Help Shape the Future of Anime Studio

[Greenlaw]

Also pay attention to the Immune To Camera Movement option for the layer. It needs to be on if you want your drawn or imported guides to stick to the camera's 'lens'. FYI, this feature is also useful if you've imported an animatic or reference art and you want it to stay relative to the camera as you animate.

BTW, I agree--the current native guides system needs to be more flexible and interactive. I would use it more if it was. (Right now I only use the grid for arranging Bone Dials.)

[Noisefever]

Has (animated) SVG export already mentioned? I mean there is SVG import and there is Flash export. Flash is unusable is for the web nowadays because mobile browsers don't support it and Firefox blocks it by default. SVG is able to be anomated and so it should be the successor to Flash.

And a global grid, which don't move with the layer

[KuzKuz]

Hi, please add new features to soft edge shape effects:
1 - options for outside shape offset blurring, inside offset and default middle.
2 - option to draw soft edge blurring only on not transparency pixels on current layer.



And please, fix mask issues. How many years we must wait for this? I know, i can fix exclude stroke issue with reference layers, but it additional work and killing model performance.

[eric1223]

There is something I do not like about the freehand tool. When Auto wield is on, it automatically connects intersecting lines instead of just the beginning or ending points (or points that you choose).

Before you call me crazy or something, hear me out! Lets say you want to overlap 2 different shapes. With the add point tool with auto wield on, you can do this very easily. All you have to do is make one shape, then make another one that intersect it, and the 2 shapes won't wield together. But if you try to do the exact same thing with the free hand tool, it doesn't come out right. It merges the shapes, which isn't what I want. There is a a gap where I want the overlap to be. I'd have to delete the shape, and remake them into their own, which kind of defeats the purpose of trying to use the freehand tool for this.

The only way you could get somewhat get what I want is if you turn on auto close. HOWEVER!!!!! That would mean that I would have to draw everything in 1 stroke. That's a no no, for me at least.

Can there be an option for the free hand tool to not merge shapes when auto wield is on? If I wanted to merge shapes, I could just start on a shape's vector lines. Also make it work to where where it only wield the points you want it to wield? As of now, the freehand tool is tedious for me to use properly.

[eric1223]

I have an idea for the paint bucket tool.

How about an option (checkbox) to "make complex shape?"

Sometimes, I would like to use the paint tool to change a shape properties instead of making a entirely new complex one (when other shapes overlap).

[nabil]

Can you guys add a live animation feature to the next ASP ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmPo0_WZyPU

[BMitchley]

New Editing tools for Bitmap Layers in Anime Studio Pro 11

Currently there is only a crop tool and image masking tool to edit the bitmap layer and Trace Image to convert the bitmap layer to a vector layer.

Is it possible to add a cutter tool which acts like a selection tool to select a part of a bitmap or vector layer, which is able to separate or cut the selection by means of dragging, copy and paste, or Ctrl+J in the same way as an image editing program?
It will help to reduce time with creating cut-out animation if something had to be edited quickly without having to go back to the image editing program.

With regards to Trace Image it will be great if this action could already be added as an option when importing an image. It could be included in a popup window as the image is imported.
Trace image color setting can be improved. At the moment when converting a bitmap layer to vector, using the color setting to best quality, the converted layer resembles a cut-out filter from Photoshop, and does not look like an exact copy of the original bitmap layer. If the image was flattened to become one shape or texture, it can be edited as one vector shape, like a shape with a texture fill.

[onurdemirsoy]

It would be great to have iOs version of Anime Studio. iPad Pro and Apple Pencil shows us tablets will be preferred devices to create art in the future.

[onurdemirsoy]

I would like to resize and undock swatches panel. It is very tiny and less useful with this size.

[chucky]

I would like to resize and undock swatches panel. It is very tiny and less useful with this size.

You don't need that actually, with the new eye droppers everywhere you could just open your swatch image in irfanview for example and have it set to always on top. Resize that anyway you like and put it anywhere on your screens and sample the colour from there.

