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Hello! My name is Max Garena. I am an animator with 15 years of experience. I know almost all animation programs, I've tried everything I can. (what is available on the market for 2D animation) I have been using your products for a long time, both on PC and on Mac. You have a lot of experience in creating a successful quality product! I wanted to ask you. There is a big problem in the market with animation software. What is on the market is completely unsuitable for freelancers and animators - the prices are very high! They are studio oriented, there is nothing worthy of the free ones, it is difficult to work with it. Free products have a number of problem areas, such as functionality, interface, stability, etc. Some giants like a TVPaint, Toon Boom Harmony, Adobe.... are very expensive for artists. Considering your policy, I'm sure you would have made a great product!
I often observe in various forums how people are waiting for an alternative. They hope that someone can provide them with a decent product at an affordable price. I see that people are willing to pay a conditional $ 100 to use the program.(NO SUBS) There is no such offer on the market now. Everything is by subscription or has a very high price tag. What u think about? Thx.
 
 

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Welcome to the forums @MaxGarena

Animation functionality has been requested many times before but the replies I have seen from Serif seem to suggest that they have no plans for that the foreseeable future.
Just do a forum search for “animation” (without the quotes) and see how many threads there are.
Serif are certainly aware of the requests but all we can do is wait and see if anything happens.

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@MaxGarena

I am no Animator. But have you ever tried or looked
at the possibilities of the Grease Pencil in "Blender"?

I think you will not find a more feature rich option
for 2d vector animations than this and it works
in 3d space too.

Btw. Blender is free (OpenSource)

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Just a hobbyist animator here but Moho Pro recently, the past year, had the original creator gain back control of the software and put out an update to it. It is now at version 13.5. They have Debut and Pro versions, that cost money, $60 and $400 respectively but those are one time purchases and the upgrades are reasonable. They often times have sales and you will not find a better forum/community in helping you to get up to speed with the software. I have had success working in Designer and exporting out via SVG and then importing those SVGs into Moho to rig and animate.

Spine 2D is what?, $299 but I am amazed at videos I have seen where artists are working in Affinity Designer to create a character and then exporting out by use of JSON, and then are able to rig and animate and with the continuous export of Designer, can make a change in Designer and it updates in Spine in realtime, very cool.

Opentoonz is a free option and more specifically, Tahoma 2D, which is a fork of Opentoonz and has a more polished UI and some additional features. It is free as well. 

I really do think that both Moho and Tahoma would be geared toward more independent freelancers. I don't know, to me, even a program like Moho Pro is very affordable because it isn't like something like say a Toon Boom Harmony where you could pay what, $2,000 for a perpetual license. But then you have to have a $300 support contract if you want to still get updates to it past that first year. That adds up quickly over say 10 years and could cost you $5000. But you buy Moho Pro initially at $400 and then say pay for another two upgrades in 10 years time and maybe you only end up paying $750 over a ten year period for Moho Pro? That ends up being an average of just $75 a year to have Moho Pro for that 10 year period. That to me is a great deal, but your mileage may vary of course.

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First of all, I like your idea of a 2D animation software
and why not one from Serif.

But I don't really know what you want.
Or better what you expect.

You don't like any of the existing 2D animation software
and you hope Serif will do better ? For 100 $ ?

Well, I have already read many posts in this forum
about what features are missing in Affinity Designer
by users (for years).
I don't see how such hopes will be fulfilled.

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11 hours ago, 2ddpainter said:

First of all, I like your idea of a 2D animation software
and why not one from Serif.

But I don't really know what you want.
Or better what you expect.

You don't like any of the existing 2D animation software
and you hope Serif will do better ? For 100 $ ?

Well, I have already read many posts in this forum
about what features are missing in Affinity Designer
by users (for years).
I don't see how such hopes will be fulfilled.

I don't want better. I want the Serif to just put together the best of the Toon Boom Harmony and TVPaint. i want a working tool for frame-by-frame animation.

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On 7/9/2021 at 3:35 PM, Scungio said:

Just a hobbyist animator here but Moho Pro recently, the past year, had the original creator gain back control of the software and put out an update to it. It is now at version 13.5. They have Debut and Pro versions, that cost money, $60 and $400 respectively but those are one time purchases and the upgrades are reasonable. They often times have sales and you will not find a better forum/community in helping you to get up to speed with the software. I have had success working in Designer and exporting out via SVG and then importing those SVGs into Moho to rig and animate.

