My general experience with TVPaint

[Peter Wassink]

What you say concerning rudeness and way of speaking is something very common on this forum and easy to explain :
• every people have their own way to think / speak
• every folk have their own way to approach humor, suggestions, etc... What looks like a joke for a French guy looks like an insult for a Dutch guy... and the contrary is also true
• nobody really knows if someone is angry or making fun or just normal. Personally, that's why I like using smiley, I find them useful to understand what someone means, as I can't see his / her face. Sorry if you find them annoying, this is how I communicate (usually, no smiley = means I am stoic and serious).
We are on a community including young and old people from everywhere (more than 60 countries have TVPaint users !) : everybody must make effort to understand each other and to be understandable.

Your remark about the complaining choir for instance captures the tone that seeps through this community and gives it a general negative feel.

Be honest : you are all three in the same studio, having runs together and then, you decided to complain together at the same time. How can we take this assault with smile ?

Please understand that, on our way, most requests from Lukas and Joost looks aggressive to us, like orders, which are not really nice to read : ok, you are the customers, but we are humans. Time goes, we are on the defensive, our answers are rude, so yours are rude, etc... and a horrible circle is created and must be broken. Looks like you helped to break it, so we can then start on new bases

Elodie,
I think you are right about the miss communication and culture differences.
For what its worth... as a dutch guy i can tell you that in your posts here you do come across a bit defensive and i am sure your assault remark is really based on a misconception.
These guys are serious users that invest time to give serious feedback. That is a positive thing not an assault.
But maybe that, like your (false!) impression that they are giving orders, is also due to this dutch thing, the dutch are know to be very direct. which in some countries is perceived as rude.

[Fabrice]

Sometimes (especially today), I'm really wondering if I should flog our developpers until they bleeds.
So maybe everybody would have his/her specific feature coded/tested and published within the day.
Developpers use to be slave or am I mistaking ? (I'm kidding )

How to train your developpers .jpg (20.28 KiB) Viewed 29314 times

More seriously now :

For what its worth... as a dutch guy i can tell you that in your posts here you do come across a bit defensive and i am sure your assault remark is really based on a misconception.
These guys are serious users that invest time to give serious feedback. That is a positive thing not an assault.

Indeed, Peter is right : I can confirm that most of Joost and Lukas posts have been perceived as very rude here at TVPaint.
It came slowly weeks after weeks, request after request. We also have our part to face in this process, since we answered. I admit.
But although their sentences are far from being representative of the whole TVPaint users comments, the fact is here : they have strongly hurted people here, at the point many people here are afraid to answer them.

It's not the feature requested in itself that hurts :
We always are in the process of improving tools and managing 4 OS is creating a high number of requests. No problem about this. A request making sense is entered in a database, whoever post it. If we have similar feedbacks outside the forum, so : during our training sessions, commercial trips, festivals, pipeline building days, etc ... then we push it forward, logically.
When we ask for details, it is basically to understand what is really required behind the request, mostly because sometimes it can be gathered together with other requests (old members of the forum will probably remember the project "playlist" which was transformed in the "Project tab" of the timeline to create storyboard and animatics).

If we felt attacked, which is true, I think it's mostly because of the way requests are written : from the choosen words to the big screenshot with red notes "good/bad" on it, like a teacher marks on the pupils' homework.
I had complains in PM about those facts many times from shocked forum users, less from the dev team who is used to such things. That said, I always refused to remove a single post.
(I maybe did it once on a completely different matter, but wrote to the author and the people in the corresponding topic the reason why : it was a piracy problem behind the request)

Now, when I read sentence like this one, I'm deeply shocked and sad :

In my eyes compassion has no place in a professional relationship.

I don't share this point of view. It doesn't help to create a better world.
In my opinion, this is NOT what I want to leave behind me as a human, nor behind TVPaint.

