[Niels]

Yes, you can! Just go to the menu File -> Import and select your mp3.

It will show up as a waveform in the X-sheet (it requires some frames there to show). When you scrub or play you will hear the audio.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

I see! Thanks very much for explaining. Definitely makes sense.

Animation Papers autosave will not keep saving if you leave your computer for a while. It detects if there are activity or not.

[Niels]

Thanks a lot for these suggestions Ezekiel.

Interesting. To understand the need better, can I ask you to elaborate more on the Audio Scroll feature? Why do you find it important? Is it because it can take some time to scroll through a longer audio track? Why use the mouse buttons and not, say, some keyboard keys?

The point was to have the autosave as non-intrusive as possible. Ideally undetectable. But I must admit we are not quite there. It must not interrupt your flow by suddenly doing a save. If that is the case for you, we will rethink.

I don’t see a reason for a warning message when it wants to save. Please explain – I am very interested in what you think.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

OK, I see – makes sense. You’re welcome.

[Niels]

Hi Ezekiel, good luck with your project! Cool that you look for voluntary work – maybe a couple of young aspiring animators/artists will join you. However, this forum isn’t the most active, so I would look elsewhere too. You are probably already doing that. 🙂

I think that you should elaborate a little on what you mean by “test movement”. 😉 It confused me at least.

Also, I appreciate you are thinking of setting up a donation link for me and the team. That’s not needed though. But thank you very much.

All the best,
Niels

[Niels]

Technically speaking, in Animation Paper we have created one algorithm for doing the lines. The “Marker” and the “Pencil” is the same algorithm, the same technical settings, both of them goes down to half a pixel thick stroke – really the difference between the two is that the pencil has texture added to it. So if you need the pencil, but without the texture, then you use the marker. You can refer to it as the “mechanical pencil” 🙂 – it even fits with the shortcut M 😉

The lines in AP are simple digital representations – not the real thing. The marker and the pencil in AP ARE the same (except for one has texture and one has not).

[Niels]

Yeah, I think you are right. Thanks a lot.

[Niels]

Thanks a lot for your kind words! I completely get your points of the vertical/horizontal X-Sheet.

The reason for doing vertically like it is now, is simply because that was how it was done traditionally. It makes sense in many ways, I think. Also many animators have thanked me for doing it like this. 🙂 However it would make sense in other ways to have it horizontally. At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference – and you are not alone!

We do have a setting planned, so you will be able to choose from vertical or horizontal X-Sheet. So pretty soon you can have it as you (and others) suggest.

Thanks for mentioning it!

Best,
Niels

[Niels]

To change your keyboard layout, you add say, “US” (not “US-International”) – and then you can change between installed layouts using <Win>+<Space>.

[Niels]

I think Frederik (the lead AP programmer) has the reason for the problem…

You are probably using a keyboard layout with “Dead Keys” – like the “US-International” layout. This enable you to do special letters like “á”. If you type “´” + “a” it will give you “á”. This is why it holds back the first ‘ until you press it the second time and gives you both in one go.

So the solution is to change your keyboard layout. Or you could keep the one you got, and use the drag method I mentioned above. Alternatively, you can setup your speed dial to include Add Clone Drawing. Or if you really need to use the keyboard (and keep your layout), you can hit ‘ and then something else, like space.

I hope this helps, one way or the other. 😉 Please let me know.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

It is supposed to just add a Clone every time you hit the shortcut ‘

We will test this more in depth, but right now it seems to work as intended here.

BTW: Did you know, you can just drag down on the drawing in the x-sheet to add clones? Maybe that works better for you for now.

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

By the way, Frederik (the programmer of AP), suggests you try gst-play from gstreamer. If you are still having problems playing with Media Player, gst-play should hopefully work.

Still I would like to get to the bottom of this. Looking forward to your replies.

Thanks a lot,
Niels

[Niels]

OK, I see. Thanks a lot for testing this.

I got your email with the mov and ap file. I have now sent my exported mov back to you. Looking forward to see if that makes a difference (your mov and my mov was slightly different in size).

If not, it could be because you need to update your codecs.

Please let me know how it goes!

Thanks,
Niels

[Niels]

If AP exports with an error – or it actually exports correctly and it is a matter of you having the right codec installed – we can hopefully find out with me exporting from here and you try the resulting file with your Media Player.

[Niels]

Sorry about your bug report that vanished. It seems there was a problem (maybe still is?) with the forum. I can’t see your original post and I got nothing to approve. I am happy you are able to post this though.

For Alpha 8 we fixed a lot of problems with exporting of MOV with Alpha. Apparently there’s still one rare problem left it seems. I have heard of one more user who had similar problems as you. For some weird reason there’s no problem for most users – even with the exact same ap file and computer setup.

Do you have the problem if you try to export another animation of yours? (If you don’t have another, please just do a few quick doodles to do a test-export). This is interesting if it only happens once in a while or if it is consistant. Please let me know.

To get your animation exported correctly, I will be happy to help – please email your ap file to me (use wetransfer.com or similar means if the file is large) and I will send the mov file with Alpha back to you. My email address is the one you got your activation key from.

Best,
Niels