Help Shape the Future of Anime Studio

[dkwroot]

I do have an issue though with changing the style effects "choice" to radio buttons. It doesn't allow you to see if there are two styles applied to a shape. You only see the one that is selected. It also makes it more difficult to access both styles.

I would prefer something similar to Photoshop. A collapsing effects display. You can leave it open if you want even though it takes up space, or close it. When open both styles are visible. You still have ONE extra click to see both styles but with that one extra click you can SEE and access BOTH styles at the same time. With the radio buttons you would have an extra click to see and access both styles. It seems a small issue but this could get quite bothersome. I really need to see both styles at the same time, especially if I am clicking multiple shapes one after the other to quickly determine the styles or effects used. I don't want to have to stop, click the two radio buttons etc.

I didn't consider this, you make a very good point. Perhaps a layered collapsing system would work best. A system where the main Tabs (style, layers, actions) have smaller collapsing options within them (effects, swatches, etc). The point of all of this is that they consolidate the windows and conserve vertical space while simultaneously giving the animator greater access to precious canvas space. An idea that I think everyone can appreciate.

One other thing to consider regarding the "tool grid" would be layer specific tools and bone binding tools. Some bone tools can be accessed on vector and bone layers (and also all other layer types for binding). A decision would need to be made whether to "go back" to the old way and have all the tools stay in view all the time but grayed out when not applicable to the selected layer (this was changed in v9 I believe. Selecting a layer would "hide" tools that aren't relevant), or change the grid based on the layer type. There are 7 bone tools. Those could I suppose "slide out" from one tool icon (bone select and bone binding would need to be available for other layers)

Since so much space is being saved with your proposal, the need to hide tools on specific layers is not really needed. All tools could be there all the time just grayed out when not relevant. That way you don't have to "change your brain" when selecting different layer types. The tools are always in the same spot and the tool layout never changes only the availability of the tool.

I completely agree, there is so much room in the tool shelf that they could make all tools available at all times. I actually read some material about building User Interfaces for game designers and one of the concepts that kept being brought up was the idea of muscle memory and reflexes. When a person uses a tool frequently enough, they start to reach for the tool without having to think about it. This is important to know when building user interfaces, because you want the tool to remain in its place so that the user will find it every time they reach for it. Anime Studio shouldn't be shuffling the tools around as it just confuses new users and frustrates older ones.

The grouping of the bone tools grid would actually be similar to how it already works. Currently the tool list has "groups". We don't need that with the set up you proposed. Many applications don't really have that kind of separation. For example Photoshop doesn't group tools based on what they do, they are "just there". After a while you simple memorize where and what the tool is for a specific job.

Instead, the tool list file would have grouping just for the "slide out" tool icons. Create a group, place each tool in the order they are in the grid.

Another thing to remember is that most of those tools will still have key shortcuts. Selecting from the slide out will probably not even be needed most of the time.

My reasoning for dividing the groups up based on what the tools do is another tip I learned from reading about UI for game design. It's a learning philosophy that deals with grouping concepts to teach users how tools work. It's kind of like how people can more easily remember the numbers 25 and 47 than remembering the number 2547.

The idea here is that instead of teaching new users what individual tools do first, we instead teach them to think in categories which they can memorize more easily. Once the user understands the category, the tools just become variants of the category.

I don't know a lot about patents or IP law but... er... I do know that someone "patented" those "snapping sliding collapsing" palettes. It was either Adobe or Macromedia. I remember there was a lawsuit about this because one company had identical types of "snapping" or collapsing functionality that was in use in another companies application. They got royally PO'd and sued them over it. I don't recall the outcome of this.

Manga Studio already has collapsing and expanding panels. Come to think of it, Blender has collapsing and expanding panels as well. If some company owns a patent, it might be for the "Snapping" effect of pulling and snapping palettes together, which is purely aesthetic. This kind of reminds me of how Apple sued everyone over the swipe and drift effect that iphones have. Ah ... the wonderful world of the jacked up patent system.

[chucky]

I don't like the idea of waiting for the pallets to slide out, it would have to be instantaneous upon mouseover .
I think the style palette needs to be future proofed more than this suggestion, what if you consider the option so that more effects could eventually be added?
Also no graphics app should be without a fulltime colour picker option.

[dkwroot]

I don't like the idea of waiting for the pallets to slide out, it would have to be instantaneous upon mouseover .
I think the style palette needs to be future proofed more than this suggestion, what if you consider the option so that more effects could eventually be added?

I did the UI mock-up in Photoshop, so I had to manually pull the tab down to reveal what was beneath. I apologize, I didn't think that anyone would see me moving the tab and assume that I was advocating some kind of sliding animation, which I agree would be annoying. It would definitely have to be instant.

Vern gave a great suggestion for the effects buttons, which is that they make them expandable and collapsible within the styles palette. This way they are visible only when you want them and they can easily add more should they want.

Also no graphics app should be without a fulltime colour picker option.

Great idea! A full-time color selection option would be great or perhaps if they allowed the user to make a dedicated button that when pressed would let you pick a color and when released would return to the tool you were previously using. This would avoid having to pick the dropper and then having to select your tool again.

