Help Shape the Future of Anime Studio

[biglogan]

I am a professional digital artist. I have worked primarily in UX design and television animation (an odd mix I realize) over the past 15 years. I am very experienced using Flash and AE (as well as a miriad of other programs) and have worked on more TV shows (compositing and animating) than I care to list. I have known about AS for a year or two, and even remember hearing it mentioned back when it was Moho, but until I stumbled on the work of Victor Paredes I didn't really take it seriously as a potential tool for production animation.

I have been playing with it for a week or two now and while I still have some major doubts and trepidations about the software's ability to function in a large scale production environment, I must recognize that it has some amazing potential. I may get into some details about that at a later time, but this is my first posting here, so I am going to focus on the first problem I had with the software, something that has only gotten more frustrating as ive learned more, not improved (some of my initial frustrations were simply due to my lack of understanding about the software).

As unglamerous and boring as it is, my biggest and oldest frustration is the tools. Not what they do, but how they work, how you change tools.

In a production environment, efficiency is everything. As with so many creative professions, It's about the balance between speed and quality. Every keystroke, every click, every mouse move across the screen costs you money or quality or both. So, the fact that I have to actually select a different tool to select and then manipulate an element (point, bone or shape) is both mind boggling and frustrating.

As a professional UX designer, and a user of MANY graphics programs for many many years, it would make a massive difference if there were half as many tools. Not half as many features or functions ... just that the existing tools should be grouped and combined. With the drawing tools for example, that whole top row of 4 tools (select points, transform points, add point, and curviture) should all be a single tool, and it's keyboard shortcut should be V or Q.
I realize that transform points has some minimal selection ability, and this is FAR better than nothing, but this is just one example of a small improvement when SO many improvements to the tools and UI need to be made.

Also, the tools menu should not change contextually. it is more confusing that way. simply grey out (or color, or obscure) those tools which cannot be used because of the contextual selection.

In summation, this program has a lot to offer, and I believe some day it will be used to great effect by many professionals ... and I myself look forward to learning more about it and creating some amazing things with it. HOWEVER, there are a few things holding the software back from being accepted by the broader animation production community (at least in north america, i have learned there is some commercial success in south america), and the tools and general UI are one of the major stumbling blocks.

I look forward to seeing future iterations of the software and to participating more in this online community.

thank you for your time

[synthsin75]

Many of the tools have already been grouped over time. Bone and point scale, translation, and rotation use to all be separate tools. One of the limiting factors is the dearth of possible modifier key combinations. Each transform tool has axis constraints, nudge, and super nudge modifiers, as well as selection modifiers. Most the individual selection tools offer even more functionality the available modifiers cannot accommodate in the other multi-tools.

Another limiting factor is accommodating users who work primarily with a drawing tablet (making the use of two or more modifiers at the same time troublesome).

But I'm sure more specific suggestions are welcomed.


And contextual tools was specifically requested by Pro users, many of which add lots of third-party tools and needed a way to economize the available space for tools.

[biglogan]

I'm sure improvements and changes have been made! After 10 versions, I'm sure that there are innumerable differences and improvements. That is however, both far from my point and from the point of the thread.
The improvements that have been made to date are not relevant (outside of contextual curiosity) to the question at hand: how can it be improved in the future.
The tools, however improved, are still to numerous and clumsy.

As for the question of contextual or non-contextual menus I suppose this could come down to a matter of taste, I can think of several comrades-in-animation that would probably prefer it that way. Perhaps there could be options for customizing the UI (something people have been waiting for from Adobe for years).

[chucky]

In particular the point selection and modification tools should be merged , stylus users and mousers alike would appreciate that, I am sure.
Oh I put this in tips and tricks , big time saver with almost any software, I started using it to relieve elbow and should torment from using left hand key commands with cintiq.
Macro keyboard using phone

[synthsin75]

I'm sure improvements and changes have been made! After 10 versions, I'm sure that there are innumerable differences and improvements. That is however, both far from my point and from the point of the thread.
The improvements that have been made to date are not relevant (outside of contextual curiosity) to the question at hand: how can it be improved in the future.
The tools, however improved, are still to numerous and clumsy.