I will never imitate this and give up to improve TVPaint. No matter how harsh that sentence will be perceived here.
Not at all : We will continue at any cost, whatever the trials of life will be.
After long weeks of waiting, beta-testers should see it in about 10 days with a new beta version.
Sorry for other people who won't see it. I understand it is frustrating, but we are also frustrated not to show the improvements we have worked on.
Some features are added within a complex improvement process and can not be released in a simple update : we don't have anything in our C++ coding software where we can easily choose if we add a specific option. Most of the time, everything use to be linked, and when it's linked : we have to add all or nothing... there is no easy way to do inbetween.
For many options, we need to wait for a new paying upgrade to make them accessible, mostly because they are linked to some other code parts and files that need to be in the next major version. I'm not sure the following word under quote " " is well choosen, but things are not "linear" when you build a software, it's a complex tree with many ramifications.
Creating specific options for every OS is a good exemple : it would split the code in 4 branchs and create potentially a lot of bugs. This can not be done and bugfixed in just one afternoon. Worse, it require up to 4 specialists to work on it, sometimes at the same time.
Anyway, most of the requests that people use to ask are developped and will continue to be, days after days.

Once again : some features are easy to code, some are more difficult.
I'm in charge of finding the good ratio between :
* adding a feature <> time required + benefits for the users.
* correcting a bug <> time required + emergency of the situation (is it breaking everything in a production ?).
* finding a bug that is very hard to reproduce, specific to a very small number of users <> time and effort required, number of people facing the bug.
* harmonising the 4 OS <> time and money required + benefits for the users and the dev team.
* rewriting old code and engine to allow further improvement <> money and time to invest : benefits could be seen years after.
* spending money on some researchs <> time & money required + same : benefits could be seen years after.
* hiring people <> money to invest + long term benefits the company , risk about adaptability & complexification.
* making someone visting studios and schools in a far country <> money and time to invest <> potential income, translations effort, cultural differences.
etc ...

So here is my commitment :

I will continue to find the best compromise in everything with compassion for both developpers and customers, as best as I can.


To stay in the Egypt theme : I prefer to follow this model of building pyramid, which require less slaves, less anger, more harmony, better results

To stay in the Egypt comparison :

I just prefer this model.jpg (49.31 KiB) Viewed 29314 times

Last edit : 19 June 2014, 23:39

[Joost]

I can understand that you work really hard to make tvpaint better. And I respect that. But I don't think it is nessicsary to say this in every post. So that's why I directly start my post with a question about something that is bothering me in the software. I don't think that is rude. Sometimes I used examples. But I can't remember that I ever did this in a way that was meant to be offensive. I was on ly illustrating the kind of problems I was facing.

[Trumpatrick]

Elodie, let me put some things straight. Yes, Joost, Lukas and me are indeed working in the same studio. Obviously, the discussion that Joost got into this morning with his request, got me to open this thread. I overheard Lukas and Joost talk about it, and while I stopped letting myself getting worked over anything that has to do with TVpaint a long time ago, it suddenly brought back the frustrations that I have been feeling ever since I started using this program. So I decided to finally post my experience, something I've been holding of for years because I had a feeling it would not get me anywhere and only take a lot of time. Joost and Lukas never asked me to join the complaining choir, nor is this post about Joost's request specifically. You assuming they did ask me to join (and take that for fact and make a rude comment on top of it), is another one of those examples of not being taken seriously, thus creating all the more resistance towards Tvp.

You don't have to explain to me how different people have different ways of communicating. I'm a member on many forums, but the TVpaint forum is the only one I frequent that just gets under my skin. It's probably a combination of things and not about some specific person, or your smileys. It's just a general tone of voice.

It's funny that Fabrice also mentions Joost and Lukas, because like the title says, this is about my personal experience with the program. I never mentioned them, but somehow people assumed they were the silent mastermind behind this discussion. A couple of things that you say in the part about Joost and Lukas does make it relevant to this thread though. You talk about feeling hurt, being attacked. Elodie just made the case not to put too much value on HOW things are written, but WHAT is written. You can look at that good/bad example and feel Lukas tried to attack you. In honesty, the problem Lukas addressed there is one of those typical "being different just for the sake of being different" solutions that TVPaint has, that are also the reason why the program frustrated me when I first opened it. There was a lot of talk about this topic before Lukas made that good/bad image, it was agreed that it should be improved and TVpaint was going to change it. Eventually our intern lost work because she too, like many others including me, was confused by something that had no reason to be that unclear in the first place. Of course you can expect a reaction like that. Don't feel personally attacked by it. Just draw the conclusion that it needs changing, because people are loosing work because of something as stupid as a closing down question.

