Request for top 10 Anime Studio Pro Version 6 Features

[heyvern]

By the way, Vern. I agree with your initial inclination to break off these latest posts into a separate thread. Is it too late?

I was hoping "Agent Smith" would suggest or do this. I prefer not to muck around with this without permission. I had suggested it before but haven't gotten a response.

Hopefully all of the "new" feature requests are being reviewed. I've been starting new topics for some so they don't get too "lost" in this thread. Maybe that isn't such a good idea.

-vern

[TudoR]

Thanks for replying guys! Heyvern answerd synthsin75 better than I could. Thanks Vern!

On motion blur. Come to think of it what I really need is a RADIAL BLUR. I would nead for a layer to be blured in the direction it would move. Forget motion blur. It wouldn't look good anyway on 2D animation, but a radial blur would help make things appear to move fast in stead of stroboscopic. Of course there are apps who do this already but the idea is to make As as compleate as possible, no? And don't foreget about the normal blur that AS has now. It has to be much smoother.

On interpolation custom control. Synthsin75, you could put in a lot of keys to make a"custom" ease in and ease out but the first frame of an ease in and the last frame of an ease out would still have it's own value resulting in a slight jump. The idea is to use as little keys as possible to make your animation just right. The way I see this fixed is a posibility to enter two values on an ease in or out on THE SAME KEYFRAME. Let's say you want a ease in. Right click the key frame, choose "ease in" from the popup menu and on comes a small window just like for the noise option. In this window you would enter a RANGE number witch would indicate the number of frames afected by the ease in, and an AMOUNT number indicating the amount of ease in applied. This operation would need to reorder the interpolation from the last key frame (or the next key frame in case of an ease out) to the beginning of the ease in (or out), namely the range number.
I am not a very technical guy but this is what I imagine it would be the simplest way to have more control on the inerpolation. If this feature would be included it would mean the world to animators like me.

Bezier curve. I know that some of you are true fans of the way AS works without them and in a way I am too. Hec, I've been using it for far too long now to say it works badly. Far from it. I simply want to go to the next level. Wishfull thinking I guess.

Right click. I like the right click pan too. In fact I couldn't live without it. All I want is to select the layer I see or the ones under it with a simple opperation without changing tools or scroling down a long list of layers.

And I do agree with Rudiger's 1.3 request. This would be nice!

Well, this is all I wanted to say besides Vern's reply. By the way, Vern let me know when your gravity layer is finished! Thanks!

[heyvern]

On motion blur. Come to think of it what I really need is a RADIAL BLUR. I would nead for a layer to be blured in the direction it would move.

Although this will sound quite funny what you want is a "motion blur" like in photoshop rather than a radial blur. I could be wrong but I assume a radial blur is a circular blur like a "zoom" or "starburst". Since AS does not do any type of pixel or raster based modifications this can't be done currently. This is why the motion blur in AS is just opacity settings on standard frames. It would have to be a new type of post effect that "blurs" the pixels.

There might be a trick to "fake" this type of blur. If you animate the blur effect on a duplicate layer AND use the AS motion blur with adjustments and tweaks to the opacity of those layers you might be able to come up with a pretty good motion blur. Often only a frame or two of blur can create the illusion of motion.

Motion blur does work well with 2d animation if the program handles it well. Graykid productions uses motion blur very effectively in some of their stuff but they do this in post with another application... a quite expensive application.

-vern

[TudoR]

You're right Vern. It is motion blur. But I guess it would be easier to blur a layer acording to it's path of motion rather than true motion blur like in 3D programs that blur evrything acording to it's movement (like the movement of arms on a character). Anyway I'll stik to doing this in another aplication untill (if) it will be available in AS.

[Rudiger]

You're right Vern. It is motion blur. But I guess it would be easier to blur a layer acording to it's path of motion rather than true motion blur like in 3D programs that blur evrything acording to it's movement (like the movement of arms on a character). Anyway I'll stik to doing this in another aplication untill (if) it will be available in AS.

I can't see any reason why AS can't do high quality motion blur internally. In fact, it has an advantage over post-processing programs in that it already knows the motion vectors instead of having to calculate them. The computation would be similar to how it is now, but the motion trail would be taken to the maximum pixel resolution meaning you would have to generate lots of extra sub-frames. Would definitely take a while to render, but you could probably take some shortcuts to speed it up.