As for the question of contextual or non-contextual menus I suppose this could come down to a matter of taste, I can think of several comrades-in-animation that would probably prefer it that way. Perhaps there could be options for customizing the UI (something people have been waiting for from Adobe for years).

Perhaps you missed the bit where I said "more specific suggestions are welcomed." IOW, I'm telling you that there are limitations and I am asking you for specific solutions to achieve your feature request (I assume having worked in UX you probably have some). If you have none, that is fine. Just understand that there are other issues involved. Like which of the current modifier functionalities should be essentially scrapped to make room for your request?

So, you see, history and existing functionality is not so trivial a concern. And I am asking you, how can it be improved? Be specific, if you can.

And I see no problem with the idea of make contextual tools optional (although the developer has expressed some reluctance to have option bloat). Alternatively, you can disable contextual tools yourself with a very small edit to each tool.

[chucky]

On this topic , sometimes I think modifiers might not be needed.
Maybe in the case of the point tool(s) we could lasso select by drawing around the points or with a single point just click and drag (stylus contact rather than click); once selected they could be manipulated normally.
To release we could double click(or tap) in the empty space.
What do you think?

[synthsin75]

On this topic , sometimes I think modifiers might not be needed.
Maybe in the case of the point tool(s) we could lasso select by drawing around the points or with a single point just click and drag (stylus contact rather than click); once selected they could be manipulated normally.
To release we could double click(or tap) in the empty space.
What do you think?

Good idea. I like it, but it may conflict with the selection tools selecting the nearest element to the click, within some range. I would be willing to give that up, except in extreme cases where that's the only way to select stuff.

[biglogan]

I'm sure improvements and changes have been made! After 10 versions, I'm sure that there are innumerable differences and improvements. That is however, both far from my point and from the point of the thread.
The improvements that have been made to date are not relevant (outside of contextual curiosity) to the question at hand: how can it be improved in the future.
The tools, however improved, are still to numerous and clumsy.

As for the question of contextual or non-contextual menus I suppose this could come down to a matter of taste, I can think of several comrades-in-animation that would probably prefer it that way. Perhaps there could be options for customizing the UI (something people have been waiting for from Adobe for years).

Perhaps you missed the bit where I said "more specific suggestions are welcomed." IOW, I'm telling you that there are limitations and I am asking you for specific solutions to achieve your feature request (I assume having worked in UX you probably have some). If you have none, that is fine. Just understand that there are other issues involved. Like which of the current modifier functionalities should be essentially scrapped to make room for your request?

So, you see, history and existing functionality is not so trivial a concern. And I am asking you, how can it be improved? Be specific, if you can.

And I see no problem with the idea of make contextual tools optional (although the developer has expressed some reluctance to have option bloat). Alternatively, you can disable contextual tools yourself with a very small edit to each tool.

Cool!

I would first like to thank you for your response and your challenge. It forced me to examine my idea more closely and I realized that I was only mostly right. The "draw points tool" cannot be eliminated. I do think it's functionality can and should be included as a secondary feature of the "transform points" tool, but considering that it's primary function is as a drawing and creation tool it must have its own button and be able to be used as a primary tool. You could draw this logic out and say that the "curvature" tool could retain its own button as well as I can imagine a situation in which a user would take a "curvature pass" over their drawing adjusting many points in succession, and the suggestion I have for merging this functionality into the transform tool would not be efficient under these circumstances.
I apologize for my shortsightedness. My passion for efficiency (I really am an absurd kind of nerd) and the informal nature of the forum made me lapse into unprofessionalism and ultimately, a short sited mistake. I will do my best not to let that happen again in any further posts. I find myself getting more and more attached to the potential of this software. I think it could completely change studio animation and both the film and television animation industries and I want to see it flourish and prosper ... I am letting my passion overpower my reason.

So! Onward!

I don't think any existing functionalies would need to be scrapped, simply merged and streamlined. That being said, I am aware what I suggest is perhaps something of a paradigm shift and I am all too familiar with the emotional attachments programmers and designers have to their ideas and their code, and how much they hate "redoing" things that "already work" in their eyes. I also realize that what I'm suggesting may simply be a lot of work! Work is time and resources that cost money. You have X amount of development budget based on sales and R&D investment and you have to pick your battles.