Your response is a very emotional one. Clearly, you are very invested in your work and you seem to strive sensible working ethics. But I find it a little out of place to be honest. What's with the flogging and slavery comparison? It's almost as if TVpaint WANTS to be the underdog, so they can hide behind that and use the fact that everybody is working so hard and that the programs core is so old fashioned as an excuse for things. Maybe some things do get lost in translation, but feeling hurt and attacked, those are big words for something so small. No wonder the atmosphere on the forum can become so grim from time to time, when TVpaint staff can't seperate their personal feelings from work.

Now, when I read sentence like this one, I'm deeply shocked and sad :

In my eyes compassion has no place in a professional relationship.

I don't share this point of view. It doesn't help to create a better world.
In my opinion, this is what I want to leave behind me as a human, nor behind TVPaint.

Sure, you can be all dramatic about that bit of sentense. When you take it out of context like that, it does sound harsh. But when you read the other things I said about this matter, I really see no reason to be "deeply shocked". There is always compassion in cases like this, especially in an industry like ours. But it's something that is not self-evident, and also not something developers should rely on, because that's just being unprofessional. If I used a cracked version of your software because I'm just a one man studio, would you feel there's room for compassion? I'm only human you know, with kids to feed. You see how that doesn't work? You can trust in the fact that there is compassion and people appreciating your work. But down the line, you are a company which I have paid money for a product.

So far, it seems like everybody is mainly focusing on my struggles with the community. But the software itself is probably even a bigger reason for me to stop supporting TVpaint. From the first time you open up TVp, the software doesn't sell itself to the user at all. Surely you must be aware of that. Often, this is defended by mentioning that if you don't like the standard tools, you can program your own brushes, make your own custom panels and shortcuts etc. etc. Disregarding the old users who have gotten used to how TVpaint works, for people who are new to the program, or those who are used to the functionality of other programs they use a lot, TVp is a constant struggle. Having to customize the software before it gets workable, feels like the developers shoving work into the users hands that they should have done theirselves. Naturally this will bring the old "we can't please every single user, your entire post is a testament of that" argument to the table but that's beside the point. Some of the functionality TVpaint keeps clinging on to, just gets harder and harder to defend. Especially the functionality that users have come to know as the basic stuff that always works in other programs, even free apps for your smartphone, like the basic drawing tools. And in a time where software becomes more and more streamlined and aimed at the user experience, a program like TVpaint is starting to feel like a dinosaur. One that I've stopped feeding my money untill it proves to me that it's actually going somewhere. I do like dinosaurs though and I'd hate for them to extinct.

[Fabrice]

I read both topics in the feature request subforum at the same time, as I couldn't follow in realtime this afternoon.
So I probably polluted your topic with my post, expressing my own feelings + referring to other members and older posts. Admitted.

My point of view is probably not shared with Elodie which was more professionnal in her answer > true.
At least you had two different type of answers, Elodie's message was better than mine.
Sorry Elodie, this would probably be my last post in this topic.

I wanted my to share our/my perception of some events, to create a better communication with each member of your studio and say again our objective clearly :
Keep improving the software, not staying stuck on old concepts and tools.

Using images as a fun comparison is also a way to give a humoristic message when it's difficult to understand each others.
It sounds like I probably failed too. I need more work on this kind of communication. ok.

But I also wanted to be pedagogic in my approach : putting things in context by explaining how we use to make choices, why it takes time, etc ... without saying that nothing will change or improve : 100% Failed I guess. It was understood as an other justification of the current state of the software.

About your quoted sentence.
I choosed one among others, which was shocking me. I firstly quoted several ones, but decided to keep only one to make it shorter.
I'm not cold and from time to time, I express myself like I did. I prefer this rather than using ban or other extreme actions.
With the recent post I felt it has been too much time I restrained myself to express my feelings.
This was mainly done for Joost and Lukas last months behavior. Once again, probably out of topic: admitted.

Can I seperate my personal feelings from work ? Be more professionnal ?
I have the rule to restrain myself to give my opinion and feelings about the animations I see, especially if I find them bad.
I will now apply it too in other situations. ok. I keep this advice preciously.

Well, was my previous post :
* Unprofessionnal ? Maybe.
* Unuseful ? Will see.
* Impulsive ? No.
* Typically french ? Probably yes.
* Preventing me to reevaluate myself when necessary ? No. I'm doing it now.
* Used to justifying my mistakes or justify TVPaint lacks : Damn, No !
I use do my best to use my emotions to go forward. That was my purpose when writing my post. Trying to show we are not stopping our efforts.
I tried in that way, some other people here tried by telling you that some features and improvements you pointed have been added in our TODO list, etc ...

