Dear community, help me understand this upgrade?

[Jet]

Hi it's been awhile, I just learned of TVP 12 but I feel disappointed, I'm a traditional animator so could anyone explain to me if there's anything I would benefit from by upgrading? The details seem to be released in TikTok sized chunks and all I'm seeing people talk about is bones, not to mention half of the TVP links now seem dead when trying to Google.

For perspective, here's what I have:
- TVP11, Clip Studio Paint EX3, OpenToonz, Animation Paper, Moho Pro 14, Blender, Resolve

What do I gain by upgrading exactly? Here's other news I've been reading about...

OLM's AI auto-painter:
https://olm-rd.github.io/animestyle-col ... on-project

And 'generative interpolation', such as ToonCrafter (examples shown on the Git page):
https://github.com/ToonCrafter/ToonCrafter

I'm feeling as if I should probably invest more heavily into GPU power, rather than software at this point? Not sure how to word all this, have I completely overlooked something big in the announcement somehow? Anything like Klaus vector masks with tracking? Vector brush? Proper X-Sheet? Good brush performance at 4K? Palette management/color replace akin to OpenToonz? Anything?

By the way, I'm not unhappy with TVP, it just feels like I could probably stick with V11 is all it seems.

Cheers.

[Blunderer]

I'm in the same boat as you. I already own Moho, so I don't need bone animation.
From my perspective, there isn't enough for me to justify that $800 upgrade price. Too many questions, and I'm unclear of any roadmap. Are they moving to annual releases at $800 a pop, or will they add additional functionality to version 12 and keep it going a couple of years. I don't know, and that's the risk.

For comparisons sake: Toonboom Harmony Premium has an annual upgrade plan that costs $350 a year which keeps my perpetual license upgraded to the latest release version. Granted, they haven't released a new version since 2022 (probably due to the company being sold), so I'm now wondering if it's worth renewing or not for 2024. The point is, a $350 annual plan that upgraded my perpetual license to the latest version is a much easier decision to make.

[Peter Wassink]

What do I gain by upgrading exactly?

not really an 'off topic' question.
But hard to answer...

From my perspective, as an animator
The most usable improvements that help my workflow are:
-the layer folders. This long standing request is finally implemented! (Unfortunately as of yet, its not fully finished, no correct folder opacity, and it lacks a proper handling UI)
-the improved line sharpness upon multiple transforms (although that setting does create slight artifacts.)

[mikdog]

Our company purchased TVPaint for me on Black Friday last year I think, it was already a HUGE cost, so the 800 Euro upgrade price to me is insane lol (especially with my country's exchange rate, is bonkers).
I can live with v11's features.

[kelanhordos]

This is an interesting thread, as I was wondering about a few things in v12 and the future development myself and where they could be discussed.

As a caveat this is just my impression as a traditional animator, and from my limited time with v12, and without any documentation to back some of this up. This is also the opinion of someone who predominately uses TvPaint for all my work unless I have to otherwise based on project requirements.

Pros
I think the new transformation algorithm is VERY nice, although I don't know if alone or together any of this stuff below is worth an upgrade for someone in your situation.

Layer folders, while still having some bugs to iron out, are a very welcome addition for organization, and I think will open up some very cool stuff when the blending modes are working better(transparency for example, haven't tested much yet). I am curious if they will support nested layers in the future, as it would be nice to open Photoshop files that have nested folders and not have them break(right now TVP put all the layers into the bottom folder).

Modular Interface - I had a hackneyed way of stretching Tvpaint across 2 monitors to allow myself to use the timeline offscreen(dont care much for toggling on and off) as well as some of the bigger menus like the Library to keep them open and free up drawing space. Unfortunately it would often reset if TVPaint wasnt closed while my monitors were turned off, or other various issues. The new modular interface makes this simple and easy, and is very clean.

There are a few other minor quality of life things, like the floating color picker, that are hidden right now without documentation that I find improve the workflow and make TvPaint that much funner to work in.

Lastly for now, and this is supposition until the documentation comes out(and I don't have access to 11 to compare to anymore so this is possibly a placebo thing)but something about the drawing system feels better to me in v12. Some older brushes I have brought into 12, "feel" better to draw with, and some of the new default pencil brushes feel superior to the old ones, although they dont look significantly different at first glance. I also look forward to playing with dual papers, and seeing if there are other systems that have been improved that we need the documentation to know about.

Cons
I don't really understand the puppet/bones thing to be honest. If this was a popular request, then sure that makes sense but it honestly seems like with something like Moho, which although I haven't used personally seems to do a fantastic job, you are just going to have a inferior version of something in your software that is eating up development time. I hope that doesn't come across to harsh, and I'm going to continue supporting Tvpaint regardless, but it has crossed my mind what else could they have spent time implementing? For example the Warp tool was added in v11, but could use some improvement in ease of use, as for now its something cool, but difficult to use(there are some nice scripts that help, but that is not native to the program) practically compared to similar tools in other programs. I haven't explored puppets/bones much yet, and I'm curious how adaptable it is with a tradigital workflow, so will suspend my judgement until then, but this is my first impression. If there is a real desire for bitmap bones system, then I would certainly be willing to pay for something I probably won't ever use to support TvPaint, but I remain to be convinced.