Spine 2D is what?, $299 but I am amazed at videos I have seen where artists are working in Affinity Designer to create a character and then exporting out by use of JSON, and then are able to rig and animate and with the continuous export of Designer, can make a change in Designer and it updates in Spine in realtime, very cool.

Opentoonz is a free option and more specifically, Tahoma 2D, which is a fork of Opentoonz and has a more polished UI and some additional features. It is free as well. 

I really do think that both Moho and Tahoma would be geared toward more independent freelancers. I don't know, to me, even a program like Moho Pro is very affordable because it isn't like something like say a Toon Boom Harmony where you could pay what, $2,000 for a perpetual license. But then you have to have a $300 support contract if you want to still get updates to it past that first year. That adds up quickly over say 10 years and could cost you $5000. But you buy Moho Pro initially at $400 and then say pay for another two upgrades in 10 years time and maybe you only end up paying $750 over a ten year period for Moho Pro? That ends up being an average of just $75 a year to have Moho Pro for that 10 year period. That to me is a great deal, but your mileage may vary of course.

Tahoma is buggy and unstable. You cannot use it in production. Spine is more focused on the game maker. I am using it. And for 2D animation, there is nothing good. I mean good drawing tools, good quality timeline, good interface. Moho. Downloaded Debut useless demo product. There are many restrictions. You can't draw. Just import pictures and bend them with bones ... Debatable. I can do better in spine. Moho Pro.....There are no good raster drawing tools here. There is no good coherent timeline for the shot.

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1 hour ago, MaxGarena said:

Spine is more focused on the game maker.

Do you know that there is a batch builder in the export persona for Spine?

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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14 hours ago, MaxGarena said:

Tahoma is buggy and unstable. You cannot use it in production.

Its brother OpenToonz is used in feature film and broadcast Anime production in Japan. I like it very much for 2d animation work myself. Works great with ClipStudio, which exports frame-by-frame directly into OpenToonz. Or combine with Krita, which has nice frame-by-frame animation and superb bitmap drawing tools.

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43 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Its brother OpenToonz is used in feature film and broadcast Anime production in Japan. I like it very much for 2d animation work myself. Works great with ClipStudio, which exports frame-by-frame directly into OpenToonz. Or combine with Krita, which has nice frame-by-frame animation and superb bitmap drawing tools.

Open Toonz has not been used anywhere in production for a long time. This is an old program that moved to the open source section only because it is outdated. Krita does not have a working timeline. You cannot control frames, the timeline is made for in order to be. if you work in tvpaint or TBHarmony, you will understand what I mean.

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11 minutes ago, MaxGarena said:

You cannot control frames, the timeline is made for in order to be. if you work in tvpaint or TBHarmony, you will understand what I mean.

That is why I mentioned Krita works well together with OpenToonz.

I have worked in ToonBoom for Disney work, and actually prefer OpenToonz/ClipStudio for my own work.

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7 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

That is why I mentioned Krita works well together with OpenToonz.

I have worked in ToonBoom for Disney work, and actually prefer OpenToonz/ClipStudio for my own work.

I do not deny that something can be done in it. But I want convenience and comfort. This is not found in Krita or in Open Toons.

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3 minutes ago, MaxGarena said:

 Open Toonz = open source is a stub from the premium version with a crooked code, which is not used anywhere except for individual enthusiasts.

Again, an untrue statement. OpenToonz is actively being developed, and the lead (Japanese) developer implemented and still is working on direct requests from studios in Japan.

2 minutes ago, MaxGarena said:

I do not deny that something can be done in it. But I want convenience and comfort. This is not found in Krita or in Open Toons.

You do realize that OT was (and still is) used in the full production pipeline of feature-length 2d animation films in the past few years? It is production proven.

Now, you may not like it - but based on your comments above, I presume you have only played around with it, and haven't spent much time in it. Similar to how you downloaded Moho Debut, and claimed it is 'useless', while again Moho Pro has been used in major feature films in the past few years for various sequences.

Your comments seem to be based on hardly any in-depth personal experience with either software. OpenToonz's pipeline and workflow is very effective. In particular when combined with ClipStudio. And in my opinion it is a very comfortable animation experience for frame-by-frame. But not for every type of animation like cut-out animation.