Anyway, I hope the next version (11) will prove our efforts were put in the right direction and makes you enjoy and buy it.
Here is my intention. The future will answer.

- - - -

Thanks again Trumpatrick, your last post was helpful in the global understanding of the exchange, I hope mine was too. (I really think that, no joke, irony or nothing else here).
I also hope everybody will continue to participate to the improvment of TVPaint.

[CartoonMonkey]

Hello. My name is Chad Essley, aka CartoonMonkey, and I'm here to say a few things in response to you, Trumpatrick about your post. (Which by the way, I feel reads as bombastic and slightly disrespectful, coming from a person who I haven't seen frequent the forums and ask questions too often.)
Essentially you've burst into a room and announced how badly something sucks, in front of it's creators. So of course you're going to get a slightly negative reaction.

I am a beta tester for TVPaint, and a long time user, going back to the days of the Commodore Amiga. I'm a working professional animator, I run my own small studio, I do animation for a living.
I don't often do this, but your message prompted me to write a somewhat long response to your initial message. I'm going to break it nd a few of your other messages down, with respect, point by point. I'll respond to you from the perspective of someone who not only loves the software, but the people behind it, and the methodology in which it was created. Let me first say, I understand sitting in silence, frustrated, and the cathartic release of venting to an audience. I've done this myself. But I digress:
------------------------------------

Ever since I first opened up TVpaint, I really had to struggle to get into it. In my life, I've mastered many kinds of software, mostly without much frustration and difficulties. Once you've learned two or three pieces of software, you start to see a pattern, similar functionality, a general logic to how software works. This was never the case for me with TVpaint.

You have to remember, the engine for TVPaint was created originally, before most any other 2d pixel based serious paint or animation software existed, with few exceptions. TVPaint evolved from a single creator's vision. A vision that was often heavily borrowed from in other commercial software. The patterns you describe in Adobe software came much much later. TVPaint developed on it's own, with a different purpose and different aim, to be something entirely different. So of course the commands and menus are not the same.

Everything single thing is counter intuitive for me.

This will always be the case, if you seek only a single solution for a single problem. TVPaint has an almost legendary flexibility to achieve one or many goals within the software. That's not something I can say about any other software out there. That being said, there are many, many easy paths to almost anything you want to achieve in TVPaint. You just have to read the manual, or find the solution by asking or exploring. Trust me, after so many years of development and customization of this engine, and all the input from artists around the world, your solution is there.

Yes, I've accepted that there is no eraser in TVpaint. I've made numerous custom panels (up to a point where I've lost track of it all), to work around the fact that TVpaint resets your tools every time you switch between them.

Every single tool, (almost) in TVPaint, can be put into eraser mode, as well as draw behind mode, Custom panels can be saved and recalled, and brushes saved to custom panels can be saved and recalled with all the settings intact. I have never had TVPaint "reset" a tool by itself. It will do this, if you save the tool for example, in the "your brushes" part of the toolbin, the down arrow icon that is BLACK (Grab tool only) -grabs only the SHAPE of the brush. The Yellow / Red gradient down arrow icon, or "Grab Current Tool with A Color" button, will save the brush with all of it's parameters, so that you can recall it in only a single click. Have you tried it? Other modes are also available in almost every other brush. Shade, light, merge, screen. Similar or even more flexible than photoshop.

I have changed my shortcuts as much as possible to photoshop, to bring some logic in to my workflow.

Good. Many people do this. It's the reason customizable shortcuts are there.

I've thrown out every panel that didn't make sense to me and I've learned to stay the hell away from the FX stack, because that thing is nasty and straight out of the 80's.

