Animating?

  • #50, by MachtnixSaturday, 18. February 2017, 22:11 7 years ago
    With sprite parts you could swap out parts of the animation instead of requiring a completely new animation/outfit.
    Hm, but that isn't an advantage for Visionaire, right? You have to import the whole frame (maybe as png) in every case - with hat or not. But for making the different loops it's good. I do the same workflow in Cinema, but after rendering I have thousands of frames with hat or without hat and so on and I have to sort them useful.

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  • #51, by sebastianSaturday, 18. February 2017, 22:25 7 years ago
    With sprite parts you could swap out parts of the animation instead of requiring a completely new animation/outfit.
    Hm, but that isn't an advantage for Visionaire, right? You have to import the whole frame (maybe as png) in every case - with hat or not. But for making the different loops it's good. I do the same workflow in Cinema, but after rendering I have thousands of frames with hat or without hat and so on and I have to sort them useful.
    you could export the spine data as a png sequence, yes. But you are also able to use the spine file (. json?) and use and manipulate it inside VS...

    the main reason to have such a program smile 

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  • #52, by MachtnixSaturday, 18. February 2017, 23:23 7 years ago
    With sprite parts you could swap out parts of the animation instead of requiring a completely new animation/outfit.
    Hm, but that isn't an advantage for Visionaire, right? You have to import the whole frame (maybe as png) in every case - with hat or not. But for making the different loops it's good. I do the same workflow in Cinema, but after rendering I have thousands of frames with hat or without hat and so on and I have to sort them useful.
    you could export the spine data as a png sequence, yes. But you are also able to use the spine file (. json?) and use and manipulate it inside VS...

    the main reason to have such a program smile 

    Hm, sorry, I have never worked with spine. I have no idea how it works, because I don't use 3D functions of Visionaire. Is it the brand of the esoteric software (which produce the tool) like motion data? Is it a file format? My cinema version can only import/export sth. like Collada, VRML or FBX and that's uncomfortable because I have to use the same standard-rig to get the motion data on the right joints. So I can make a lot of 2D-animations, but without "spine" data...

    I'm looking at esotericsoftware.com. In the test-version I can't save and export files to test them in Visionaire, that make no sense...

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  • #53, by F_KalSaturday, 18. February 2017, 23:44 7 years ago
    @ke4, sorry no feedback on DragonBones (for now)! I installed the software, launched it but then I realized that at the same time I was already juggling between 3 different projects between Photoshop, Affinity Designer, was composing posts on 3 different fora, had 70+ open Chrome tabs and was at the same time refreshing my Visionaire studio knowledge -  Grudgingly I quit the application and promised myself that I'll come back to it another day :-)

    But I find very inspiring when following official twitter accounts of such software (twitter: @dragonbonesteam, @EsotericSoft, @moho_animation and @Spriter2D - that they often showcase via retweeting nice GIFs made with their software.  At the very least it's proof what can be done with their software too ;-)

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  • #54, by F_KalSaturday, 18. February 2017, 23:54 7 years ago
    Regarding tablets,

    I gave up traditional media and have been using wacoms (first a PS2/COM1 PenPartner and now an Intuos 4 M) since the mid 1990s. After all these years, I still haven't managed to get confident with not looking at what I'm drawing - My left hand is hovering cmd/ctrl+Z redrawing every single stroke until I can get it right. I'm starting to think that maybe I'll never get as accurate as I was on paper :-/

    the awkward moment that you are looking for cmd+Z on a piece of paper - does this sound familiar?