Solved

[Greenlaw]

Yes, the swatch panel is just an image...you can put anything in there to sample from, and it doesn't even have to be 'swatches'. As Chucky points out, the image doesn't even need to be in the panel, it just needs to be visible. (I use XnView but pretty much any viewer that allows 'always on top' should work. Sometimes I'll even sample from images open in Photoshop over on a second monitor.)

That said, I agree that it would be an improvement to make the panel undockable and resizeable because it's not really a 'swatch' panel, it's just an image viewer.

BTW, the 'tinyness' of the panel (and the UI in general) was a real issue for me when I first got my Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 because of the tablet's super high resolution (2560 x 1440). IMO, this res is just too high for a small-ish 13 inch screen. What I wound up doing is disabling Windows scaling and lowering screen res to something more reasonable (1920 x 1080), which works much better for ASP on this display. (BTW, this has been true for most programs, including Adobe applications, not just ASP.)

[onurdemirsoy]

I would like to resize and undock swatches panel. It is very tiny and less useful with this size.

You don't need that actually, with the new eye droppers everywhere you could just open your swatch image in irfanview for example and have it set to always on top. Resize that anyway you like and put it anywhere on your screens and sample the colour from there.

Solved

Great idea thanks

[onurdemirsoy]

Yes, the swatch panel is just an image...you can put anything in there to sample from, and it doesn't even have to be 'swatches'. As Chucky points out, the image doesn't even need to be in the panel, it just needs to be visible. (I use XnView but pretty much any viewer that allows 'always on top' should work. Sometimes I'll even sample from images open in Photoshop over on a second monitor.)

That said, I agree that it would be an improvement to make the panel undockable and resizeable because it's not really a 'swatch' panel, it's just an image viewer.

BTW, the 'tinyness' of the panel (and the UI in general) was a real issue for me when I first got my Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 because of the tablet's super high resolution (2560 x 1440). IMO, this res is just too high for a small-ish 13 inch screen. What I wound up doing is disabling Windows scaling and lowering screen res to something more reasonable (1920 x 1080), which works much better for ASP on this display. (BTW, this has been true for most programs, including Adobe applications, not just ASP.)

Yeah I know it is just an image but also I use a wacom with huge screen. 27qhd has also 2440 x 1440 resolution and all I need is scalable swatches panel. Current swatches panel is really tiny on a huge screen and it is a real pain to use it. I like chucky's idea. I will try it as soon as possible.

[ladlon]

I've been using After Effects for my animaton for pretty much most of my career, and I'm very impressed wtih the surprising quality and range of features in Anime Studio Pro (which I bought when it was in version 10). I have been tinkering around with it, and learning all the features, with hopes that I may actually switch over to it as my main animation tool.

However, there are a few things that I find make it a bit awkard or frustrating to use, so I'd like to list some of them, in hopes that they get addressed.

I know that some people may want it as it is, while others may want it some other way, so I always suggest that everything be made OPTIONAL... ideally have everything customizable, and that way everyone is happy.

Some of my thoughts/suggestions (...sorry if any of these were mentioned by others in the past, or if they already exist!):

-An option to display toolbar and timeline channel icons as text, rather than icons. The icons are not only small, but also a bit hard to distinguish between each other. Making them bigger would just make the interface more wonky, so I think the option to make them horizontal text bars/buttons would really help to make things clear and clean.

-Have the camera icon in the 3D view a true 3D object, rather than a flat object... just for better visuality.

-Fully customizable hotkeys (keys AND mouse control) for ALL features/actions.

-Have a command history, and allow the user to select any of the actions on the list, and immediately set a keyboard shortcut for it (... as you can in programs like Modo). This allows easy keyboard shortcut editing, without having to search through large lists of commands, trying to figure out which is the one you want. Just trigger the command (by shortcut or button), click on the item in the command history, and immediately set a new key for it.

-Have exact keyframe values visible when hovering over keyframe icons.

-Have unique keyframe shapes in timeline to indicate that keyframe's interpolation (like After Effects does), so you get a full overview of ALL the keys, as well as not having to click on each individual one to see what interpolation it is.

-Option to have newly created layers auto-name, so you don't have to immediately fill in the field each time (and you just rename it later).

-Option to create multiple new layers at once (ex. 5 new vector layers).