All animation software has its pros and cons. And personal preferences also play an important role, of course.

Anyway, do I think it would be interesting to see new 2d animation software enter the market? Yes, I do. I completely agree with you that renting software is great for studios, not that great for freelance animators. I don't think Serif will wager a bet on the 2d animation software market, though. It is too niche.

Still, I would like to see a basic animation timeline in Affinity Photo/Designer.

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48 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Now, you may not like it - but based on your comments above, I presume you have only played around with it, and haven't spent much time in it. Similar to how you downloaded Moho Debut, and claimed it is 'useless', while again Moho Pro has been used in major feature films in the past few years for various sequences.

Some years ago I downloaded Anime Studio Debut, as it was called then, and although I didn’t spend much time in it I certainly saw no basis for claiming that it was ‘useless’. Even without that tiny bit of personal experience it would be quite clear to me that Moho Pro is a highly capable program.

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1 hour ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Again, an untrue statement. OpenToonz is actively being developed, and the lead (Japanese) developer implemented and still is working on direct requests from studios in Japan.

You do realize that OT was (and still is) used in the full production pipeline of feature-length 2d animation films in the past few years? It is production proven.

Now, you may not like it - but based on your comments above, I presume you have only played around with it, and haven't spent much time in it. Similar to how you downloaded Moho Debut, and claimed it is 'useless', while again Moho Pro has been used in major feature films in the past few years for various sequences.

Your comments seem to be based on hardly any in-depth personal experience with either software. OpenToonz's pipeline and workflow is very effective. In particular when combined with ClipStudio. And in my opinion it is a very comfortable animation experience for frame-by-frame. But not for every type of animation like cut-out animation.

All animation software has its pros and cons. And personal preferences also play an important role, of course.

Anyway, do I think it would be interesting to see new 2d animation software enter the market? Yes, I do. I completely agree with you that renting software is great for studios, not that great for freelance animators. I don't think Serif will wager a bet on the 2d animation software market, though. It is too niche.

Still, I would like to see a basic animation timeline in Affinity Photo/Designer.

1.Let me clarify. Raster, animation, frame-by-frame animation. Moho is immediately excluded. Because it is not geared towards frame animation!
2. You please try TVPAiant. To understand. Because everything is in comparison. And everything will become clear to you what I mean. It has exactly what you need in terms of timeline and frame management. This is NOT in Open Toonz, Krita or anywhere else !!!! And this is the KEY difference !!! You can do animation in Paint, you can do it anywhere. The question is convenience and comfort.

3.it is impossible to work with Open Toonz. It crashes constantly. There are always some glitches ... There is even an article dedicated to what kind of crooked code there is inside. Open source is open source ...

I understand your idea. I don't think it makes sense for us to discuss this further here. Thank you.

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12 hours ago, MaxGarena said:

2. You please try TVPAiant. To understand. Because everything is in comparison. And everything will become clear to you what I mean. It has exactly what you need in terms of timeline and frame management. This is NOT in Open Toonz, Krita or anywhere else !!!! And this is the KEY difference !!! You can do animation in Paint, you can do it anywhere. The question is convenience and comfort.

Challenge accepted!

I downloaded the trial version of TVPaint which is fully functional but for saving work, and I spent the afternoon hours in it. It's improved quite a bit since I last tested it 8~10 years ago, or so.

So here are my discoveries, be they as they may rather shallow ones, and if I get anything wrong here, please correct me.

Focusing on the timeline only:

Things I liked

  • the head and tail instance handles work well and fast. OpenToonz has similar options, but it takes an extra step for the head.
     
  • timeline works well (minus my major gripe regarding nested timelines see below)
     
  • layers in timeline offer regular layer blending (not possible in OpenToonz: the layer workflow is different, and requires the nodal compositor)
  • thumbnail preview in the timeline is nice. And the layers are collapsible, which I love (and use in for example Resolve)

  • I really like Image Marking in TVPaint. Great to indicate keys, extremes, inbetweens,... Would like this in OpenToonz, because I often want to differentiate between these. ToonBoom has a similar feature, but not as good.
     
  • The Flip feature is also pretty cool. Very much like this, and haven't seen it implemented like that before.
     
  • Timeline is easily controllable with the keyboard.

Things I disliked:

  • OpenToonz offers very efficient and convenient drawing substitution (ClipStudio works the same in this sense). Basically, drawings and the timeline are uncoupled, allowing for easy drawing recycling.

