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Creating a SIMPLE animation tool/feature for Affinity Designer is actually VERY easy to do. The devs only need to add codes that will unclick/click the layer(1,2,3) so we will see how the image would look like if animated.

By clicking Play, the layers (1,2,3) will be clicked/unclicked/looped. It's a very simple animation but it's good enough to give us an idea and it's a start.

animation.JPG

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To be honest I can't really see the point in having such basic animation. Presumably you would also need some way to set the speed, and also be able to export it in a suitable format? For basic animation I would have thought that animated GIF support in APhoto would be more useful.

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15 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

To be honest I can't really see the point in having such basic animation. Presumably you would also need some way to set the speed, and also be able to export it in a suitable format? For basic animation I would have thought that animated GIF support in APhoto would be more useful.

You have to agree that basic animation to see the animated result is so easy to incorporate. Just a few codes to click/unclick the layers, the images would start animating.

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I don't know much about coding, so have no idea how easy it would be, I just don't see what use it would be! 🙂

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9 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I don't know much about coding, so have no idea how easy it would be, I just don't see what use it would be! 🙂

It might be of no use to you, but to others it can be useful, and with how easy it is to add it, Affinity should give it a try.

 

 

 

 

 

i d

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I'm sorry, I think we have to agree to disagree! 🙂

 

 

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Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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7 hours ago, rodsal23 said:

It's a very simple animation but it's good enough to give us an idea

So…
What you can already do now is:

  1. create layers
    ade_animation_layers.png.4d209749878aa699988b1a071526f9f0.png
     
  2. switch to Export persona
  3. convert layers to slices
  4. export, e.g. as GIF
    ade_animation_layers_export.png.cd7a00e3d77a07a6ad2da65d3f482f49.png
     
  5. use one of the zillions of free 3rd party apps to create your animation
    ade_animation_p.gif.afa9ee415a39214870eb7a6c94b5a31e.gif

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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4 minutes ago, loukash said:

So…
What you can already do now is:

  1. create layers
    ade_animation_layers.png.4d209749878aa699988b1a071526f9f0.png
     
  2. switch to Export persona
  3. convert layers to slices
  4. export, e.g. as GIF
    ade_animation_layers_export.png.cd7a00e3d77a07a6ad2da65d3f482f49.png
     
  5. use one of the zillions of free 3rd party apps to create your animation
    ade_animation_p.gif.d7f53b48bf4e46cbcb4d453f65541a8c.gif

but we the basic animation, you can test it right away in Affinity. All it takes is a code that will click/unclick/loop the layers(1,2,3).

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the basic animation tool is not really to create a FINISHED animated product since it seems the usual excuse is that it's hard to incorporate an animation feature. It will only give you an idea how the animated product would look like, if it needs some improvement or refinement, etc.

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40 minutes ago, rodsal23 said:

but we the basic animation, you can test it right away in Affinity.

How long do you think it took me to create the above animation from scratch, including the roundtrip to a free GIF animation app?

35 minutes ago, rodsal23 said:

the basic animation tool is not really to create a FINISHED animated product since it seems the usual excuse is that it's hard to incorporate an animation feature. It will only give you an idea how the animated product would look like

Exactly.
So why even bother when the "Export Slices" button is literally only a few clicks away, and you can then drag and drop the folder full of slices onto any offline or online GIF animation tool to get your preview within seconds? :)

That all aside…

7 hours ago, rodsal23 said:

Creating a SIMPLE animation tool/feature for Affinity Designer is actually VERY easy to do. The devs only need to add codes that will unclick/click the layer(1,2,3) so we will see how the image would look like if animated.

How do you know how "easy" it is to code a macro type of function, let alone with a timer?

Sorry, usually I'm all for various kinds of feature or option requests, but this one doesn't make much sense to me.

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9 minutes ago, loukash said:

How long do you think it took me to create the above animation from scratch, including the roundtrip to a free GIF animation app?

Exactly.
So why even bother when the "Export Slices" button is literally only a few clicks away, and you can then drag and drop the folder full of slices onto any offline or online GIF animation tool to get your preview within seconds? :)

That all aside…

How do you know how "easy" it is to code a macro type of function, let alone with a timer?

Sorry, usually I'm all for various kinds of feature or option requests, but this one doesn't make much sense to me.

To be honest, it's ugly, no wonder it didn't take you that long. 

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Why would you have to go to all the trouble exporting all the layers when you can check the finished product right away with just a few tweaks in the code? What if you were not satisfied with the finished result? What if you need to do some corrections? You will go to the same trouble again when you can easily get a glimpse of how the images would look like animated and do some adjustment right away?

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3 minutes ago, rodsal23 said:

To be honest, it's ugly, no wonder it didn't take you that long. 

Everyone’s a critic! Why don’t you show us how it should be done??

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8 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Everyone’s a critic! Why don’t you show us how it should be done??

But can it be done entirely using Affinity products at the present time?

Genuine question.

William

 

Until December 2022, using a Lenovo laptop running Windows 10 in England. From January 2023, using an HP laptop running Windows 11 in England.