-Ability to use (mathematical) expressions for values, and refer to other channels in those expressions (like After Effects).

-Keyboard command to cycle through Switch layer items, rather than having to mouse click through the menu in the layer window.

-Numbered timeline markers that you can jump between using number keys (like After Effects).

-Why isn't Relative Keyframing done automatically when multiple keys are selected? What else would you want to happen if you had multiple keys selected, other than moving all the keys relative? Should just do it automatically when more than one key is selected (or at least by default).

-Ability to easily crop timeline duration to current bracketed work/loop range (button above the timeline), rather than having the timeline extend past the range, and having to manually zoom in to fit that area to the visible timeline.

-Ability to scale only one side of the item (ex top only) as opposed to both opposing sides scaling in/out... essentially scaling from opposite edge, but without having to manually move the center point. Do by holding down a key modifier (ex. ALT) while grabbing edge.

-Complete customizablity of interface colours. Right now, there is a frustrating situation where some text areas share the same background colour/palette slot, yet some have light text, while others have dark... requiring the background to always be mid-grey if ALL the text is to be seen. I had finally found a combo that works (tool icons and text is actually visible in all lighting conditions... yet later found the Library window ended up with black text on a black background! You need to either not share background palette slots amongst windows that have different text colours, or keep all backgrounds and/or text consistant (light on dark, or dark on light). The two default grey palette presets make the tool icons hard to see in some lighting conditions. Improving/altering one colour often leads to other areas getting worse (since palette slots are shared, and some items cannot be altered... so boosting the brightness of a background in one area (to make the dark FG items more visible) will often result in FG items in another area (that shares that same BG colour, but uses LIGHT FG icons, which can't be altered) becoming very hard to see.

-Have the UI palette editing window allow you to click on the actual UI areas you wish to change, to select them. It's really tedious having to guess what each slot description is referring to (and having to change each one temporarily, exit out, see what actually changes, and go back to the editor, repeating until you end up finding the thing you are trying to change... especially when some changes require the program to be rebooted.

-Ability to animate or randomly fluctuate colours (hue, saturation and/or brightness) via an expression or built in modulator.

-Ability to set the various Switch layer threshold levels for the Auto Lipsync.

-A window that displays all current markers in a list, along with their frame/timecode location, with the ability to delete or add more by simply clicking an Add Marker button in the list, and typing in the frame number/timecode.

-Curve bones (like Toon Boom Harmony).... although the current set of bones is already seriously sweet.

-Ability to adjust the curve of the motion path via bezier handles on the main work window... and be able to do it without having to park the object on that frame... just click on a point on the motion path... if there's an existing key, pop up the handles, and allow the curve to be edited... if there isn't a key, create one there, and display the curve handles.

-Overall, a more efficient and consistant use of mouse/keyboard combinations. Less tool switching. More consistant (and full use of) key modifiers (CTRL, ALT, SHIFT). Seems a bit random now, with no pattern or consistancy. Once again, simply make all commands customizable (keys AND mouse editing), and everyone is happy.

-Seems like items like Audio clips in the Sequencer timeline should have a Right Mouse Button menu (at least to be able to delete them). Overall, I find a few tools/features that seem like they should have a context (RMB) menu.

-Overall, I'd love to have the timeline work like that of After Effects.


That's my first batch of suggestions, after my initial exploration of Anime Studio Pro 11. Again, I am seriously impressed by many of the features, both in the quality and the scope (I kept finding new things I didn't think the program would do, like 3D renders, etc). It's just a little clunky to use, in some respects, and a lot of that has to do with ergonomics... efficient use of keys/mouse, multi-tools, faster/easier workflow (less mouse travel, menu surfing, etc). And, again, I can't stress how strongly I feel about full customization... since you will never have a setup (keys, colours, workflows) that EVERYONE will be happy with... so let them set it up the way they like.

Hope these suggestions are of use, and you consider them. It would definitely increase my chances of switching over.

I'll add more suggestions to this thread as I come up with them.

Great stuff so far! I'm very interested to see what v12 brings.

[synthsin75]

@ ladlon

Many of those already exist.