Annecy 2011

[ZigOtto]

flipping 3-4 drawings is far better than using light-table when animating, in any technology (real paper or paperless/digital),
and I don't say that only for key-drawings, but also when inbetweening.
so yes, tvpa "flipping" future improvement is to me a good thing to hear, and would be a big "Plus" for animatrors and assistants .

[Fabrice]

Hi all,

Please write in this topic your deepest wishes about flipping !

[Jesoped]

I use the arrow buttons on my keyboard for flipping, and I don't miss a thing, and I am extremely satisfied... Back when I used to work traditional, I loved to flip drawings, and was rather good at it too. ; ) I remember many of my colleague's drawing where in some cases half way torn, where in my case most couldn't even see that I had flipped them, even though I could have worked several days on my scene, if not weeks ( hey, it's animation right ; ). But enough back when talk, I'm positively curious (as always) how TVPaint will try to come up with a new spin on that topic. As I mentioned earlier, I loved to flip - but choosing to have 4-5 pieces of paper between my fingers, as opposed to switching instantaneously without limitation of my frames by the touch of a single button, I think I will quote the well grounded mr. Fierlinger with a EUREKA!!! And I also think that when traditional animators become more accustomed with the advantages of the digital 2D realm, one stops to look back - except in those cases where the source absolutely isn't broke, ofcourse. But I for one has never looked back on flipping paper, I have embraced the digital potential and just grown from there.


Kind regards,
Jesper

[D.T. Nethery]

flipping 3-4 drawings is far better than using light-table when animating, in any technology (real paper or paperless/digital),
and I don't say that only for key-drawings, but also when inbetweening.
so yes, tvpa "flipping" future improvement is to me a good thing to hear, and would be a big "Plus" for animatrors and assistants .

I heartily agree with ZigOtto's comments re: flipping/rolling drawings. For animating that's why I still prefer to use a "blue pencil" (or red, or whatever you like in TVP!) to rough out the basic shapes , flipping/rolling the drawings to work out the action, then tie-down the drawing on top of the blue pencil with a black pencil line. The light table comes in handy for checking precise spacing, for doing very close together inbetweens that need precision, and for tracing-back areas which do not move . Even so I will turn off the light table and roll the drawings back and forth to check how the lines flow .

My forward and back arrow keys are set to a Griffin Powermate to "flip/roll" , scrubbing the timeline back and forth from frame to frame, but indeed it would be a useful feature for the arrow key shortcut to flip from instance to instance instead of frame to frame. And something that simulates the physical feel/sound of flipping if you know what I mean? I remember Peter Wassink described this in some previous discussions about flipping:

"both the Wacom touchstrip and the Griffin Powermate wheel are stepless, so there is no feedback (physical clicks or sounds) from these input devices on how many frames you have flipped. For flipping I would still like to try a jog dial that offers little clicks like those found in video editing machines, I think that would be much better for flipping."

[Sewie]

I agree with Zig, Jesper and David on the flippin' workflow issues.

For back and forth on the timeline I use the inner jog wheel on the ShuttlePro. This one does have a physical 'click' feedback feel. I use it to flip within a short range of frames. But like I said before, when I try to flip a longer sequence using the wheel, TVP lags on the timeline; the response becomes quite slow. I assume that it is a build in problem with TVP, but I'm not sure...

[Paul Fierlinger]

I'd like to see a built in capability to flip, using the playback controls, expanded to selections of either: Instances, Frames, Bookmarks and Image marks, just like the light table has these choices. That would be super!

[slowtiger]

I've already set my arrow keys to "next/previous instance" because that's what I need most. Still the responce is a tad bit slow for my taste - I'm not a very patient guy anyway. In fact, grabbing sheets of paper to flip them would be even slower, but it's that little gap between pressing the key and seeing the frame change that bugs me - I'm so used to see "immediate" chages on the computer.

The other thing is the keyboard. It's constantly in the way, and the arrow keys are on the wrong side for the left hand. I don't want to have any buttons on my stylus, and the buttons on the cintiq are at the wrong angle for being used with fingers ... complaints, complaints.