Throwing an insult about the 80's isn't helping you here. And "learning to stay the hell away" from one of the software's most powerful features, because you don't understand how it works, is just plain shortsighted and astonishingly strange. The FX stack is as powerful as say, having After Effects at your fingertips, and at times, even more so. ( The only thing I find it lacking, which the engine just doesn't have at this point, is the full 3d turnaround engine. But I would very rarely use that sort of thing anyway. This software isn't about 3d tracking and 3d polygons.) The FX stack can render and save grouped effects that add light, depth, color and is just overall an amazing toolbox that I use every single day in my work. I literally couldn't do without it. It's like saying the tires on a car are useless because you don't understand how they roll. I think you just need lessons on how the FX stack works. It's quite simple when you get how to add an effect, make keyframes, render those effects, and save them / recall them for later use. The FX stack isn't about animating things necessarily, it's about adding an effect to your work.

In short, when I want to animate something, I use my own custom brushes, TVpaints light-table and timeline and that's about it. When I'm done, I get out of the software as soon as I can. Why? Because if frustrates me to the core.

I do the exact opposite. I can do almost everything in TVPaint. I don't have any Adobe software installed any longer. Frustration evaporates when you come to understand and love something. Imagine the situation you would be in if you didn't like the particular way a road was constructed, because it was different than other roads you've traveled. Would you never go down it? Or would you try and learn what might be the best path to your destination?

A big part of what causes this frustration though, is the community here at the forum. Every single time I've tried to make a suggestion, or read other people make suggestion, it's like running into a brick wall. The reaction is always "why would you want that"? Or "why don't you use the functionality as it is now". Sometimes it seems a problem can't be fixed because of technical issues, but when you dig deeper, it turns out the developers just don't agree or like it just the way it is. Well, there is a reason for the issues I'm addressing, so please try to consider that at least. Often TVpaint complaints that changing this or that would take a long time to do. That could be, but I've paid a good sum of money for this software!

Again, you must realize, that TVPaint is a fairly small company. This isn't Adobe, with thousands of developers. If you've gotten a NO on a feature here, it's usually either because the software already does what you want, or yes, it's not financially possible to devote time to that one singular feature, when there is in fact a list of other features that score much higher on a list of things to do. If people seem terse, it's the internet! Maybe you could be reading emotions into typed text that aren't there. I've found that the TVPaint forums are fantastic and a great resource, as are all of the other users and beta testers. I've learned volumes here, and I can't say the same for any other forums out there. Try that with Adobe! You won't get far suggesting anything to that huge bloatware creating company. There isn't an engine for an animation software out there that doesn't have limitations. All software has limitations, and it can be difficult or sometimes impossible to add features to any existing codebase in certain cases. It's to be expected.

Why would you invest in a piece of software and a group of people that don't want to go anywhere? Some of us at the studio are members of the BETA team for another program (which is not bitmap 2D based) and they actually implement a lot of the features we suggest and the program has made huge leaps because of it. (Of course, many suggestions didn't make it into that program, so I'm not expecting TVpaint to just implement everything the community suggests).But above all, they seem to be happy with the input. I just wish TVpaint would have the same attitude. This alone would make it a more satisfying user experience.

Ho boy. Where to start. You would invest in TVPaint, because you love the software, and you love the way it works, and the fact that it does so many amazing things uniquely. ( and it does! ) You want to invest time in it, use it, love it and fully understand it. If it's not a clone of software X that you use, it can't be helped! TVPaint is hands down the best bitmap animation software in existence, and after such long development, it won't be anytime soon for anyone to create something similar with as many features geared toward 2d animators. I have never experienced this "NO" attitude with the staff, or users of TVPaint that you describe. I did in fact experience that when I was originally a beta tester for Mirage, but they were in fact telling lies to the beta testers in the fact that they only licensed the code for the software, they could not make real changes to it. Unlike the TVPaint team, where several of my suggestions have gotten implemented. And this small development team does this, creating nearly bi-weekly betas for 32 and 64 bit versions that encompass PC, MAC, Linux, and Android! Now how many software companies can do that, all while keeping a long list of new features and bug fixes in check! It's amazing to say the least.

I just want a friggin program native eraser when I press e. The basic of the basics. But all jokes aside, I am already regretting spending some of my precious hours of my work day into something that doesn't seem to come through or go anywhere.

Again, I don't see how this isn't possible to set up with a custom button or key. This is the most simple thing of all to achieve.

