[Niels]

Hi Megan 🙂 You export it from AI as a PNG – then import it into Animation Paper (Go to the menu File -> Import).

Animation Paper will automatically create a reference layer with your imported image. You can also import multiple frames by shift selecting a sequence of png’s.

[Niels]

Hi Kuya! The problem is you have your imported background at 100% opacity. If you set it low – like 20% or so, it will not cover up everything.

[Niels]

Thanks Sarah. Yeah, I must admit that this is not obvious at all. As it is right now in alpha 2, the tool bar is always opposite the x-sheet. So you just change the x-sheet position and the tool bar will change too.

Shift Tap does it. 🙂

[Niels]

Thank you very much Rachel! I have the file downloaded now (if you want to delete it).

[Niels]

Hi Stanley,

Thanks for this. Actually, everything you mention (apart from one thing, recording of audio) are all coming soon during this alpha stage. 🙂

[Niels]

Thanks Anthony and Pedro!

For now it’s great if you can find ways to make it work and let us know – but at the end of the day it is up to me and my programmers to find a solution and build it into Animation Paper. We’ll get it right, no worries.

[Niels]

Hi Rachel,

Thank you for this. Would you mind sending me your file, so we can examine it? This will help us analyse and hopefully fix the problems.

But just to quickly touch on your questions:

1) Yes, making the lasso less taxing on the program is important. We will look into this.

2) We already have a system in place doing that. But it needs more optimisation.

3) I do not understand why this happens, no. This is the main reason we want to have a look at your file, to give us a clue.

Please send your .ap file to my email adress. Just reply to the email you got from me with your activation key.

Thanks a lot!
Niels

[Niels]

6 gb file? That’s insane. I’m sure you must have gotten a warning? This happens if you use the lasso to pick up parts and stamp them again NUMEROUS times in THE SAME drawing. If you keep doing it, Animation Paper will be very slow when picking up and stamping (only then) and it will take up a lot of memory (and file size) as you experienced. Again, only if you keep doing the same thing beyond this warning.

This is partly by design – but something we need to address and optimise.

To reset your bad drawing (or drawings), you now need to trace (re-draw) them onto a new blank frame. Don’t use the lasso to copy. It will just copy the problem to the new frame.

[Niels]

Thanks Tamas – if I understand it correctly, installing WinTab drivers can actually work for people not even using Wacom. I wish I could help you better and point you to the exact driver.

Anyway, we are working on making Animation Paper recognise more tablets and touch screens out of the box.

[Niels]

Sure. The drawing-engines are of course different and does different things. But we have plenty of things we can do to optimise. We will look into it when we get to it pretty soon. 🙂 Thanks!

[Niels]

Thanks Rebekah! Yes, exporting in a movie format is not ready yet. We plan to have it done in Alpha 4. Alpha 3 is released in a couple of weeks if all goes well. Then a few weeks later – Alpha 4.

[Niels]

OK, 4K resolution is very demanding.

I would rather work in lower resolution to get great speed and lag free drawing. As you may already know, Animation Paper will scale perfectly without degradation, blur or loss, so you can safely work at 2K or even 1K. And then just go to 4K or higher when you later want to export.

[Niels]

OK, it seems quite visible on my monitor – but monitors are different, so we might need to turn up the lines a bit. And we need to have a setting in preferences somewhere, so people can adjust as they please. Thanks, Ni Ni.

[Niels]

OK, I understand now. 🙂 Thanks. I think this might turn out to be too much for the scope of Animation Paper, but I’ll keep your points in the back of my head. We’ll see.

[Niels]

Thanks a lot Ni Ni. More options, like the ones you are suggesting, might come in future versions. But maybe the vertical way, modelled after the traditional exposure sheets, is just a matter of getting used to it?

The flip canvas horizontally is planned (you can already see it in the menu as greyed out “Mirror View”) and coming soon in one of the next alphas.