    For example, I have a character with various expressions. I create a layer with a bunch of expressions. Now I can easily reuse those drawings in the timeline. When I update one of the drawings, all instances update!
    This also works with sub-Xsheets/timelines, which allow for multi-layered embedded timelines. Very flexible system.

    I looked in TVPaint for something similar, but came up short. Are the drawings somehow separable from the timeline, or not? I hope so.

 

  • Talking about sub-Xsheets: in OpenToonz it is efficient and simple to create nested timelines. Any animation timeline/x-sheet may be placed in another timeline as a nested timeline. In this sense they work like Graphic Symbols in Flash/Animate CC.
    I missed a similar feature in TVPaint. I checked the TVPaint forums, but this (rather essential option in my opinion) is not supported. That's a show-stopper for me personally: I can't imagine working without such a basic feature.

 

  • A simple retiming on 1s, 2s, and 3s seems to be missing? I noticed there are scripts, so perhaps someone wrote a script for this?

 

  • In OpenToonz the timeline allows block selection and dragging of frames across multiple layers. This doesn't seem to be possible in TVPaint.

 

  • Onion skinning is much more convenient and flexible in OpenToonz: it is much better integrated in the timeline.

 

  • Not sure about this one, but I missed a similar feature as Shift & Trace in TVPaint: it allows for keys/extremes/inbetweens to be temporarily moved/rotated to draw new inbetweens on the exact spot where they need to be. It's like grabbing one of the animation sheets, and moving it on a light table under your new drawing as a reference.
    This works directly in the timeline. Very handy.

 

  • While I sorta like the project manager with clips in TVPaint, I prefer to work with the X-sheet/timeline and sub-Xsheets to generate a master. This also allows for all the timeline features such as onion skinning for example, which is not possible in the project manager with clips in TVPaint. It feels needlessly restricting in my view. It seems the lack of sub-timelines is complicating project management somewhat?

    Besides, it feels a bit like a cross between an X-sheet and a non-linear video editor, but falls short of either as far as I can tell after this brief exploration.

 

  • Simple tweening (transformations) of drawings/content is terrible in TVPaint: it is all done in a separated fragmented workflow via the 'Keyframer effect'. In OpenToonz it is integrated in the timeline, with easy to identify timeline keys. Almost unusable for me in TVP. Who came up with that?!

 

  • Same for the camera: in OpenToonz cameras are part of the timeline (which they should be in my opinion), and may be keyed/transformed/tweened. In TVPaint however the camera is part of the effect stack?! Just plain silly! Why over-complicate camera work?

In short, the lack of sub-timelines is one of the dealbreakers for me. As are the way cameras are (not) handled in the timeline. But other things are missing as well, which I take for granted:

  • obviously no vector drawing support. That's a big one! Toonboom, Flash/Animate, CelAction,... All support this. OpenToonz and Toonboom both allow for conversion from bitmap to vector as well. It does limit the usage scope of TVPaint in my opinion. Frame-by-frame animation with vector support is brilliant for that clean look, and can be scaled without issues for different resolutions. It is a major reason why ToonBoom is used for a lot of work and why Flash was used in the past.
  • - the way effects are handled in TVPaint via the FX stack is rather (sorry) horrible. In OpenToonz a nodal editor is used. Same in ToonBoom.
  • - In OpenToonz a special raster/bitmap layer exists that keeps track of palettized colours. Which means both vectors AND bitmap brush colours are editable at all times.
  • - aside from great frame-by-frame animation options, OpenToonz also provides quite nice automatic tweening. Even vector drawings can be tweened for quite automatic inbetweens instead of having to draw them from scratch.

In short: I quite liked the frame-by-frame bitmap animation tools in TVPaint, and it offers some interesting features. But it also lacks a number of rather essential features which come free with OpenToonz and are part of other commercial software as well. And TVPaint implements a number of features in a very awkward manner (effects stack, tweening,camera,...).

The project setup was interesting, but I do prefer the way animation projects are set up in OpenToonz.

As for storyboarding, WonderUnit Storyboarder is excellent, albeit not directly integrated in the animation software like TVPaint. But free and very capable.

12 hours ago, MaxGarena said:

3.it is impossible to work with Open Toonz. It crashes constantly. There are always some glitches ... There is even an article dedicated to what kind of crooked code there is inside.

