Moho Forum

JetT wrote:Not sure if people are starting to hate in this thread so it may be time to abandon.

I tell you to get a grip and think for yourself and that makes me a hater!? Time to abandon? What's that mean -- run away?You should get out more...

slowtiger wrote:I seem to repeat myself over the years. But it is necessarry:

1. Nobody is obliged to do a whole project in just one software. Some people have to, because of budget. Some do to prove something, like the whole demo scene. Any experienced animator will combine what gives her the best result in given time.

2. Interpolation is something every inbetweener does each day. That they do in their mind what software does in your computer doesn't make any difference in the result. Of course software inbetweens all the points or objects it's applied to, whereas a human inbetweener concentrates on what's important - the rest will do.

3. Nobody is obliged to not tweak what software offers. I can easily spot beginner's work in animation because they use the software presets and not much else. Not the algorithm is bad, but using it without thinking.

4. There's no such thing as a scale of animation techniques ordered by "quality". On one's is not better than on two's, an inbetweened head turn is not better than a pose switch. There is the artistic decision of which animation style is best suited for a project, and the the execution of that.

5. For any 10 animators complaining about certain functions in their software there's only 1 concentrating on storytelling and strong poses. Try to be that one.

I have to agree with this. This is probably what everyone needed to hear, including me.

jahnocli wrote:

JetT wrote:Not sure if people are starting to hate in this thread so it may be time to abandon.

I tell you to get a grip and think for yourself and that makes me a hater!? Time to abandon? What's that mean -- run away?You should get out more...

I didn't exactly mean you were a hater, I was simply telling Jet that a difference of opinion is no reason to leave the conversation.

JetT wrote:

synthsin75 wrote:Yeah, you were talking about human input, not interpolation. Do you really think interpolation completely divorces the results from human input? That is naive at best. You can find countless examples online of both good and bad animation using interpolated tweening.

You create two keyframes and AS has an algorithm to interpolate the inbetweens, it's own problem solving technique, that is its fingerprint. Nothing wrong with this process but it will apply a fingerprint of some sort of its own just like an inbetween assistant or cleanup artist would.

Not for a good animator, who would add as many inbetweens as needed to achieve the desired result...up to tweaking every frame where needed (in which case interpolation is completely moot, as there are no frames to interpolate over). Now yes, lazy or unskilled animators will rely on automated tweening too much, but that does not reflect on the software itself, only the animator's skill.

A lack of animation skill would actually be more obvious doing FBF.

synthsin75 wrote:It is very hypocritical of you to claim most people think labor-saving technologies are cheap after you just said that only the final product matters.

It's not cheap if you apply your talents to it, but you have to admit it is cheap when people don't and use it as a crutch which is often the case.

No argument there, but you were making it sound as if such technology is inherently flawed as it pertains to final result. Again, that is on the animator, not the software.

synthsin75 wrote:The final product in those examples has sold the OP on AS.

Fair enough and I'm not going to sit here and critique someones work, but compare it to what I just showed you from TRIGGER, which is more animated? Think about what part of AS may limit this style of animation objectively then we move forward and solve those problems and build AS rather than defending its weaknesses all the time.

A good animator is never limited by his tools, whether they be paper, clay, puppets, software, or anything else.

synthsin75 wrote:You seem to be confused. Interpolation does not limit an animator. In AS, for example, you are free to swap rigs/vectors, add manual inbetweens, do FBF (yes, even in older versions) in vectors or images, and mix these freely.

I never said you couldn't though, neither have I once attacked AS. Apply what I said to other vector software, it's the same principle.

Saying that anything sort of traditional FBF is a "cheat" is a blanket attack on all other animation workflows.

A friend told me that they're bringing animation support to Clip Studio Paint EX (aka Manga Studio 5 EX) which is interesting since that is a software Smith Micro already distributes. If true, I'm not sure how confident I am about it appearing outside of Japan though.

Here is the page: http://www.clip-studio.com/clip_site/to ... spe_plan_a

My Japanese is becoming terrible, but I can make out that it's saying roughly "will support animation", "work can be exported as movie or still image", "supports onion skinning", "breakdown frame and light table support", "frame flipping", "control timeline playback speed".