So, to be more specific about my suggestions, let's operate as if the transform points tool is the "main" tool. The sort of default tool, like the selection tool in PS or Flash. Here are how I would recommend the merging of the select, transform, add points, and curvature tools. Also, on a side note, I will mention that I am making these suggestions from a windows-centric perspective, I have never used the mac version of ASP.

- merging the "select points" tool into the "transform points" tool
This already does a fantastic job of click selecting points, or in the case of a shape, click selecting all the points in said shape. This is wonderful. What I would suggest is enhancing/extending/revising the point proximity method (I am admittedly making assumptions of how this is structured, please forgive me if I'm wrong, I believe the basic concept I am trying to relate should be doable regardless) so that outside of a fairly narrow tolerance, the tool simple reverts to "select points" functionality. You could include an automatic visual change as well so that the cursor symbol transitions from one to the other at it hits the edge of that tolerance "zone" around a point. This should work regardless of whether the points are within a shape or not.
This would mean that if this new transform points tool were created, it would NOT behave differently with regards to clicking on ungrouped points, but it would change how it behaved when clicking on shapes. If you were to create the suggested tool, the cursor would behave with shaped points precisely as it did with ungrouped points but the functionality would remain the same. I.e. clicking on a single shaped point would result in all the points within that shape being selected and the transformation reticle box appearing and that functionality becoming available. However, if the user moves their cursor outside of the "tolerance zone" for the shaped points (regardless of whether that is outside or inside the are of the shape),it would switch automatically to the "select points" tool and that functionality would be enabled, meaning that if the user simply clicked, nothing would happen, but if they click and drag, the point selection bounding box would appear and be drawn as usual, with the existing functionality. The final difference being that as soon as the click drag is released, the transformation reticle box would appear around the bound points, and if the cursor were within the "tolerance zone" of that reticle box then the "transform points" functionality would be active, if the cursor were over the "tolerance zone" of a point not within the "tolerance zone" of the reticle box then the click elements of the existing "transform points" tool would be active (the current functionality), and if the cursor is moved outside the "tolerance zone" of both the transform reticle box and any points, it wold switch again to "select points" cursor and functionality.
In fact, regardless if you use my other Ideas, I would suggest introducing a cursor symbol change automatically to create visual feedback to the user to indicate whether the cursor is currently over an unshaped point or a shaped point.
Back on topic, merging in the "select points" would would represent a functionality change that would not just decrease UI clutter and improve workflow efficiency incredibly, I think would actually illuminate something I find annoying: currently if I have the transform points tool selected and I click on the stage, the tool with select and move the nearest point on the selected layer regardless of how far away it is.
This is a functionality that is perfectly exemplified by Flash's "subselection tool".

- duplicating the "add points" tool into the "transform tool"
This one is easier to relate. Currently I see no functionality attached to holding down the "ctrl" key with the transform tool selected. I imagine a situation where the user would hold down the ctrl key with the transform tool selected and the cursor and functionality would simple switch to the add points tool until the ctrl key were released. This is something all Flash users have been dreaming of for years!

- duplicating the "curvature" tool into the "transform tool"
Similarly to the "add points" suggestion above, this one is simple and straight forward. I haven't seen any functionality attached to holding the "alt" key with the transform tool selectected. Holding down the alt key would switch the cursor and functionality to the curvature tool until the alt key were released.
The reason I have chosen this key alignment is simply a matter of familiarity and consistency. In Flash, holding the alt key with the sub-selection tool selected allows the user to manipulate the bezier handles of a point independently of each other, creating a "corner" instead of a curve. Flash is by far the more widely known animation software and it is reasonable to assume that many ASP users either have used, or eventually will use, Flash. Consistency of keyboard shortcuts and functionality creates a sense of comfort and ease with users, especially when new to a software or when using multiple programs at once. This is why most drawing programs now mimic the Photoshop tools in some way or another (if not all ways).

So, I believe this illustrates my points in more detail. Admittedly my focus should have been more on the usability and efficiency of the tools overall (fewer tool changes and key strokes are better) instead of on the total elimination of tools. I apologize again for my inexactitude and the confusion it created.