I think an ergonomically designed hardware controller which could be attached to the left side of my Cintiq would be great, but such a thing doesn't exist. Maybe that's a project for some of my friends who are in that "Make" scene. Should talk to them. *makes note*

[Peter Wassink]

i remember (i think it was slowtigers idea) the notion of drawing during flipping

or to put it differently;
drawing in a flipping loop

the idea comes down to selecting a flipping range (for example, by setting a range of 5 pre and 5 post frames)
and that after you start to the flip and while it is running you can still work/draw on the active frame. the active frame being the one you were on when you started the flip.
the idea is that it would allow you to see the effect of the added lines in real time.
it takes the advantage of digital animation (seeing the results directly) one step further

this is would be a whole new way of doing it, i thought it was an intriguing idea but i have no idea weather this would actually be a helpful method.

[ZigOtto]

I'd like to see a built in capability to flip, using the playback controls, expanded to selections of either: Instances, Frames, Bookmarks and Image marks, just like the light table has these choices. That would be super!

exactly, and I think the flipping mode could refer precisely to the light-table settings,
ex. : if the light-table is set to "Instance" mode, and you've checked -2 -1 0 1 ,
the flipping should play according to these settings, (here, the instances -2 -1 0 1 , then back to 0),

the other idea is the "speed-reductor" (or framerate) of the flipping preview,
something in the same vein as we already have in the Video In (or Canon Plugin) "grab input" window (see pict.) could be implemented here too,

VideoInPlaybackFramerate.png (5.1 KiB) Viewed 21196 times

though just 3 differents speed-settings ( Playback/half-Playback/quarter-Playback ) should suffice imo, + a shortkey to toggle between them.
when flipping, we are checking "in details" the consistency (and accuracy) of a little sample of our animation, and that repeatedlly, to feel/detect any little "hitch",
from experience,the playback must be slower than "real-time", (and it IS when flipping manually real sheets of paper) ,
because we need to focus on each part of the drawing, and catch "on the flow" any error or uncorrect line/shape/proportion fluctuation.

last, but not least, maybe a predefined order in the playback, + a (predefined) nb of loops (flipping the sequence once, twice, ... X times)
f.i. : -2 -1 1 0 ... -2 -1 1 0 ... -2 -1 1 0 ... -2 -1 1 0 ... stop to 0 (0 being the current instance) ,
repeated loops could be interrupted (stop to 0) by a shortkey [Escape] (?)
the " ... " are little pauses, during which you can draw, as long as you draw, the pause is maintained,
when you stop to draw (say 2" without stroke applied) the loops restart. (just an idea to go somewhere in slowtiger's idea direction).

my 2 sesterces.

... Please write in this topic your deepest wishes about flipping !

yes, but why in this "Annecy 2011" topic ???
can we create a new one, title it "Flipping feature improvement", and displace (cut/paste) all this discussion in it ?

[Peter Wassink]

I'd like to see a built in capability to flip, using the playback controls, expanded to selections of either: Instances, Frames, Bookmarks and Image marks, just like the light table has these choices. That would be super!

exactly, and I think the flipping mode could refer precisely to the light-table settings,
ex. : if the light-table is set to "Instance" mode, and you've checked -2 -1 0 1 ,
the flipping should play according to these settings, (here, the instances -2 -1 0 1 , then back to 0),

the other idea is the "speed-reductor" (or framerate) of the flipping preview,
something in the same vein as we already have in the Video In (or Canon Plugin) "grab input" window (see pict.) could be implemented here too,

VideoInPlaybackFramerate.png

though just 3 differents speed-settings ( Playback/half-Playback/quarter-Playback ) should suffice imo, + a shortkey to toggle between them.
when flipping, we are checking "in details" the consistency (and accuracy) of a little sample of our animation, and that repeatedlly, to feel/detect any little "hitch",
from experience,the playback must be slower than "real-time", (and it IS when flipping manually real sheets of paper) ,
because we need to focus on each part of the drawing, and catch "on the flow" any error or uncorrect line/shape/proportion fluctuation.

last, but not least, maybe a predefined order in the playback, + a (predefined) nb of loops (flipping the sequence once, twice, ... X times)
f.i. : -2 -1 1 0 ... -2 -1 1 0 ... -2 -1 1 0 ... -2 -1 1 0 ... stop to 0 (0 being the current instance) ,
repeated loops could be interrupted (stop to 0) by a shortkey [Escape] (?)
the " ... " are little pauses, during which you can draw, as long as you draw, the pause is maintained,
when you stop to draw (say 2" without stroke applied) the loops restart. (just an idea to go somewhere in slowtiger's idea direction).

my 2 sesterces.

... Please write in this topic your deepest wishes about flipping !

yes, but why in this "Annecy 2011" topic ???
can we create a new one, title it "Flipping feature improvement", and displace (cut/paste) all this discussion in it ?