Price - I can see this being the biggest hurdle for people, personally I like being able to own it outright. I started with v11, so am not super familiar with support before that, but major versions seem to have a decent shelf life. v11 is likely a bit of an oddity due to the shake up in the company likely putting development behind, but if you look at the additions to minor versions updates to v11, they improved/added quite a bit imo.

[D.T. Nethery]

The details seem to be released in TikTok sized chunks and all I'm seeing people talk about is bones,
not to mention half of the TVP links now seem dead when trying to Google.

It is unfortunate that searching on Google or other search engines for topics that were on the TVPaint forum which have URL https://tvpaint.com/en/forum/ are now dead "404: Not Found"
links. Although http://www.tvpaint.org/forum links are still active and http://tvpaint.net/forum/ links are still active ... but the .com web address is by far the most common one that people use to search , so why are all the tvpaint.com/forum links '404: Not Found' , but the .org and .net links are still active ?

[mikdog]

The details seem to be released in TikTok sized chunks and all I'm seeing people talk about is bones,
not to mention half of the TVP links now seem dead when trying to Google.

It is unfortunate that searching on Google or other search engines for topics that were on the TVPaint forum which have URL https://tvpaint.com/en/forum/ are now dead "404: Not Found"
links. Although http://www.tvpaint.org/forum links are still active and http://tvpaint.net/forum/ links are still active ... but the .com web address is by far the most common one that people use to search , so why are all the tvpaint.com/forum links '404: Not Found' , but the .org and .net links are still active ?

It took me days to get back to the forum, thought I'd been banned tbh, kept seeing 404 notices.

[D.T. Nethery]

The details seem to be released in TikTok sized chunks and all I'm seeing people talk about is bones,
not to mention half of the TVP links now seem dead when trying to Google.

It is unfortunate that searching on Google or other search engines for topics that were on the TVPaint forum which have URL https://tvpaint.com/en/forum/ are now dead "404: Not Found"
links. Although http://www.tvpaint.org/forum links are still active and http://tvpaint.net/forum/ links are still active ... but the .com web address is by far the most common one that people use to search , so why are all the tvpaint.com/forum links '404: Not Found' , but the .org and .net links are still active ?

It took me days to get back to the forum, thought I'd been banned tbh, kept seeing 404 notices.

Clicking on a search result in Google for a topic on tvpaint.com/forum no longer gets a 404 Not Found , but it does not go to the linked page on the forum , it simply opens up the main page of the forum. So a viable method of searching for older topics and posts is still not working at this time. (the search function on the forum is not very useful , so it's much more efficient to search via Google ... but not now, because all the old cached topic links from tvpaint.com/forum on Google are now forwarded to the main forum page, not to the topic page.)

For example, I was searching for a topic I remembered which has a request for a new feature where we could cross-dissolve from one Clip to another Cllp. I found it on Google, but when I clicked on the search result in Google , instead of going to the link: https://www.tvpaint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9986 I am forwarded here: https://forum.tvpaint.com

Screen Shot 2024-06-14 at 10.01.50 AM.jpg (55.25 KiB) Viewed 4794 times

If I manually convert the link from https://www.tvpaint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9986 to viewtopic.php?t=9986 I will arrive on the topic I was searching for , but who wants to spend the time manually converting the links ?

[Peter Wassink]

BTW i can report that the crossfade trick mentioned in that thread does work between layergroups!

Thanks for bringing it back up David because i had forgotten all about it!
in being able to do it between groups it also at once becomes much more usefull!
and on top it also offers a way to work around the v12 layer opacity Bug.

[D.T. Nethery]

BTW i can report that the crossfade trick mentioned in that thread does work between layer groups!

Thanks for bringing it back up David because i had forgotten all about it!
in being able to do it between groups it also at once becomes much more useful!
and on top it also offers a way to work around the v12 layer opacity Bug.

I'm still having trouble with the layer opacity in getting the cross-dissolve effect to export properly. In TVPaint 12 I have my upper layer set to Behind blend mode , the Fade layer set to Erase blend mode as per your original instructions all those years ago . Within TVPaint 12 it works fine (see screenshot video) but when I try to export it the fade/cross-dissolve effect doesn't show up. Do I not have the layers/folders set up incorrectly ? Or is this the v12 layer opacity bug you were referring to above ?

---------

UPDATE: Now I think I found the problem.