I have a plethora of other suggestions about how you might streamline your tools, UI, and usability in general, as well as many features that you could include to attract the attention of professionals and studio but to be honest I have rather limited time (I am something of a workaholic). I'm sure I'll post again about something soon as I continue to learn more and more about the software (one of the things I'm currently so busy with is creating a small short film with a friend using ASP designed to test it from not only a creative perspective, but with an eye towards technical limitations and usability within a studio environment).

If my points are not well illustrated in text, let me know and if I have time over the coming weeks I could create some simple mock-ups. Written text is of course the least effective way of conveying visual and interactive concepts, but it is the fastest.

Thanks for reading!

[synthsin75]

Nice work with the suggests there, Logan!

- merging the "select points" tool into the "transform points" tool
This already does a fantastic job of click selecting points, or in the case of a shape, click selecting all the points in said shape. This is wonderful. What I would suggest is enhancing/extending/revising the point proximity method (I am admittedly making assumptions of how this is structured, please forgive me if I'm wrong, I believe the basic concept I am trying to relate should be doable regardless) so that outside of a fairly narrow tolerance, the tool simple reverts to "select points" functionality. You could include an automatic visual change as well so that the cursor symbol transitions from one to the other at it hits the edge of that tolerance "zone" around a point. This should work regardless of whether the points are within a shape or not.
This would mean that if this new transform points tool were created, it would NOT behave differently with regards to clicking on ungrouped points, but it would change how it behaved when clicking on shapes. If you were to create the suggested tool, the cursor would behave with shaped points precisely as it did with ungrouped points but the functionality would remain the same. I.e. clicking on a single shaped point would result in all the points within that shape being selected and the transformation reticle box appearing and that functionality becoming available. However, if the user moves their cursor outside of the "tolerance zone" for the shaped points (regardless of whether that is outside or inside the are of the shape),it would switch automatically to the "select points" tool and that functionality would be enabled, meaning that if the user simply clicked, nothing would happen, but if they click and drag, the point selection bounding box would appear and be drawn as usual, with the existing functionality. The final difference being that as soon as the click drag is released, the transformation reticle box would appear around the bound points, and if the cursor were within the "tolerance zone" of that reticle box then the "transform points" functionality would be active, if the cursor were over the "tolerance zone" of a point not within the "tolerance zone" of the reticle box then the click elements of the existing "transform points" tool would be active (the current functionality), and if the cursor is moved outside the "tolerance zone" of both the transform reticle box and any points, it wold switch again to "select points" cursor and functionality.
In fact, regardless if you use my other Ideas, I would suggest introducing a cursor symbol change automatically to create visual feedback to the user to indicate whether the cursor is currently over an unshaped point or a shaped point.
Back on topic, merging in the "select points" would would represent a functionality change that would not just decrease UI clutter and improve workflow efficiency incredibly, I think would actually illuminate something I find annoying: currently if I have the transform points tool selected and I click on the stage, the tool with select and move the nearest point on the selected layer regardless of how far away it is.
This is a functionality that is perfectly exemplified by Flash's "subselection tool".

We already have dynamically changing cursors available to tools, and holding Ctrl on the transform points tool changes to selection (with Ctrl+Shift adding to and Ctrl+Shift+Alt removing from the selection). Aside from adding the cursor change, which should be fairly easy for any scripter, I'm not sure how this could be improved. Maybe you would like less modifiers, but I'm not sure if your suggestion wouldn't cause more accidental/unintended results for users. Right now there is some distinction between what "mode" you are in, so accidentally changing, for instance, what could be a very large and tedious to reselect selection isn't likely to happen.

- duplicating the "add points" tool into the "transform tool"
This one is easier to relate. Currently I see no functionality attached to holding down the "ctrl" key with the transform tool selected. I imagine a situation where the user would hold down the ctrl key with the transform tool selected and the cursor and functionality would simple switch to the add points tool until the ctrl key were released. This is something all Flash users have been dreaming of for years!

Ctrl is selection mode for the transform points tool.