Indeed! this should have a seperate topic its a very important core issue!

Zig i like your notion of pausing a flip for drawing, that's a more practical way to do it.
Although i'm still intrigued by the novelty idea of drawing into a running animation, its probably not very practical.
maybe a halfway solution would be to simply set it up in such a way that the pause kicks in a soon as you put your pen down?

[Sewie]

These are nice options but I would be very happy if we could first have a more responsive flip option.
I understand that all these extra options can be useful and nice to play and/or experiment with, but please don't make flipping a range of drawing an overly complicated issue in the interface and/or the workflow.

For example:

..
the other idea is the "speed-reductor" (or framerate) of the flipping preview,
something in the same vein as we already have in the Video In (or Canon Plugin) "grab input" window (see pict.) could be implemented here too,

though just 3 differents speed-settings ( Playback/half-Playback/quarter-Playback ) should suffice imo, + a shortkey to toggle between them.
when flipping, we are checking "in details" the consistency (and accuracy) of a little sample of our animation, and that repeatedlly, to feel/detect any little "hitch",
from experience,the playback must be slower than "real-time", (and it IS when flipping manually real sheets of paper) ,
because we need to focus on each part of the drawing, and catch "on the flow" any error or uncorrect line/shape/proportion fluctuation.

Could this not be accomplished by pressing the flip keys (or rotating the jog wheel if you have one) a little slower?

[Sewie]

When I'm animating I often (and quickly) want to check if my drawing animate the way I intend them to. I don't want to start looking for different panels and buttons. That's why I mostly use the 'Playback Preview' buttons in the Project Panel. Sometimes I select a range of drawings with the Mark In and Mark Out buttons. It's there within the interface and easily accessible and I can quickly get back to my animation drawings.

There are several panels that have some kind of Flip or Preview setting: the Preview Settings panel, the Animation Timeline panel, the Remote Control panel, there are a few custom made buttons that are very important that have their own panel; like the Playback Quality button. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.... All these different panels defeat their own purpose to me and I hardly use them.

I think it would be a good thing if all these different settings (and the possible new ones that are discussed in this thread) were to be found in one panel, so you don't have to spend much time finding and arranging flip/preview settings when working. Also the distinction between Flipping and Previewing is strange to me. If we could have previews that have a very reliable frame rate (also in HD wich nowadays is a standard in many places and productions) we could probably lose that distinction? It would make everything a lot clearer, I think.

[ZigOtto]

... but please don't make flipping a range of drawing an overly complicated issue in the interface and/or the workflow.
...
Could this not be accomplished by pressing the flip keys (or rotating the jog wheel if you have one) a little slower?

in my idea, the goal is to "automate" the sequence flipping action, not to have to flip one by one manually (by multi-pressing a key or via a jog-wheel), though to have the 2 options could be interesting .
once your mode customized (set to fit exactly your personal wish), you don't have to keep the setting panel open, this user's settings could be set in the "Preference" panel, probably the best place imo.

Because each animator is unique, and has his own habits and preference, let him choose how the flipping will work (nb of drawings, order, speed, nb of loops, assigned shortkeys),
and once configured, he would be the happiest animator in the world ...
of course a minimal (average) setting will be offered as a default setting. My dream would be to have the hability to configure and store several differents Flipping-Settings (2, maybe 3, not more) ,
and to assign each one to a shortkey.

... maybe a halfway solution would be to simply set it up in such a way that the pause kicks in a soon as you put your pen down?

not a bad idea ...!

[Paul Fierlinger]

I just discovered something useful and to the topic of slomo flipping: If you LMB hold down on the "next frame" symbol of the project's motion controls, and slightly move your mouse in any direction, you will see slow motion flipping. As soon as you stop, the flipping stops. This is useful to know and should help explain why it's good to see your animation in progress in slomo.

Now imagine that you could control the speed of the flipping by pressing harder on the mouse, or moving it faster across the window, OR: have a little slider that you could hold down and by how far you drag the slider you could determine the speed of acceleration. This would be both an automated and mechanical flipper and everything else in between.

[Jesoped]

Hmm, I'm a bit confused here, it seem as if the majority experiences a rather disturbing delay using the arrow keys for flipping. When I use them, the change happens immediately, no delay. How can that be? I am on an iCore7 - 8 GB RAM. But the PC I had before had no delay either - worked flawlessly, and that was a Pentium 4 (i believe) with ...hold on... 512 MB RAM (sheesh, how things change huh?)... Just curious.

Regards,
Jesper