy, and you will have a slider to adjust it from 0 to 100% opacity.

[Niels]

No problem Mike 🙂

yeah, the red frame number was supposed to indicate that it can’t keep up. However, right now there’s a bug with it, so it will turn red at odd times – even when it is absolutely not struggling. 🙂 we’ll get it fixed soon.

Doing your animation scene for scene is normally the way to go. And then edit them together afterwards as you suggest. This is often a simpler way of working and also is less demanding on memory usage. However, it should be perfectly doable to have a few scenes together as one file – no problem. But why it is in your case is puzzling…

For now try the scene by scene approach. When Frederik (programmer) is back, we might be able to investigate this better.

[Niels]

Hi Kirian,

But aren’t you already using Animation Paper? Then you ARE alpha (and soon beta) tester! If you haven’t downloaded it yet – feel free! Download pre-release – as it says in the menu above.

[Niels]

Thanks Mike 🙂 Our plan right now is to do alpha 6 and 7 and then we should be feature complete. This means we can go to beta. Beta will probably be three months from now and then a couple of months in beta getting the last bugs fixed – and then! We can release the finished 5.0 and letting people buy it. If we don’t run into anything unexpected then that is hopefully it. At least roughly speaking.

[Niels]

Oh, that actually makes great sense to me. Thanks for explaining, Mike! This is noted for great features for future versions.

[Niels]

Came to think – are you out of memory maybe? Could you check how much memory is free on your system before you load your ap-file and after?

[Niels]

Hi again Mike,

Sorry for the delay. My programmer has been off sick and now he is on vacation, so unfortunately I couldn’t get him to take a closer look at your file. But I have looked at it my self. First of all, what a great song and nice and funny idea for the video. I like it.

I don’t see anything that pops out as problematic with your animation, layers, background layers etc. Also, whatever the resolution or complexity each frame would have, it is all cached and should play perfectly. And actually it does play perfectly here at my end.

Looking at your computers specs above, that looks fine too. So unfortunately I can’t explain the lagging you experience.

What happens when you switch off one, two or three layers before playing? Does that change anything? I don’t expect it will.

I converted your file from 1920 x 1080 to 1280 x 720. I have emailed it back to you. Going to a lower resolution should have a positive impact for you. Let me know if that helped or not?

And by the way, when you are done with your video, you can just change resolution back up to 1920 x 1080 and have all your details intact. Do that before you export your final video. No visual information lost, no blurring. It’s AP magic 😉

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

Hi Mike, thanks for explaining. Yeah, I know. There’s a few apps (like Clip Studio, Sketchbook and Photoshop) that is painting programs but introduced some kind of animation capability as a patch on top. Animation Paper is designed and built for animation from the start. Completely different.

Alpha 6 is not far away. But as I mentioned on the blog some time ago, we have decided to get Animation Paper done without the coloring features first. We need to get it out soon. And it will be soon now. Animation Paper 5.0. People will like it is complete in the sense that it is fully tested and features works fully as intended. And then, immediately after, we release 5.1, which has a the coloring features. This will be a free upgrade for all who bought 5.0.

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

[Niels]