Moho Forum

Here is one of the big issues with Anime Studio that I think should be addressed, especially now that we're using Smart Bones.



At the end of the video I give an idea for cloned layers. I think these cloned layers should be editable as far as Layer transformations go. Like scaling,skewing,rotating and so on (Flash does this with symbols). They should also show all the bones that their source has and should be able to rotate,move and scale those bones.

In a more technical coding format, what I'm suggesting is that bone,group,switch layers should be able to behave like objects in which other bone,group,switch layers can be 'instances' of or 'reference'. This would save on file sizes and would open up avenues to make rendering faster than ever. Instancing and Referencing is definitely a MUST HAVE for Anime Studio if the company intends to take smart bones to the next level.

dkwroot wrote:Here is one of the big issues with Anime Studio that I think should be addressed, especially now that we're using Smart Bones.



At the end of the video I give an idea for cloned layers. I think these cloned layers should be editable as far as Layer transformations go. Like scaling,skewing,rotating and so on (Flash does this with symbols). They should also show all the bones that their source has and should be able to rotate,move and scale those bones.

In a more technical coding format, what I'm suggesting is that bone,group,switch layers should be able to behave like objects in which other bone,group,switch layers can be instances of. This would save on file sizes and would open up avenues to make rendering faster than ever.

Good one. We'd love to have 'referenced layers' and 'instance-layers'!

Like this:

I vote 100,000% for some sort of "instance" feature!!!!

I have always wondered about how this same thing is done with particle layers. When you set a particle layer to display 500 particles, there isn't 500 copies of each vector layer displayed. It is somehow creating "instances" of particles. I have done stuff with piles of particles and it doesn't seem to effect performance or size as having copies of the same thing. I know that particles are moved by "math" but still, they can animate individually from their own timeline and change size etc.

Maybe that same technology could be used for an "instance" type reference thing for more advanced features?

Instancing and Referencing mixed with enhanced smart bones that could key styles,switch layers and control nested vectors would be unbeatable.

I really liked 9.5 but my wish for version 10 is "Real Motion Blur" PLEASE!

I just upgraded to ASP 9.5. from version 7 so I'm a bit late to the party. Smartbones are a game changer. Building knees elbows and shoulders the old way required me to use grid-locking and and tight zooming to get the precision I wanted and I needed several vector layers. Head turns required point translation which were saved in Actions. They looked 'canned' but I wouldn't try a head turn without Actions.
I like to draw characters that look straight into the camera and speak to the viewer. If I can make a character nod 'yes' or 'no' while speaking I'll be jumping up and down like a kid. I'm excited about what I've seen so far but I'm going to test to see if Smartbones have an effect on a mouth switch layer. That will be major. I know I can use a smartbone to change the eye level of the camera.

This is how I imagine the clone/instance could work. In this example if I right-click on a group layer I get the option to create a new 'Clone' or 'Reference' group.

Clone = This group will be the same but you can't edit layers etc - it will be locked and an icon will show this - the group name will also say [Clone]
Reference = This group can be edited, but will still be linked to the original group - the group name will also say [Reference]

There could even be a colour change in the group icons in this example to show their status too.

I would also like to see the ability to lock layers so that no changes can be made by accident when editing.

Here is another idea. Add a compass to the 3d viewer so that animators can keep oriented when working in 3d space.


And here' is yet another idea. Create hotkeys for the viewer so that animators can quickly switch between camera/front/left/right/top/bottom views. Also, make it so that we can break the viewer into parts so we can have different views of our stage on different monitors.

Small suggestion to improve AS 9.5, the ability to remember the last font used, maybe a checkbox or similar, 9.5 ROCKS!

More Ideas coming at ya!

- Add the ability to create custom shape patch layers. In other words, Animators should be able to draw a shape and then convert that specific shape into a patch layer. This would be far more useful than simply using the circle.

- Make it so that a single patch layer can patch every layer below it until it reaches a layer where it's told to stop. In other words, the patch will remove ANY stroke that covers a fill below it until it reaches a layer where it's told to stop. This would be insanely useful when working with lots of intersecting layers since an animator doesn't have to make several separate patches.

- Add better drawing tools, like Flash. At the moment, it's very difficult to make Animatics in Anime Studio because AS has very poor drawing tools. I'm not asking for something extremely complex, but something like a grease pencil would be great as it would greatly help with sketching out ideas to be animated. Yes, I know that I can use paint or photoshop and then load into AS, but having to do this every time I want to make an alteration greatly slows me down. An Animator shouldn't have to constantly switch to other programs in order to make changes. AS badly needs better sketching tools.

I'd like the Arrow drawing tool turned into a proper line tool, with the arrow head a togglable option. Having to constantly switch between the arrow tool and the delete edge tool is cumbersome and should be unnecessary.

I'd also like the Shift-arrow option to default to the nearest 45° angle rather than the nearest 90°. It would make the tool just that wee bit more flexible.

dkwroot wrote:More Ideas coming at ya!

- Add the ability to create custom shape patch layers. In other words, Animators should be able to draw a shape and then convert that specific shape into a patch layer.

You can create a custom shape on a vector layer that acts like a patch, but I'm not sure what other special property patch layers might have.

jezjones29 wrote:

This is how I imagine the clone/instance could work. In this example if I right-click on a group layer I get the option to create a new 'Clone' or 'Reference' group.

Clone = This group will be the same but you can't edit layers etc - it will be locked and an icon will show this - the group name will also say [Clone]
Reference = This group can be edited, but will still be linked to the original group - the group name will also say [Reference]

There could even be a colour change in the group icons in this example to show their status too.

I would also like to see the ability to lock layers so that no changes can be made by accident when editing.

I always wanted the ability to lock layers! It would be a great addition

BEHOLD! THE THREE PILLARS OF IMPROVEMENT THAT ANIME STUDIO PRO NEEDS
(watch the video ... all is explained)


PILLARS:
- Instancing/Referencing
- Superior Drawing
- Frame Animation (I describe a wonderful method to do this in the video)

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Also, what about a development roadmap? Not to be nosy or anything, but I think a lot of customers want to know what we can expect in future updates of the program. At the moment, we don't learn about what the AS team is doing or where they're taking the program until literally ... a few days before a release. This is unfortunate, especially when some of us are trying to get other studios to adopt this program.

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Another thing, AS will at some point need to implement bezier curves. I like the simplicity of point curves in AS, but bezier curves are extremely useful for drawing (like flash) since they can do more with fewer vector points. I'm NOT suggesting getting rid of the point curves, but instead suggesting that Anime Studio adopt different pens and brush tools where users can choose to either use the point dot system or bezier curves.
This would also make importing things from Illustrator or Inkscape MUCH better and easier since no conversion to the point system would be necessary.

Now from a more technical standpoint, if it's too difficult to implement a point dot system AND a bezier system on a vector layer, then just make 2 different vector layers types. One vector layer type only does point dot and the other only does bezier curve. I believe Paint Tool Sai does something similar to this, only they have layers that are specifically designed to hold raster data and other layers made to hold vector data.

Now that I think about it ... that would be pretty awesome too. Three drawing layer types: Vector Dot, Vector Bezier and Raster.

I totally agree, a roadmap will be awesome! It works great for other companies