Please share with us the link to that article, please. What is "crooked code" exactly?

I worked all day with both OpenToonz and TVPaint, doing the same things, and neither crashed. Yes, OpenToonz in the early days was horrifically unstable, and crashed time after time. Nowadays this is no longer the case.

12 hours ago, MaxGarena said:

Open source is open source ...

What does that exactly mean? Blender is incredibly successful, and is now used all over the world for work by artists and studios of all levels. Krita is stable and arguably one of the best digital drawing apps out there. Wonderunit Storyboarder is excellent and stable. OpenToonz is used and stable enough for large-scale feature productions.

 

12 hours ago, MaxGarena said:

I have not met animation studio that works on the OPenT.(Japanese examples do not count .... well, seriously) I think it's not just that. Because the studio is waiting for stability and reliability. OT cannot give this.

Now you are shifting the goal posts... Japanese examples do not count? Have you seen TVPaint's website recently? It is also used by Japanese animators and studios - the site uses this to advertize their product! So those Japanese productions do not count either? If anything, Japanese traditional frame-by-frame animation is mightily impressive. It serves as an example. (Yes, there is factory-work stuff as well, just like in the West!)

Anyway, all animation apps have their ups and downs. I think that the "perfect" animation software cannot exist, because it depends too much on the workflow of the individual animator and animation studio requirements.

Would I use TVPaint in my own work? No. It is too focused on bitmap frame-by-frame only, and it is really quirky in some areas - too non-standard and quirky for me. But if I was asked to use it within a team, I would have no qualms about it.

 

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5 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Please share with us the link to that article, please. What is "crooked code" exactly?

https://pvs-studio.com/ru/blog/posts/cpp/0389/   ( RUS)

 

5 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

What does that exactly mean? Blender is incredibly successful, and is now used all over the world for work by artists and studios of all levels. Krita is stable and arguably one of the best digital drawing apps out there. Wonderunit Storyboarder is excellent and stable. OpenToonz is used and stable enough for large-scale feature productions.

I have been using a blender for over 5 years now and I find it a very cool product! Krita is also good, but not always suitable. About open source. I meant that you cannot demand from open source something like commercial programs. They can fix something for years and the user is not in the right to demand something from them. Because it is a free program.

I don't really understand what you want to convince me of? What is OT good? Not. He's not good for me. If asked what I want? I would say. Affinity photo with a timeline like TVPaint.

PS/ You, As the maestro OT say pls, on the timeline there is a slider that increases the frame by duration. How to reduce the length of the frame? Where is this slider ?. At the TVPaint, he is responsible for increasing and decreasing the duration. In OT I can only increase the duration. Which is strange.

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55 minutes ago, MaxGarena said:

Ah yes, I recall that discussion at the time. 🙂

Here is an updated article from the same site 4 years later: https://pvs-studio.com/en/blog/posts/cpp/0720/

It really was more of a discussion about using PVS to analyze a larger project's code quality (PVS is their product). It is used to identify " bad practices"  in coding, and obviously the open sourcing of a once-commercial product provided a great opportunity to make some waves on the net for their PVS code quality checking. I believe they did a similar test with Blender's source code. Not sure.

Overall it bears little weight as to the quality and functionality of OT, of course. Although it may create a more unstable running app. But really, OT runs well on my system now. Really no comparison with the first version (which was BAAAD!!!). I did some crazy timeline things today, and it hasn't crashed on me even once. It runs fine now (at least on Windows. I have no experience with the Mac side of things!)

55 minutes ago, MaxGarena said:

don't really understand what you want to convince me of? What is OT good? Not. He's not good for me. If asked what I want? I would say. Affinity photo with a timeline like TVPaint.

Not trying to convince anyone. I just thought there were some outdated/uninformed notions posted in this thread about OpenToonz. And yes, I do like to work with OpenToonz: it fits my workflow very well.

But as you say: what works for one person may not work for another person. I think it is great we have so many options now, because I recall a time only expensive production-level 2d animation software was available. Now any animator can access high-grade animation software for free.

55 minutes ago, MaxGarena said:

on the timeline there is a slider that increases the frame by duration. How to reduce the length of the frame? Where is this slider ?. At the TVPaint, he is responsible for increasing and decreasing the duration. In OT I can only increase the duration. Which is strange.