[chucky]

Sorry dkwroot I should have been more specific.
I realised that the mask was just to demonstrate, no problems there.
I was actually referring to the idea of a delay on mouse over that you mentioned to prompt the extra tools on each category. Otherwise I think it is a great idea.

[heyvern]

My feeling is that "timing" of icon or panel displays could easily be adjusted during testing if this feature were to ever be implemented. Those details should be easy to figure out later. It's almost impossible to get a "feel" for that type of interaction without real world usage.

It could be interesting to create an animated simulation. An "html5" or "Flash" based interactive fake UI to test out the interactions and response to rollovers and clicking.

[eric1223]

This may or may not be useful, but can there be a layer counter for the entire project, and a separate ones for each nested layer? I'm just always interested on how many layers I use for a project.

[woody173@live.co.uk]

Hi I am fairly new to Anime Studio. I was given AS9.5 debut from a friend who was sent it from a company he deals with regularly. I was really impressed with the software and even more impressed by the new AS10 extra features that came out recently. But being a total novice to animation in general I was glad to see the introduction of smart dials etc to AS 10 and look forward to saving up for the Pro Version. I am as you may say a hobbyist so the full price version of AS 10 pro is a little way out of my price range, but will hopefully be able to afford a copy before it changes too much. I was wondering however if things could be made easier with built in dials or something to make your character do simple turns etc to make it seamlessly turn around. It may be a pipe dream but things like that I find tremendously difficult to complete successfully. I have also tried to use the character wizard to create a character more suited to my needs and feel this could be updated a little to have more control over the final look of the character.

I think im waffling a little, Im sorry. Please dont think that these are complaints in anyway, just small observations that a hobbyist would like to see in any future updates. The Anime Studio software is Brilliant in general and I will enjoy using it for many years to come and hopefully become a superstar in the future.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff and enthusiasts concerned with Smith Micro who have helped me on my journey, and i am sure they will continue to teach me loads more in the future.

Thanks Guys (an gals)

Woody

[wizaerd]

Woody, character turn arounds are typically done via switch layers and mirroring/flipping layers, which are controllable via smartbones. It can be done, but takes a bit work & effort to create them.

[dkwroot]

It would be awesome if we could warp textures that have been applied to an object by just moving the points of the object. You can sort of do this right now, but it doesn't actually warp the image applied to a shape since there is a lot of clipping issues. I would like to see a true warping of the applied textures, meaning that all of the texture is always visible and is actually warped to fit the position of the object points. if this were added, I think that texture mapping could be ridiculously useful for designing clothing/hair/skin while retaining flexibility and efficiency.

[dkwroot]

Here is a suggestion, add compression to IK stretching. This would be awesome additional feature.

EDIT:

Another cool idea just hit me. It would be awesome if target bones could be set to follow a path. The way I see this working is that you could put a layer inside of a bone layer and set it to not render and then put a bunch of guide lines in it. You could then go to the parent bone layer and use the guide lines for guiding the movements of target bones. This would make using target bones a lot more convenient when creating smooth movement.

[patricia3d]

I have one small idea.
In a vector layer suppose there are 80 points creating 5 shapes.
Some times you need to select only 3 shapes overlapping. you have to be careful to select the points. why don't you
group them and select 3 shapes using group names.

[dkwroot]

I have one small idea.
In a vector layer suppose there are 80 points creating 5 shapes.
Some times you need to select only 3 shapes overlapping. you have to be careful to select the points. why don't you
group them and select 3 shapes using group names.

You can already do this with the select points tool. Just select the points that you want to be grouped together and then write the name of the group in the top bar. You should see a button called "Create", press this to create the group after you have named it.

[Víctor Paredes]

I have one small idea.
In a vector layer suppose there are 80 points creating 5 shapes.
Some times you need to select only 3 shapes overlapping. you have to be careful to select the points. why don't you
group them and select 3 shapes using group names.

You can already do this with the select points tool. Just select the points that you want to be grouped together and then write the name of the group in the top bar. You should see a button called "Create", press this to create the group after you have named it.

Also, if you click inside a shape with the select point tool, it will select the points that form that shape.

[dkwroot]

Here is another one, how about multiple layers of Layer Shading. In other words, allow the user to put more layer shadings in a single layer and also let them use blend modes with the layer shadings. This will make it so that we don't have to nest layers several times to apply lots of layer shading. Adding blend modes to layer shading would be especially useful for applying layer highlights.

I went ahead and made a little gif to show what I mean. Using shading passes really helps sell an image.
http://s24.postimg.org/fvsvyt3jp/AS_SHADING.gif

[dkwroot]

MORE IDEAS AHOY:

- Add a Knife Tool that allows us to cut a line and divide it right where we cut. It would be useful if the cut maintained the over-all line curve as well.

- Add a Mirror Effect in the layer properties. The user could then mirror everything done on the x and/or y axis. This would be a huge time saver and is a favorite feature in a lot of programs.

- Add an Array Effect in the layer properties. When this effect is turned on, the selected layer will repeat a selected number of times on the x and/or y axis.

- Add the ability for layers that follow paths to remain perpendicular to the tangent of the curve. This way, the object appears to actually be riding the curve path instead of just lifelessly moving with it.

- Add the ability to extrude points. I already mentioned this, but I think it needs to be repeated. The ability to extrude points in or out would be extremely useful for drawing architectural things.