My point is not that your beta testers aren't happy with your work (how could I know indeed), so please let me try to explain myself better. I enjoy getting involved in software that I use, as sort of a thank you to the developers, but also to help my own workflow. Mostly through forums, but sometimes I even apply for beta testing, if I get the feeling that the programmers are a. appreciating the input and b. are not limited by something that was designed decades ago and seems to have gotten stuck in it's own limitations. In other words, software that feels like it has the capabilities of developing and improving. Both the TVpaint program and the community are preventing me from getting invested in such a way. Because the program leaves so much to desire (in my eyes) and there aren't many alternatives, if frustrates me that I have no place to vent this.

If the software leaves so much to desire in your eyes, and there aren't alternatives, yelling about it won't help anything. I have heard from people for years about operating systems for example, "But I don't LIKE Windows!" or "I don't like MAC!" but they both do the same things. You just have to take the time to learn how to do those things, and the ways they do them differently. Liking or disliking is purely preference.

So, when you jump into a thread, with the gigantic amount of frustration you seem to have, realize: The developers themselves, and the staff, along with many users are all here to help you, and they often help very very quickly on this forum.

just want a program that works and feels like something made today. I want modern technology for my money. I want an interface that feels as intuitive as other programs that I use aside TVpaint.

You've gotten used to tear away menus from other programs, etc. Sure, they're great! TVPaint could be a lot of things, but again, rather than embrace what it IS and what it can DO, you're harping on the interface again, rather than learning it. Throwing the whole FX stack under the bus, because you don't like the look of it. We could get into a talk about usability and the esthetics of design but that's irrelevant to what TVPaint can DO.

If you have a problem you need to solve, or to set up TVPaint in the unique way that you work. It's possible and someone has probably already done it. Take the time to learn what you're doing with the software, and you will likely come to love it and have a much better experience with it, and the others here.

TVPaint is constantly improving and taking in suggestions from the public and the beta guys. The program has changed so much in the past 5 years, I can hardly believe it in fact.

And finally, I will put this out to you. If you want a clear path to learning the software and want to know a specific way to do something, I will give you my personal phone number or skype number and you can talk to me directly. I will spend my time for free showing you the most simple and direct way to do what you want in TVPaint, with a method you can repeat and recall at any time, easily. And my apologies if I've come off as gruff or insulting. It's not my intention. I only intend to try and enlighten you to a few points, with the passion I feel for the software and the team, and to try and let you know that no problem you have in TVPaint is insurmountable. Far from it in fact. If you have questions or want that skype / google hangouts / phone number, let me know, and I'll do my very best to help out.

-C

[Trumpatrick]

Thanks for your response Chad, I appreciate it. To be honest, I was expecting to hear from at least a few other people who share my feelings, but if it turns out I am the only one who experiences things this way I guess the only sane conclusion to make would be that TVpaint just isn't the software for me. By the way, I haven't really been an active member of the forum under this account, but I have been using TVpaint for about 10 years and I've had a couple of other accounts which I stopped using for the same reason I've not been very active under this name. I hope I can keep this short, because I have already put a lot of time in this discussion and as long as I'm the only one who comes from my side of the story, we run the risk of running in circles.

In my experience, the people who appreciate TVpaint the most, are the users who have been with the software for a long time and are maybe even BETA testers, so they've gotten to know the creators more personally. And also, they come from a time where TVpaint made things possible that other software couldn't. I'm sharing my experience as a user who doesn't share this connection with the software. Getting involved too personally or emotionally can cloud your vision to the shortfalls of the things you love. With my initial post it was not my intention to attack the developers or sound mean or bombastic, but I hope I already made this clear in my previous posts.

I don't want to go into detail to much in terms of what features don't work for me and why, but I'll address two, since you mention them so specifically. The eraser for me is one of the better examples of how a basic drawing feature that you've come to take for granted with other software puts you off when first opening TVpaint. I have never understood why it's handy to have an eraser the size of the point of your pencil you're using at that moment. This was never a good idea in real life and it doesn't work for me digitally. To work around this, I have to make a drawing tool that only functions as an eraser, but also at a specific size. Resulting in numerous custom panels, with multiple instances of multiple tools, only because some basic functions that work better in other software are not working intuitively.

