Deformers?

[TheMinahBird]

I think Toon Boom is WAY to complicated, and I came to the conclusion that Anime Studio was way better.

It's just one thing I wish AS had, Toon Boom has a new feature of deformers that you can place on certain areas to warp them slightly giving the drawing a more organic feel. You can place it between the hair and the head, making it seem like it's really attached, I think it makes the bone movements more smooth and even if it's snappy it can still give a cool effect.

I think there are deformers in AS, but not like these, I tried to get the same effect from spreading bones around a face and just moving the according "dots" to squish the face appropriately. It ended in failure, but I'm sure there's a better way. I know smart bones are kind of like deformed in a way, but I think these are more convenient.

[Breinmeester]

I agree! I have scripted a proof of concept for warp deformers, but it needs a bit more work. I think the possibility to warp/deform (parts of) a sublayer in a group would be great!

[TheMinahBird]

What are the kinks? I'm really excited to see a video or your tool when it's done. I'm pretty sure it would be a great milestone in AS.

[synthsin75]

I must be missing something here. That video just looks like regular bone deformation.

[TheMinahBird]

I must be missing something here. That video just looks like regular bone deformation.

Like Breinmeester put it, it's more like warping a certain area. Anime Studio bones lock a shape, vector or group to a bone. It makes the bone move sharply or crisp only to that bone.

What the deformers do is give the area selected a more organic or "squishy" feel. You can show hair being pulled from the hair with out it seeming... vector-y or "flash"-y. I'm not sure how to put it but it can squish clothes, fabric or etc.

If you've seen Ever After High, they use the deformers perfectly, it kind of like a smudge tool.

Also when bones deform in AS (usually because layers aren't assigned to them) they aren't desirable or you can't manipulate them to look right, but if you had deformers that were better to control—it would be better.

[synthsin75]

I must be missing something here. That video just looks like regular bone deformation.

Like Breinmeester put it, it's more like warping a certain area. Anime Studio bones lock a shape, vector or group to a bone. It makes the bone move sharply or crisp only to that bone.

What the deformers do is give the area selected a more organic or "squishy" feel. You can show hair being pulled from the hair with out it seeming... vector-y or "flash"-y. I'm not sure how to put it but it can squish clothes, fabric or etc.

If you've seen Ever After High, they use the deformers perfectly, it kind of like a smudge tool.

Also when bones deform in AS (usually because layers aren't assigned to them) they aren't desirable or you can't manipulate them to look right, but if you had deformers that were better to control—it would be better.

It's called flexi-binding in AS, where the artwork is NOT locked to a single bone, but stretches organically among bone regions. I've seen EAH, and I'm still not impressed or convinced that anything special beyond what AS can do with bones is being done. And if EAH uses manual deformers that all have to be individually keyframed then they are missing out on what could be largely automated using AS dynamic bones.

[TheMinahBird]

I've seen flexi-binding, but I thought it was meant for images? Not vector shapes, well all of the videos I've seen were with images or how they can break them apart into separate limbs and such. So it would be easy for me to look past their ideal purpose.

Is it better than the deformers in the video above or just works a different way?

I think having them individually key framed makes it less computerized, but that's just me.

[synthsin75]

I've seen flexi-binding, but I thought it was meant for images? Not vector shapes, well all of the videos I've seen were with images or how they can break them apart into separate limbs and such. So it would be easy for me to look past their ideal purpose.

Is it better than the deformers in the video above or just works a different way?

I think having them individually key framed makes it less computerized, but that's just me.

Flexi-binding works for vectors as well. The only reason you separate the artwork when using flexi-binding is to isolate the influence to specific parts of the artwork, without interfering with others. But the offset bone tool has been largely replaced with the Use Selected Bones For Flexi-binding option, which accomplishes the same thing.

If you watch that video, you can see that each deformer behaves exactly like a bone, where one end translates and the other rotates (the lines connecting each deformer is nothing but the parenting hierarchy). So it doesn't even really work any different, as far as the video shows.

The thing with dynamic bones is that you can pick and choose which bones, and when, you want to handle them manually. Considering that EAH seems to use a pretty standard "bounce" to the deformations, doing it manually, over and over, would be needlessly tedious. But to each their own.

[Breinmeester]

What are the kinks? I'm really excited to see a video or your tool when it's done. I'm pretty sure it would be a great milestone in AS.

The kinks are combination with smart bones. I got sublayers to warp based on a rectangle with vertices, but it can't warp smartbone driven content inside.

[Breinmeester]

Maybe ill get around doing a screengrab of what ive got.