[synthsin75]

4. Style library. It's really annoying that you can't share styles between anime files. I would also like to see a copy option under the Style menu so you can create a modified version of an existing style. More than two effects per style would be nice too.

Importing any layer that uses the style will import it, then the layer can be deleted, leaving the style/s. And there is a copy option already, you just have to copy it to a new style.

Aside from that I'm on board with most of your requests.

[Rudiger]

4. Style library. It's really annoying that you can't share styles between anime files. I would also like to see a copy option under the Style menu so you can create a modified version of an existing style. More than two effects per style would be nice too.

Importing any layer that uses the style will import it, then the layer can be deleted, leaving the style/s. And there is a copy option already, you just have to copy it to a new style.

Aside from that I'm on board with most of your requests.

Thanks for the tip about importing styles by importing a layer. Of course it still means you have to remember which file contains the style you want. Also, I knew that the Copy and Paste buttons on the Style window could be used to copy attributes between shapes, but I never thought to use them on styles, so thanks for that tip as well.

[synthsin75]

Rudiger,

You could make a style library in one of two ways. Either name each .anme file by a style name you'd recognize and have only one layer in each one (all in a style library folder), or make one 'style library' .anme file.

When ever you find a style you want to add to that library, open that AS file and import a layer with that style. Rename it to something you'd recognize and keep each of these imported styles as a top level layer for importing elsewhere.

I'd empty all of each layer's content after importing to the library to reduce file size. And since imported styles are named with a prefix of the original file, I'd keep the library's name very short.

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Mmm, if there was scripting access to setting style names, we could remove those prefixes by script.

Script access....please?

[chucky]

Synth, I applaud your initiative for thinking around this issue.
What you are saying is of course all true, but I agree with Rudiger, it's a real song and dance just to recall a style.
It's not a big call to be able to save a style as a named file or to be able to browse for such a thing.
I vote ... again... for Style libraries

[synthsin75]

True...

I'd be more apt to have a styles palette file. One layer that I can always import to any file that contains my library of styles.

That wouldn't be such a dance, if LM would drop that annoying prefix from imported styles. Without them, this single layer style library could be moved back and forth without headache.

Just trying to supply easier solutions for v6 with the hope that some of these won't be completely ignored.

p.s. With scripted import access, we could script all this importing down to a button or menu script.

[GCharb]

Hello all!

Seems to me that this community has some dedicated users with good scripting knowledge.

Perhaps a more open scripting access to the core of AS would allow those scripters to implement very interesting "plugins" for AS.

As for styles, well, I am use to color registering, meaning that you assign colors to numbered or named color containers,those containers are grouped in color palettes, the container is linked to the shape it was applied to, so when you change the color in the container all the shapes assigned to this container change colors as well.

Also, you can clone these palettes, so, say you clone a color palette you created for a certain character and change the colors in it's containers for night colors, you could switch palette for that character and it automatically change to the night color scheme.

Aint computorized automation of mundane task fun!

GC

[Rudiger]

Yeah, I'm with you Synthsin75. Features that don't already have fairly straight forward workarounds should be given priority.

In light of that, I would like to change my number 4, to:
4 Customizable line caps and corners. It would nice if you could specify sharp or rounded line caps and corners. I end up having to use lots of extra points to get rid of that abrupt square end that Anime Studio lines always have. I also like Chucky's idea of being able to control whether outlines are on iniside, outside or centerline of shape.

Having said that, features that streamline common tasks, and therefore reduce production time, are highly valued as well.

[synthsin75]

Yeah, I really, definitely agree with your new number 4, Rudiger!

Once again, I'll bet that one is buried in this thread somewhere. There are just too many good requests. Personally, I really wish LM could narrow the field to a list of proposed new features. That way we could maybe vote, or discuss implementation, or something. Because you know that we can just keep coming up with more and more.

I know that may be problematic though. A developer may simply go with what is easily doable or most possible within the current scheme.

[chucky]

I'm thinking LM would already have the line gap as a personal peeve.
Every time I see it I think, that HAS to be on Mikes own list.
My vote too for round line gap fix and corners.

[GCharb]

Hello all!

How about turning lines to fill colors, that would be usefull as well!

GC