Next the FXstack. Somehow you concluded that I didn't know how it works. I do know how it works, but the fact that you have to render everything you do to hard pixels (in contrary to software like After Effects where you can go back anytime and make adjustments), makes me just leave it for what it is and turn to After Effects instead. I don't have anything against other things from the 80's by the way. Goonies are awesome.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "make TVpaint like all other software out there". I can accept and even appreciate software doing things different from the industry norm, but only if it's an improvement or if the software enables me to do things other programs can't. Take Zbrush for instance. That program is notorious for it's difficult interface and learning curve, but hey, once you've mastered that, you can sculpt in 3D and express yourself in a way that wasn't possible before. In a lot of cases, TVpaint doesn't offer me that. Sadly there just aren't many programs that combine the features of TVpaint into one program, but even free tablet apps for kids have basic drawing tools that work from the get go. I was looking at ToonBoom harmony recently, and they have added the feature of bitmap drawing now. Making it very tempting to make the jump. In fact, it could make other programs I use in my workflow obsolete, since it also has compositing and you can even animate a 2D character in a 3D scene. And I'm only scratching the surface there. That's the kind of stuff I mean when I say I want my software to feel like it is made now. In discussions, it is often mentioned that the fundament of TVpaint is so old and difficult to work around and that the developers team is small and they work so hard. I can appreciate that, I really do. But I am also a small team (of one) and when I have only 1000,- euro's to spend I'm afraid I'm going to have to make a choice not out of sympathy for the developers.

I am not expecting the developers to do anything with this thread. I know that if I make a suggestion to the developers it is entirely up to them to decided what to do with that. I can only give them my feedback and hope they put their ears to the ground. Maybe I am the only one who feels that way. In that case, they have nothing to worry about. And I will feel slightly ashamed for my arrogance. If I'm not (which I strongly suspect is the case) they can take it as a warning sign that things need to change. Some small things can go a long way in this case.

Thanks for your offer to help me out in any way using TVpaint, that's really nice of you and shows your dedication to the software. If I keep using TVpaint I might make use of it.

[CartoonMonkey]

Hey Trumpatrick, no worries! I would be glad to help out anytime. My apologies for a long winded reply.

[furushil]

I don't really have anything useful to say but it is interesting that you talk about the eraser all the time, because when I started using TVPaint two years ago I thought: "Wow, the eraser is always your current drawing tool. That is absolutely brilliant!". I still find it very useful.
I think if you really like something from the beginning and it works for you, it is hard to convince you that something is wrong. If you don't like it from the beginning it is hard to convince you that the program got better, even if there has been so many updates.
This goes for many things like headphones, operating systems...

[Drayonis]

I have to agree with the poster. I've purchased TVPAINT after much research of applications all over the internet. I work with 22 inch Wacom Cintiq and I've used multitudes of programs from Flash, photoshop, illustrator and too many more to count but TVPAINT is one of the most cumbersome badly designed programs I've ever dealt with in my 20 years of doing animation and illustration. Everything is laid out badly, windows don't collapse fairly well where they could and the lay out seems sloppy and messy. I spend more time struggling to get the same results I had seconds ago vs, actually animating.

Adobe applications are clean and well laid out. While TVPAINT seems like things are slapped together. Setting up hot keys on my Cintiq with most other applications are easy (with other applications) but in TVPaint it's menu after menu of mess. And I agree with the OP, when someone makes a suggestion the responses are "Why would we do that?" Almost like the creators of the application have NEVER used any other current application today. It looks and operates quite like applications from the early 90's, before stream lining became important.

You want to draw? Touch the pen tool, you want to erase (flip over the wacom pen) NOPE! You have to touch the eraser icon! You can't even map the tools directly into the pen without a PHD.

[ZigOtto]

...
You want to draw? Touch the pen tool, you want to erase (flip over the wacom pen) NOPE! You have to touch the eraser icon!

flipping over the wacom pen does work like a charm here,
maybe yours isn't configurated correctly ...

in fact, I use mostly my personal eraser shortcuts, (for customized erasor => soft/large or sharp/thin),
now I am accustomed to my couple of shortcuts, I don't use the wacom top pen for erasing anymore,
(I feel it very uncomfortable, and counterproductive in my drawing workflow).

different animators, different habits, different pipelines, ... different opinions,
that's the beauty of our wild Animation Planet and its "hard-to-please" people.

[schwarzgrau]

It's a good example for what Trumpatrick mentioned in his first post, that he get's lumped together with Joost and Lukas, like "Ok they share a workspace and have their special problems with TVPaint". But I feel the same way, about nearly everything Trumpatrick mentioned and by the way I share my workspace with a few other animators, two of them own a TVPaint license too and feel the same.