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  • #55, by afrlmeSunday, 19. February 2017, 00:23 7 years ago
    Regarding tablets,

    I gave up traditional media and have been using wacoms (first a PS2/COM1 PenPartner and now an Intuos 4 M) since the mid 1990s. After all these years, I still haven't managed to get confident with not looking at what I'm drawing - My left hand is hovering cmd/ctrl+Z redrawing every single stroke until I can get it right. I'm starting to think that maybe I'll never get as accurate as I was on paper :-/

    the awkward moment that you are looking for cmd+Z on a piece of paper - does this sound familiar?
    If you switch to mouse mode it feels a lot more natural as the cursor moves around the screen - even when you hover slightly above the tablet. I found pen mode on my wacom bamboo one very awkward because of the small size of the tablet & having to guess where to press down on the tablet & the fact that you hand movements didn't reflect the size of what you were drawing on the screen. I tried to write my signature with it & it took loads of attempts as I was trying to write it from muscle memory at the same size as I write it on paper & it would end up massive in photoshop. Forking money over for one of those tablets with a built in screen like the Cintiq would be a waste of money for me as I'm shit at drawing & it would just end up collecting dust in a corner somewhere & not to mention the fact that one of those things probably cost more than my custom built pc.

    https://www.macnificos.com/sites/files/styles/product_page/public/images/product/wacom-cintiq-22hd-touch-mac-pc-pl117371_0.jpg?itok=gQql06uI

    Even the 13" model is almost as expensive as a decent custom built pc - or the equivalent price of 2 shitty old secondhand Ford Fiesta cars. grin

    P.S: I find the prices really amusing as the screen ones are essentially a laptop with touchscreen display or a regular tablet all of which you can get for way less than those things cost.

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  • #56, by F_KalSunday, 19. February 2017, 00:40 7 years ago
    couldn't agree more with your arguments against pricing of a Cintiq! Microsoft Surface Studio sounded like a good  competition against the iMac+Cintiq solution (eventhough it's still very pricey and I've read that people still prefer cintiques over the microsoft all-in-one).

    I've heard lots of good stuff about AstroPad (software that allows to use your iPad as a display tablet) but I don't have an iPad/iPad Pro and I suppose one needs additionally a wacom/apple pen (supporting pressure) to use it....
    Still having said that, it looks a more affordable a solution if you already happen to have an ipad!

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  • #57, by F_KalSunday, 19. February 2017, 00:44 7 years ago
    as for the mouse mode... well, I never thought of doing that - For me mouse mode was the indication that the wacom driver had crashed!

    It feels a bit awkward loosing the ability to jump around on your canvas, but I can see the benefits of knowing exactly where the next stroke is going to start -I think I'll be testing it like that for the next few days! Thanks!

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  • #58, by elecSunday, 19. February 2017, 00:46 7 years ago
    In my current Game Development i actually tried everything. At first i used my mouse to draw. It was awful. But i guess somehow it worked out. Then i got a Graphic Tablet from a friend, and that was way better, but still it was kinda tough.
    I got myself a Cintiq 13 HD now, and yes, it is very pricy, but oh boy, is drawing fun now. I just sit down and draw Stuff for Fun, i dont think anymore its "Work for my Game".
    So if you generally into Drawing, start to save up money, because this Cintiq Things are awesome.

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  • #59, by ArtNovaSunday, 19. February 2017, 02:46 7 years ago
    Just checked prices again. No, not my case in near future I think smile
    As the main problem in my opinion - is precise stroke drawing, which is most of the time used in lineart or inking (I think, there is no problem with rough sketching, right?) I decided to give a chance to Manga studio (or Clip Studio Paint, which is the same) which have vector layers besides of raster ones, with ability to manually control lines by vertices after they was drawn, their thikness, to trim intersected ones etc. Afaik SAI also good for this purposes.
    All other tasks such painting, color blending, shading dont need that level of precision in my opinion, therefore much easier to do.

    Link to Clip Studio Paint trial:

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  • #60, by F_KalSunday, 19. February 2017, 04:06 7 years ago
    Clip Studio Paint is awesome indeed, and the brush smoothing algorithm is amazing! Not to mention the price that regularly gets down to 25€ (coincidentaly today it's discounted on amazon.com at 25$ - boxed)! But I think now we are moving away too much from the topic of Animation (even though clip studio paint "in theory" does animation)

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