As I wrote earlier, it works a bit different in OT compared to TVPaint: because the drawings are decoupled from the timeline, selecting frames and how these are selected becomes more important.

To make it work, select a range of frames. Then the handle appears at the end. This is actually quite neat, because if a pattern of frames is selected, it will repeat that pattern - even across multiple layers!. To decrease the exposure, select a range, and then drag the handle to the left.

Also, if you hold down CTRL a handle will appear at the start of a sequence, allowing for increasing and decreasing the duration of a sequence from the left (start).

TVPaint does make it easier to drag sequences over other sequences & replace them. 

As I said, some timeline things work better in OT, other things better in TVP.  I do very much miss nested timelines, though.

Btw, after playing around with TVPaint I was pleasantly surprised by the nice fluid animation workflow. Definitely got some nice improvements since I last tested it. So at the very least your post here made me very curious about TVPaint once more. ;-) 

55 minutes ago, MaxGarena said:

About open source. I meant that you cannot demand from open source something like commercial programs. They can fix something for years and the user is not in the right to demand something from them. Because it is a free program.

That depends! Blender's Long Term Support version is aimed at providing good support for studios. That was definitely a good move by the Blender Foundation and motivated more studios to adopt Blender in their pipelines. And OpenToonz's lead developer works for Japanese animation studios and is directly responsible for adding requested features and debugging OT when the animators run into issues.

Vice versa (playing the devil's advocate here): Affinity users have been requesting a number of expected and basic features for a VERY long time now, and those are still not implemented. The reality of software development is a little more complicated than merely a matter of " free/open source" versus " commercial" business models.

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3 hours ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Ah yes, I recall that discussion at the time. 🙂

Here is an updated article from the same site 4 years later: https://pvs-studio.com/en/blog/posts/cpp/0720/

It really was more of a discussion about using PVS to analyze a larger project's code quality (PVS is their product). It is used to identify " bad practices"  in coding, and obviously the open sourcing of a once-commercial product provided a great opportunity to make some waves on the net for their PVS code quality checking. I believe they did a similar test with Blender's source code. Not sure.

Overall it bears little weight as to the quality and functionality of OT, of course. Although it may create a more unstable running app. But really, OT runs well on my system now. Really no comparison with the first version (which was BAAAD!!!). I did some crazy timeline things today, and it hasn't crashed on me even once. It runs fine now (at least on Windows. I have no experience with the Mac side of things!)

Not trying to convince anyone. I just thought there were some outdated/uninformed notions posted in this thread about OpenToonz. And yes, I do like to work with OpenToonz: it fits my workflow very well.

But as you say: what works for one person may not work for another person. I think it is great we have so many options now, because I recall a time only expensive production-level 2d animation software was available. Now any animator can access high-grade animation software for free.

As I wrote earlier, it works a bit different in OT compared to TVPaint: because the drawings are decoupled from the timeline, selecting frames and how these are selected becomes more important.

To make it work, select a range of frames. Then the handle appears at the end. This is actually quite neat, because if a pattern of frames is selected, it will repeat that pattern - even across multiple layers!. To decrease the exposure, select a range, and then drag the handle to the left.

Also, if you hold down CTRL a handle will appear at the start of a sequence, allowing for increasing and decreasing the duration of a sequence from the left (start).

TVPaint does make it easier to drag sequences over other sequences & replace them. 

As I said, some timeline things work better in OT, other things better in TVP.  I do very much miss nested timelines, though.

Btw, after playing around with TVPaint I was pleasantly surprised by the nice fluid animation workflow. Definitely got some nice improvements since I last tested it. So at the very least your post here made me very curious about TVPaint once more. ;-) 

That depends! Blender's Long Term Support version is aimed at providing good support for studios. That was definitely a good move by the Blender Foundation and motivated more studios to adopt Blender in their pipelines. And OpenToonz's lead developer works for Japanese animation studios and is directly responsible for adding requested features and debugging OT when the animators run into issues.

Vice versa (playing the devil's advocate here): Affinity users have been requesting a number of expected and basic features for a VERY long time now, and those are still not implemented. The reality of software development is a little more complicated than merely a matter of " free/open source" versus " commercial" business models.

Well, you convinced me to reconsider the attitude towards OT and towards Tahoma 2d. I'm going to test. It was nice to talk to! In touch! 

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