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7 minutes ago, rodsal23 said:

Affinity has Publisher, Designer, and Photo, do you use ALL the features? No, right? So just consider my suggestion as one of the features you won't use but others, like me, may find useful.

I have nothing against adding animation, but way way down the line after we have all the planned but still missing basic features that some of us need to do our jobs

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15 minutes ago, William Overington said:

But can it be done entirely using Affinity products at the present time?

Genuine question.

William

 

There are currently no animation features at all in the Affinity apps, and Serif staff have indicated that they don’t plan to add them any time soon.

 

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
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As far as I know, GIF-animation is verry outdated, because of its limitations (f.e. max. 256 colours). Today you can do that better with PNG-Animations. SVG-Animations and even WebP-Animations, as far as I know. And for that, you should better use a software that offers a timeline (like f.e. Krita) and maybe an additional Video editing software (like f.e. VirtualDub, that is recomended for Krita, OpenShot or Kdenlive, to exemplify some free ones). And there are also programs out there specialized on animation, like f.e. Synfig Studio (also a free one for 2D vector animation.

For GIF-Animations you could use GIMP, wich also offers an animation preview (but no timeline).

Of course, I wouldn't oppose against animation functionality in PHOTO, but I wouldn't even oppose against if the devs would try to teach it to brew my coffee.

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So, we had a good laugh, now back to business… :)

13 minutes ago, Dazmondo77 said:

but way way down the line after we have all the planned but still missing basic features that some of us need to do our jobs

Exactly. As it stands from what I've collected on the forums so far, animation features are nowhere near the top of the list. And as a Serif lead developer has stated here in the forums a few years ago (I read that post just the other day but don't remember in which thread context it was), definitely not on the list of features he personally would even want to develop (apparently a long story). So, sorry for bringing the bad news, but I was slightly worried about your all health in case any one of you has been holding your collective breath that an animation feature will be added in three, two, one…

That said…

What I would actually like to see – apart from scripting – is a Macro utility in Designer (and Publisher, for that matter), like the one we already have in Photo.
And – lo and behold – it is already possible to program a macro in Photo that will turn layers on and off:

aph_animation_macro.png.be5509a70513b81ddb95c05b74b4ee9c.png

 

The only problem is:
It is too fast! :D

There is no "Pause n seconds" step available, as far as I can tell, apart from injecting and immediately reverting bogus actions inbetween that would take some time to process…

But hey, whatever.
It's just your another "INSANE workaround" by yours truly, folks.
Enjoy. :)

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Just now, loukash said:

a Serif lead developer has stated here in the forums a few years ago (I read that post just the other day but don't remember in which thread context it was

23 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Serif staff have indicated that they don’t plan to add them any time soon

Yes, that was the post I meant. Thanks!

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1 hour ago, loukash said:

There is no "Pause n seconds" step available, as far as I can tell, apart from injecting and immediately reverting bogus actions inbetween that would take some time to process…

Alright, I really had to try it, right?

While I eventually found a candidate for the bogus action in form of Filters > Frequency Separation which indeed needs quite some time on my 2012 MacBookPro when applied to a large disabled bogus pixel photo in the background, unfortunately the macro is being processed en bloc, without actually enabling and disabling layers while being in action.

So it's just a theoretical workaround.

But I must say that the potential is already there!
What it would need is:

  • execute macro steps like "Set Visibility" literally in "real time" within the macro
  • the aforementioned "Pause n seconds" step

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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Alright, @rodsal23, so you want to animate layers?
And you can! :)
Here you go:

As you can see by the clock in background, it's no trick, it happens in real time. Each loop is executed per simple keyboard shortcut.
But I admit it's slightly "cheated", as in: it's not Affinity that performs the animation.

Sooo…

If you need your animation "preview" now, your workflow will have to include an external macro utility.
On Mac, you can do fun stuff like that with AppleScript's System Events via Automator services.
Or much more comfortably with a macro utility like the incomparable Keyboard Maestro:
ade_animation_layers_km_macro.png.cd59844ea873ebeea5c4605b32f9f65e.png

(Windows folks are on their own, sorry. But the principle will be the same)

Have fun! :)

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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4 minutes ago, macchinario said:

I could see the use for such feature

So do I, in fact. For example: tutorials. Some tutorials I've watched on PooTube are so painfully ssllooww that I had to run them at 2× speed. Stuff like this could definitely speed it up a bit. ;)

8 minutes ago, macchinario said:

thanks for the laughs!

You're welcome.

And @rodsal23, I didn't mean to poke fun at you. Just wanted to lighten up the thread a bit by reusing a quick example drawing from another thread. :)

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Another post, another variant…
Since we're in Designer, we can actually "browse" the layers directly via Select Next/Previous (unlike in Photo; don't ask me why) and Show/Hide, and loop them until we tell the macro to stop:

All you need is to select the starting layer in the Layers panel.
This macro can be expanded e.g. by creating sub-loops and adding a variable prompt at the beginning where you could enter the number of layers to travel up and down.

Keyboard Maestro can easily access every available menu item, so the scripting capabilities are in fact pretty broad.

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