In one of the example images where they are creating a "new movie document" using a "STYLOS" document preset (that's a document type from Retas Studio), you can set fps, frame count, levels, safe area etc.



It's exciting, because Clip Studio Paint EX is essentially Retas Studio under the hood anyway.

Nice, JetT.
I really hope they include this in a future update of MS!

Although I can see where trying to include animation functions in a painting software might not be a very good investment, I can imagine all of the unique pieces that might come out of it. I would be really interested if they decided to add interpolation to that list; with all of MS 5EX's vector functions, interpolation would be quite a powerful tool.
But that might cut into Anime Studio's share even more...

Thanks for the stellar dirt, I'll be on the lookout for news from SM.

Status Update: Things have been a little crazy for me lately. I recently purchased a copy of MS 5 EX new on disc for $75 and am loving it so far. Still working on getting AS and some other things.

I tried to get back in touch with Celsys about English Retas and they refuse to talk to me anymore and neither will their Korean or Chinese distributors, whom they referred me to multiple times. I guess Google Translate didn't help me any...

JetT, as the thread's resident Japanese speaker, if you could do us a solid and find out from them if they still sell English Retas Studio anymore, that'd be great. If not, that's okay, but looks like a no so far.

Clip Studio Paint/Manga Studio 5 isn't made by Smith Micro so they have no say in regards to features that may conflict with their own software. I don't think this will support interpolation though, just frame-by-frame.

I've been reading some more about this. It is going to be a free update that will arrive at the end of October (at least for the Japanese users), there will also be animation features for Pro and Debut. In a Q&A they describe the reason for introducing animation into CSP is because users of Retas wanted a more natural drawing experience for pre-production (rough animation, cleanup, animatics) and since CSP is a much more modern software it made sense to incorporate animation into CSP rather than a brush painting engine into Retas, it also states they will "over time" incorporate more features from Retas into CSP. They currently state CSPEX will be compatible with Retas PaintMan, that probably means as of right now CSPEX is replacing Retas Stylos, the drawing component.

Sticking to the Q&A, they state it will be lightweight on the system.

It will also incorporate a horizontal video timeline like Flash/ToonBoom which they state they added for "personal creators". Thank god, because the vertical, archaic timesheet they use in Retas sucks. What I don't see so far is if it will support audio tracks. Here's the new timeline window, looks like it's going to behave exactly like TVPaint:



On some news sites, they state it will be "production ready", you can produce everything from the storyboard all the way to finished, cleaned up and colored animation. For studios, they can incorporate Retas features such as networking, vertical timesheets and PaintMan. From some samples I've seen it looks like studios are already using it, which is pretty crazy.



For $219 that's going to be super competitive, for many it's going to be free. Really good news for the animation industry.

JetT, as the thread's resident Japanese speaker, if you could do us a solid and find out from them if they still sell English Retas Studio anymore, that'd be great. If not, that's okay, but looks like a no so far.

I contacted Celsys about this awhile ago, they weren't interested in the slightest about selling an English version, as I said before it would need an international company to distribute it for them, Smith Micro likewise weren't interested, I tried to contact them many times but no responses at all, but the last time that happened it was an utter rip off.

The good news though is that you won't have to wait long, just update CSP when the update is released and you'll have it for free. In case you didn't know, Comic Studio (Manga Studio 3) merged with IllustStudio to create Clip Studio Paint, Comic Studio however shared the same engine with Retas, so they're essentially the same software still, same fill tools, close gap tools, vector tools, etc. and it will be better than Retas thanks to the new horizontal video timeline. I'm stoked.

JetT wrote:Clip Studio Paint/Manga Studio 5 isn't made by Smith Micro so they have no say in regards to features that may conflict with their own software. I don't think this will support interpolation though, just frame-by-frame.

It's a good thing, too; SM might not be too quick to do that; It's a shame, though, that it won't support interpolation.

JetT wrote:...I've been reading some more about this. It is going to be a free update that will arrive at the end of October (at least for the Japanese users), there will also be animation features for Pro and Debut. In a Q&A they describe the reason for introducing animation into CSP is because users of Retas wanted a more natural drawing experience for pre-production (rough animation, cleanup, animatics) and since CSP is a much more modern software it made sense to incorporate animation into CSP rather than a brush painting engine into Retas, it also states they will "over time" incorporate more features from Retas into CSP. They currently state CSPEX will be compatible with Retas PaintMan, that probably means as of right now CSPEX is replacing Retas Stylos, the drawing component...