- duplicating the "curvature" tool into the "transform tool"
Similarly to the "add points" suggestion above, this one is simple and straight forward. I haven't seen any functionality attached to holding the "alt" key with the transform tool selectected. Holding down the alt key would switch the cursor and functionality to the curvature tool until the alt key were released.
The reason I have chosen this key alignment is simply a matter of familiarity and consistency. In Flash, holding the alt key with the sub-selection tool selected allows the user to manipulate the bezier handles of a point independently of each other, creating a "corner" instead of a curve. Flash is by far the more widely known animation software and it is reasonable to assume that many ASP users either have used, or eventually will use, Flash. Consistency of keyboard shortcuts and functionality creates a sense of comfort and ease with users, especially when new to a software or when using multiple programs at once. This is why most drawing programs now mimic the Photoshop tools in some way or another (if not all ways).

Please check the Status bar (I think at the top of the workspace by default). Each tool tells you what most its modifiers do. Alt on the transform points tool currently disables auto-welding or does volume maintaining squash/stretch when scaling.


I know previous software bias is to be expected, but it is usually a good idea to become wholly familiar with a specific software before attempting to change it. Who knows, you may like some little bit of the difference. Neither Flash nor Photoshop has universally considered perfect UX. But don't take that as a blanket rejection of suggestions either.

For example, Mike Kelley (over at the AF, link in my signature) has created several Swiss Army tools that merge a lot of functionality, like a modifier to change curvature using the add points tool. Personally, I find this much more useful than adding curvature to the transform points tool.

And the good news is that all of your suggestions can be done RIGHT NOW, with absolutely no help for the developers. But you would need to either learn Lua scripting or entice an existing scripter to take it on. Myself, I had zero programming experience until I decided I just HAD to bend AS to my will. It took years to become proficient, but sometimes the need justifies the effort.

Thanks for the food for thought.

[dkwroot]

The ability to bind bones in child layers to bones in parent layers would be fantastic. It would also be great if we could set child layer bones to get position and angle control from bones in the parent layer.

[dkwroot]

Multiple smooth joints on a single image. This would make rigging shoulders a lot easier.

Also, it would be AMAZING if we could control layer ordering in a fashion similar to depth sorting, but not actually using the Z-axis value. Essentially, everything within the group will have an independent 'depth value' which applies to everything independently, including nested layers. This will essentially separate the concepts of layer organization and layer ordering which will make building and working with rigs much easier. It's important to separate the layer order from the Z-axis value so we can still use our camera.

[dkwroot]

Show ALL bones. This feature shows all bones for a rig regardless of what layer is currently selected. I think Anime Studio should have a checkbox above the timeline that when toggled will show all bones in the document and allow the user to interact with all bones regardless of what layer they're currently on. I think this will speed up animation as we'll be able to see and work with all bones within a single context.

I think a lot of animators will agree with me that it's a huge pain having to dig through the file system to find a certain bone and then having to backtrack to the main folder. If we were able to just toggle a button and see all of our bones and interact with them from one location ... well, I think that would make a lot of folks happy. Nested bone control was a step in this direction, but let's take it farther.

[Rafa]

Show ALL bones. This feature shows all bones for a rig regardless of what layer is currently selected. I think Anime Studio should have a checkbox above the timeline that when toggled will show all bones in the document and allow the user to interact with all bones regardless of what layer they're currently on. I think this will speed up animation as we'll be able to see and work with all bones within a single context.

Great !

100% agreed.

[jayfaker]

One thing I would change is to make the motion paths show relative to the scene and not the camera. I have a relatively long advertisement I'm working on (1min 30sec) and I'm moving the camera around a lot. Because of that, any layers where the layer position is animated have these crazy looking motion paths on them, when in reality they've only moved fifty pixels to the right. It's more to reduce screen clutter than anything, but it would also just help to make sense of the project.

Also, if there could be a distinction made between motion paths of actual moving objects and just the position jumps from step keyframes, because I use those mostly for just repositioning characters in different shots, etc. Or maybe the motion paths between step keyframes could be a different color/style. I know after effects uses dots in the motion paths so you can see how many interpolated frames are between each keyframe, etc.

[chucky]

Hey Jayfaker, have you tried opening a split view of the front ?
I use split view all the time which frees me from the camera when needed.
This is also really great for keeping smart bone interfaces like a little gui of their own.

I would love to see the split views memorised for each time AS is opened and even more flexibility for splitting views.