Like Trumpatrick said it's really frustrating to make suggestions in the forum, cause it seems a lot of people using exclusively TVPaint since years. This way you loose your objectivity. As example I nearly became crazy, explaining why TVPaint's fill tool needs Anti-Aliasing. Or like CartoonMonkeys Post in which he mentioned how bad After Effect is and how good TVPaint is. I don't like Adobe or Apple that much either, but TVPaint can't cope with After Effects in its disciplines, cause After Effects uses a non-destructive workflow, compared to TVPaint's FX.
And I know TVPaint isn't Photoshop, but maybe it would be a good idea to look at some features of Photoshop, I guess they look at some features of TVPaint too.

I know that People like CartoonMonkey, Paul, SlowTiger and the other BETA-testers are long time TVPaint users and very active on the forum and I appreciate this. Especially since there was always someone if I stucked with the software to help me, but don't make the mistake to ignore the requests of "young" animators like Trumpatrick, Joost and Lukas, even if you interpret their suggestions as rude or a lot of work, cause people like them will use the software in the future.

[Mads Juul]

It's a good example for what Trumpatrick mentioned in his first post, that he get's lumped together with Joost and Lukas, like "Ok they share a workspace and have their special problems with TVPaint". But I feel the same way, about nearly everything Trumpatrick mentioned and by the way I share my workspace with a few other animators, two of them own a TVPaint license too and feel the same.

Like Trumpatrick said it's really frustrating to make suggestions in the forum, cause it seems a lot of people using exclusively TVPaint since years. This way you loose your objectivity. As example I nearly became crazy, explaining why TVPaint's fill tool needs Anti-Aliasing. Or like CartoonMonkeys Post in which he mentioned how bad After Effect is and how good TVPaint is. I don't like Adobe or Apple that much either, but TVPaint can't cope with After Effects in its disciplines, cause After Effects uses a non-destructive workflow, compared to TVPaint's FX.
And I know TVPaint isn't Photoshop, but maybe it would be a good idea to look at some features of Photoshop, I guess they look at some features of TVPaint too.

I know that People like CartoonMonkey, Paul, SlowTiger and the other BETA-testers are long time TVPaint users and very active on the forum and I appreciate this. Especially since there was always someone if I stucked with the software to help me, but don't make the mistake to ignore the requests of "young" animators like Trumpatrick, Joost and Lukas, even if you interpret their suggestions as rude or a lot of work, cause people like them will use the software in the future.

I agree.

[Peter Wassink]

i too agree.
And you are right that we TVPaint veterans do have a tendency to get defensive.
Its the program we love and know so well, we have litterally seen it grow up, we were part of that process and we love what it has grown into, despite its many shortcomings.
So i think its only natural that harsh critique, however valid, arouses a reflex of defense.

Most of us know plenty of aspects that really need adressing to keep TVPaint up to date.
And many of these aspects have already been discussed at length in the past but for some or other reason not yet been implemented.

I am very happy with feedback like that of Lucas, joost, trumpatrick, schwarzgrau and others
Because the developmentteam and the betateam do tend to loose sight of certain problematic issues, sometimes simply because we get used to them.
So it helps a lot that you keep stressing the importance of issues that might otherwise drift towards the bottom of that (very very long) todo list.

Do keep up the complaining!

[Sewie]

And I agree with that.

Next to all the TVPaint apologists (of which I feel I have gradually become one), this forum needs the fresh perspective of critical users and I appreciate that Lukas, Joost and other forummembers put the time and effort in to point out shortcomings so that they can lead to a better and more efficient workflow. I believe that's what this forum is for, to point these issues out and discuss them.

Another thing I want to mention; it really disturbs me to see that certain forum members, specifically I am talking about Paul here, tend to react to Joosts and Lukas' post like they are petulant kids that need to be educated in the TVPaint way of doings thing. These posts have become increasingly more bullying and condescending in tone and it really bothers me.
These guys may be young, and relatively new to TVPaint (though several years of user experience doesn't qualify as that to me) you should keep in mind that they are every bit as much professional animators as any TVPaint veteran on this forum can claim to be.

This is not a rant against TVPaint, I think it is high quality software! But if you read Trumpatrick's posts carefully and without emotion, I think you'd have to admit that he does have some valid points there.