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Layers in backlight
I love using Animation Paper. It makes animating so easy and fun, with none of the hassle I've found in other software I've tried.
There are a couple requests I've seen others make that I agree with, eg. customisable shortcuts (because for example I love the quick zoom with 'z', but I'm left handed and it's awkward to cross my right hand over to 'z' while drawing), and a transformable reference layer (I like lining my model sheet up with my character exactly to check proportions).
But the one feature that would make a big difference to me, is being able to customise which layers are backlit. I can only see options for the current layer only, or all layers. Other software has tick boxes next to each layer you want to backlight. It helps when I have a character on two layers (eg. for hair or other overlapping action) and want to backlight surrounding drawings of the whole character for the tiedown, but only want to see the rough of my current drawing.
Or a bigger issue is when, say I have Layer 1 with drawings on 1, 2,3 and 4, but I'm drawing on Layer 2 with keyframes on 1 and 4. If I want to inbetween Drawing 2 on Layer 2, the backlight will show me drawings of 1 and 3 on Layer 1, but not show the Drawing 4 I need for Layer 2. It will instead backlight Layer 2's Drawing 3, which is blank. The only option currently is to backlight additional drawings (which could cause lots of unwanted lines to appear) or instead backlight only the current layer, which causes the issue I described above where I might want to backlight the entirety of a character drawn on multiple layers.
I hope this makes sense! In short, customising which layers are backlit would make some things much easier. Thanks!
Hi Bluelark,
Thank you so much for your kind words and excellent suggestion!
It does make very much sense. I created two scenes and followed along to make everything complete clear. Your detailed explanation is much appreciated.
I see why we definitely need to add backlight-switches to each layer. Usually there are drawbacks to consider before adding anything new - like things will inevitably become more complicated (UI, functionality in general, etc) - which I'm trying hard to avoid. However, this doesn't seem bad at all.
One thing I want to ask you though. In your second example, if we just had simple switches for the backlight on each layer, you would still not get your layer 2 drawing 4 shown. That is if we didn't change other stuff too. I mean, we would have to let the light table count the backlit drawings (+1 and -1) locally on each layer, right? But I'm sure we will run into confusing situations with this, having different frames backlit depending on the layers. Do you see what I mean? Maybe you have a solution to this in mind? I love to think and discuss these kinds of issues. Very interesting! How to make the best backlight functionality! I don't want to take a lot of your time, but I hope you will be able to come back to me and we can discuss this further... 🙂
Thanks,
Niels
Hi Niels,
Thanks so much for getting back to me! I'm glad my feedback is helpful.
For the second example, I don't know if this would be tricky from a coding point of view, but I wonder if making the backlight ignore cloned drawings within a layer would help? Or making that itself a toggle you can turn on and off, to resolve the issue you describe (I think) where backlit drawings look out of sync. Is that the confusing situation you're thinking of?
My problem came up when I had two characters in a frame, and they were on different layers with different timings. I'm currently away this weekend without my laptop and tablet, so can't test it, but would like to as soon as I can. I think I'd personally be more bothered by losing backlight functionality for precise inbetweens, than by backlit layers being out of sync, but I have to check. I imagine the issue also affects pose to pose layers when you've already done one layer straight ahead, or simply when you proceed to add a new cleanup or tiedown layer after doing a lot of drawings in your roughs. (Again, especially in circumstances when that cleanup or tiedown will still be on multiple layers.)
I'd like to check this and remind myself how other software does it. I know Krita has individual backlights per layer that only light the unique drawings, so I can see if I notice any issues with that.
OK, thanks. This is super interesting. I will dive into this some more tomorrow - but looking forward to hear about your findings!
I have been trying different things. Basically what is most ideal, I would argue, comes down to what exactly you are using it for. Sometimes you would want it to consider the layers individually, so it skips the clones (held drawings) and shows the previous and the next original drawing determined locally for each layer. This is what you are talking about. In other situations you might want to have it work like it currently does, where it considers each frame as a whole, so it show frames that has at least one original drawing in any of the (visible) layers of the frame.
Having two preferred ways of course calls for some kind of mode selection, so the user can decide depending on the situation.
Here's how our light table works currently, just to make it clear:
Basically it skips clones. However it is considering the complete frame, i.e. all visible layers of that frame - so if there's an original drawing in at least one layer of the frame in question, the frame will show up in the light table.
We can hopefully do a test to see if putting in a second mode, where it shows previous and next drawings determined locally for each layer, will be confusing or not. The confusion potentially coming from the fact that the drawings you see as, say, the next drawing, can originate from widely different frame numbers, i.e. be very far apart timing wise. But maybe that isn't important, when you are doing breakdowns or in-betweens in a certain layer. Not entirely sure. 🙂
Anyway, I think we need the backlight switch for each layer, as you suggested, either way.
Thanks for looking into this more! Also sorry for taking so long to respond. I didn't have a chance to investigate the layering until today, and had missed your last reply.
Your solution of adding in a second mode sounds ideal. After checking the backlight in the other software I use (Krita), I can confirm that yes, it skips clones on a layer by layer basis. This ends up with some awkward results, such as bald characters in the backlight (where you can see a character's next pose a few frames away in one layer's backlight, but the backlight of the hair is the current pose's follow-through). However, I have never found a problem with this in practice. I don't currently have any other animation software to compare their approach.
Despite the drawbacks of the awkward visuals, I think they're outweighed by the usefulness of a fully functional backlight for each layer. As well as inbetweens and breakdowns, I think it will also be necessary for keying in new elements (eg props or second characters) that must interact with existing layers you've already animated.
Interesting. Awesome of you to investigate and explain further. Much appreciated! Makes sense.
It's all noted and put on our todo list! Thanks again Bluelark!
Hi Niels, regarding the layers and the light table I would like to give my point of view, I think that the layers work very well as they are at the moment. I think the magnificent tool of removing the paper out of the pegs is useful for many things and can solve some problems mentioned here. I remember that the old PaP had the function of mixing the layers which could be useful in some cases. But leaving that aside, as it is now it seems perfect, simple and easy to me, without unnecessary complications. The only improvements that in my opinion could help are what I have already told you before, the tool of cutting an animation to enlarge or shrink it and place it in another position on the canvas. But other than that, the software is perfect just the way it is, simple, intuitive and powerful! And obviously waiting for the color tools that will come in the near future. I really love your Animation Paper because it is like drawing and animating on paper and it is the best way to put into practice all the knowledge of my Animation Heroes, Richard Williams, Bill Plympton and Preston Blair among many others!
By the way, when can we see the tutorial videos that are in process? Thanks Niels!
Thanks for your valuable views Rulomileg! This is noted too!
We do have the Transform tool implemented (for ref-layers). This will be part of beta 3, that we plan to release in a few days actually. The Transform tool will later be expanded to work on the regular line layers as well. And on a later date, we will make it "keyable", so you can do movement, like panning, zooming, etc.
We are working on the tutorial videos, but it is a lot of work, because we want it to be very accurate and ultimately contain everything you will find in AP, but have it be part of the videos in a natural way. I can't give you a timeframe, but it will take a while still.
Thanks,
Niels