It works as intended if the Upper Level is set (as before) with the Folder blend mode as "Behind".
The difference is the FADE folder has the folder blend mode set to Transparent (before the folder blend mode was set to Erase) , however the Fade layer inside the folder is set to Erase.
The Lower Layer is set to Color blend mode (not Transparent, as it was before).

Screen Shot 2024-06-18 at 6.58.19 PM.jpg (78.57 KiB) Viewed 4623 times

Now when exporting to .mov or .mp4 or .gif it correctly renders the cross-dissolve.

But is this right or still a sort of bug ? Shouldn't the folder blend mode being set to Erase have worked ?


Now the cross-dissolve effect renders correctly:


(oddly enough though the cross-dissolve effect will not playback when I hit Play in the TVPaint interface. The cross-dissolve effect is visible if I manually scrub through the timeline, but not if I click Play. ---------

UPDATE: Now I think I found the problem.

It works as intended if the Upper Level (DAY) is set (as before) with the Folder blend mode as "Behind".
The difference is the FADE folder has the folder blend mode set to Transparent (before the folder blend mode was set to Erase) , however the Fade layer inside the folder is set to Erase.
The Lower Layer is set to Color blend mode (not Transparent, as it was before).

Screen Shot 2024-06-18 at 6.58.19 PM.jpg (78.57 KiB) Viewed 4623 times

Now when exporting to .mov or .mp4 or .gif it correctly renders the cross-dissolve.

But is this right or still a sort of bug ? Shouldn't the folder blend mode being set the Erase have worked ?


Now the cross-dissolve effect renders correctly:


(oddly enough though the cross-dissolve effect will not playback when I hit Play in the TVPaint interface. The cross-dissolve effect is visible if I manually scrub through the timeline, but not if I click Play. So that seems like a playback bug.)

------

I made a tutorial on how to do this non-destructive cross-dissolve effect -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlRpAPY-Z8w


(if you want to watch the tutorial in Full Screen mode, click through to watch it on YouTube , because for some reason the TVPaint Forum does not allow the option to play embedded YouTube videos in Full Screen mode. )

[TVPUSER]

I bought TVP12 and I am continuing to use TVP11 for stability reasons
To be honest, I don't think its worth pursuing bone animation for TVPaint. Moho just came out with their new functions and ToonBoom handles both bitmap and vector and has a robust node system.

The biggest major step to me was the overhauling of camera keyframing and layer folders.
Not to play down the strides the TVP team have made, but these are quite honestly quality of life features that have existed in other softwares for a long time.

the only reason why I am using bones is because it more or less replaces the keyframeFX stack.
Honestly I just want Realtime playback of keyframed layers. I don't need bones, if I was doing rigged animation I'd use other software.

Vector layers would have actually been more useful in my opinion compared to bone rigging.

[Senneman]

I bought TVP12 and I am continuing to use TVP11 for stability reasons

Exactly this !
I've also upgraded to TVPaint 12 Pro, mainly because of the non-destructive transform tool. But the timeline window flashes constantly, sometimes it stays blank, and the app crashes after the computer goes into sleep mode. I don't want to be too harsh on the development team. They do an incredible job. But the app feels too beta for me.

Anyway, if there's one thing I am a little bit upset about, it’s that TVP11, which was already expensive, isn't available anymore in my license depot. It just vanished. I can only control TVP12. I broke the bank for the previous version, and I want to use it as long as TVP12 hasn't fixed its flaws.

Anybody else feel the same way?

[Peter Wassink]

i'm surprised you are not able to still run v11, are you sure?
If that is indeed the case i would not like to recommend people to upgrade yet.
i'm a betatester and still work in v11. This is partly because my current project is in v11 but also partly because of some of the glitches in v12 that are not yet ironed out.

[Senneman]

I can use TVP11 on my main computer at home, but I also have an atelier/workspace at another location, and I'm constantly switching between the two. Because TVP11 isn't available in the license depot, I can't disconnect it from one device and reconnect it to another. Please correct me if I'm wrong

[kelanhordos]

D. T. Nethery also confirmed in another thread he was able to use 11 and 12, but with the beta version of 12. It seems for those of us who upgraded through the shop, the v11 license is replaced by v12. This was confirmed by TVPaint's twitter account. While I am enjoying 12 so far, it is a bit unstable for me and crashes significantly more than 11, so I see people's hesitation to upgrade.

It is also a bit disappointing there is still no documentation up and no news in that regard. I am still finding a few interesting things that look cool but are possibly not functioning correctly but it's hard to know without documentation.

I would also like to hear more people's opinion on bones. As TVPUSER said above, if I was going to do rigged animation I would use other software, so I would also like to understand the thinking behind why they brought it in. I have tried playing around with it a bit, but it often crashes and makes it that much more frustrating. It seems like perhaps the technical improvements that made it possible will maybe open into bigger things in the future like a better FXstack, with better control as we see in the camera layer and bones now, but that is just supposition on my part.

https://x.com/TVPaint_Anim/status/1796472392254116092