This is going to be an awesome update! And here I was all impressed with the recent update that included .epub and .mobi export.

Thanks for all of this insider information, never would have found any of this out by myself!

If the update drops by November for CSP, then It will probably be in MS around June of '16, if I just had to guess a date.

I wonder if it will support full scene pans and zooming like coreRetas, or is this just for cels, layouts and backgrounds? A lack of audio support isn't such a big deal, from what I've seen most animators just play the dub and audio as they're drawing, anyway(?) correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm still of the opinion that it would be better to just update and export Retas to EU and US than to incorporate these features into an already mostly-complete software, and it doesn't help SM's marketing of MS as all-in-one "comics software", either.

It sounds like there might be a lot more animation features in MS 6/CSP-whatever. Read: a dramatic price hike.

JetT wrote:I tried to contact them many times but no responses at all, but the last time that happened it was an utter rip off.

Right, ha. I still have the Amazon link for each piece at $600 apiece. And they do have int'l distributors, XM Unicorn in China and Infinity in Korea, these are supposed to be the Chinese, Korean, and both English distributors, respectively. I tried to e-mail them both twice with a crude GT translated message; no response from either in almost 3 months and Infinity's website lists Celsys as the software's US distributor.

I'm not into pointing fingers, but this all seems like another example of Eastern developers shutting Westerners out and us getting these features in MS will be purely by coincidence. Hence why we receive updates to MS almost 8 months after they do. It's the same program and the English interface is already there in the English version of CSP. Just my opinion, though, of course I'm probably wrong. :\

JetT wrote:On some news sites, they state it will be "production ready", you can produce everything from the storyboard all the way to finished, cleaned up and colored animation. For studios, they can incorporate Retas features such as networking, vertical timesheets and PaintMan. From some samples I've seen it looks like studios are already using it, which is pretty crazy

That might be hype, but if it is used by professional studios, I'd be really interested to see what works are produced with it and what other programs are used with it.

This is all really exciting, and I can't wait to try it for myself.

The X-sheet in Retas really seems to be for notation more than actual work as you can mark phonemes and order layers, using it much like the physical ones.
It would be better if it incorporated both, I think.

Thanks again for the news, this is really interesting

Update:
TVPaint version 11.0.3 has incorporated several features some RETAS users have been asking about. I recommend to give it a try.

This weekend I updated my Manga Studio 5 EX to the free cross-grade to Clip Studio Paint 1.5.4. I had been a little hesitant about switching because I use Manga Studio EX every week to draw Brudders and I didn't want to risk interrupting my schedule. As it turned out, Clip Studio Paint installs to a separate folder, leaving MS 5 EX still available to use. Clip Studio Paint so far appears to be visually and functionally identical to MS 5 EX--it even copied over my custom templates, tool settings and workspace presets.

The only difference I noticed after installing CSP is the presence of a timeline and a smaller panel related to animation. I created a new Workspace for them, and reverted to my previous custom 'comics' workspace so I could continue drawing my comic. Here's what it looks like with the animation panels open:



I'm only mentioning this just in case there are other MS users here who are concerned about cross-grading. The changes in this release are not nearly dramatically different as MS 5 was from MS 4, and you'd never even know the animation tools existed if you didn't open those panels, so it shouldn't upset your current flow.

I haven't tested the new animation tools yet but as soon as I'm finished drawing next week's strip, I'll give it a go and post my thoughts. FWIW, I've been drawing my comics using Manga Studio's Vector tools almost exclusively as far back as MS 3 EX, and I think the Vector tools are quite nice. The multi-touch interactivity in MS/CSP is also the best I've seen in any program. (Well, except Procreate on the iPad, which really is the tops for touch UI.)

Occasionally, I use ASP's native FBF tools at work. The tools could be better but they're really not bad for a first release and I'm very thankful that they exist. Just last month I was assigned a couple of scenes at work where the FBF tools helped out immensely. I am curious to see how the CSP tools compare.