Devil's advocate

[Jet]

Am I alone in thinking that animation is terrible? Apologies to anyone who works on the film Klaus but you couldn't cram more tropes in if you tried, right out of the 1950s Disney playbook. It looks like 2D trying to be CGI, the reverse of Paperman, they both share an identity crisis and they've succeeded in rubbing out the artists hands, the very thing many people are fighting against, studios like Pixar are trying to turn aesthetics like this into one-click solutions.

In my very first post on this forum I criticized Toon Boom for not listening, I don't know why people use their software. They did have Personal Learning Editions (PLE) of Animate Pro anybody could download and use before the recent rebrand so I don't think offering their software for free is new to their business model. Toonz Harlequin has a superior deformer and CelAction has superior rigs, TVPaint and even good old DigiCel FlipBook (new version soon?) are superior at hand-drawn, Harmony is a jack of all trades Adventure Time copy machine.

I personally think TVPaint should focus on the anime industry, that industry is absolutely crushing everything else right now and Retas Studio (therefore Japan) has a monopoly on it, it's a good time too since I hear more and more are turning "tradigital". Go and reverse engineer PaintMan and don't feel bad, because Celsys have parked their tanks on your lawn by ripping off your timeline that they introduced to Clip Studio Paint 1.5.0, as have the guys who develop the free painting software Krita.

Krita Timeline


Krita Onion Skin


I'm no businessman, but maybe it's time for TVPaint to get aggressive and sell a more stripped down version or look into cloud subscription plans? A ton of wannabe animators on Tumblr these days that will be suckers for Toon Booms bull****. I know a lot of guys in studios using TVPaint, but not general hobbyists. TVPaint going out of business would be like my Cintiq dying, I'd be boned, I do worry about it sometimes.

[Thierry]

*This post has been separated from the Klaus topic.*

[schwarzgrau]

Am I alone in thinking that animation is terrible? Apologies to anyone who works on the film Klaus but you couldn't cram more tropes in if you tried, right out of the 1950s Disney playbook. It looks like 2D trying to be CGI, the reverse of Paperman, they both share an identity crisis and they've succeeded in rubbing out the artists hands, the very thing many people are fighting against, studios like Pixar are trying to turn aesthetics like this into one-click solutions.

I'm absolutely with you on this whole topic.

I personally think TVPaint should focus on the anime industry, that industry is absolutely crushing everything else right now and Retas Studio (therefore Japan) has a monopoly on it, it's a good time too since I hear more and more are turning "tradigital".

I'm not sure, but to me it seems like TVPaint already aims to the Anime Industry. Of course they could focus completely on this industry, but should they? There are at least 4 Anime apps and no other software in the western world which can use pixel brushes (except of Photoshop, but to be honest: animating in PS is a pain in the ass).
So they already got a unique selling point.

I'm no businessman, but maybe it's time for TVPaint to get aggressive and sell a more stripped down version or look into cloud subscription plans? A ton of wannabe animators on Tumblr these days that will be suckers for Toon Booms bull****. I know a lot of guys in studios using TVPaint, but not general hobbyists. TVPaint going out of business would be like my Cintiq dying, I'd be boned, I do worry about it sometimes.

I think get your point: TVPaint is to expensive to be used by hobbyists and animation beginners and the question is will they switch their software if they turn pro? But a more stripped down software wouldn't be useful anymore I guess.
And cloud subscription is maybe a good model for big companys, but if you don't plan to buy every new version, you will pay a lot more. The main reason I try to reject all adobe software out of my workflow.

Maybe it's cause I'm somehow "involved", but I noticed an increasing interest in TVPaint in the last few years, at least in the circles I follow on vimeo, tumblr etc.
StudioAKA started using it and an indie animator (which did an animation tutorial for PS a few month ago) I really like, twittered a few weeks ago he would like to try TVPaint more intensive, but it's pretty expensive.
Maybe it would be worth considering a full working demo which works for 30 days instead of a demo which works full time, but misses the save command. But I guess this would lead to much more pirated TVPaint versions...

[Fabrice]

But I guess this would lead to much more pirated TVPaint versions...

We did that with TVPaint Aimation 8. The software was cracked in 2 days.

[slowtiger]

I don't think TVP should concentrate on Anime alone - its unique selling point is in fact independence from any style. It doesn't hurt to introduce workflow improvements, but let's face it - no japanese studio will skip their decade-long investments and switch to a different software. Only a powerful director might be able to convince a producer to use TVP instead of Retas, and only if his/her style really needs that. Would a Miyazaki profit from switching to TVP? Not in his animation. Maybe in his background department.

I agree that stripping down TVP to a cheaper beginner's version might be impossible without seriously crippling the program. And there's still movement in that market segment, new software projects pop up here and there. I wonder: how much sense would a set of importers make? "You have already started your animation in X? No problem, get professional and finish in TVP!" Some of the new animation softwares are open source, so their file structure is public. And is TVP's import API documented and can be used by others? I'm just speculating here, but IMO a program's ability to import (and export) different file formats contributes greatly to its success.

[ten_zero]

Would a Miyazaki profit from switching to TVP? Not in his animation. Maybe in his background department.

Miyazaki the next products is 10 minutes full 3DCG animation with STEVE N' STEVEN, for only play his museum.
STEVE N' STEVEN has just announced about produce Dice Tsutumi (The Dam keeper) next full 3DCG movie "Mumu", too.

It doesn't hurt to introduce workflow improvements, but let's face it - no japanese studio will skip their decade-long investments and switch to a different software.

From the last week they are in a panic about the only one hard color pencil manufacture company closed their line
As same as thing has begin when RETAS spread in Japan Anime studio about 20 years ago : the only Celluloid sheet manifacture company was burnt down.
http://www.janica.jp/events/pencil/pencil20151129.html
http://news.biglobe.ne.jp/entertainment ... 95303.html


Something will change in unbelieavable speed on next spring ; Japanese financial year begins April.
However nobody knows which software will chosen.
-----------
Edited 151201(JST)
Mitsubishi pencil Co. just announced an official information that their 2H color pencil will manufacture for a while : Red, Orange, Yellow green and Sky blue.

http://www.mpuni.co.jp/customer/

• ■お知らせ：硬質色鉛筆7700番について　《2015年12月1日更新》
  • 「赤」以外の生産を年内で終了すると告知して参りましたが、「橙色、黄緑、水色」につきましても、需要が見込まれると判断し、
    当面の間、生産を継続とさせていただきます。

[Fabrice]

but let's face it - no japanese studio will skip their decade-long investments and switch to a different software. Only a powerful director might be able to convince a producer to use TVP instead of Retas, and only if his/her style really needs that.

(I was smiling reading your post, I have read/heard some many times the same. Nothing against you specifically)

In fact, many people in Japan switched from Retas to TVPaint and it's only a beginning. And, yes : we were able to convince some producers/studios to use TVPaint instead of Retas. It has been a long work since we launched Aura-Clay in 2000, with many trips from Europe to Japan, many discussions to understand their needs. (I remember I was discussing with Makoto Shinkai in Tokyo in 2008 already about storyboards, then they were introduced a few months after)

Also, most of the studios in Japan don't communicate about their use of TVPaint (or any other software than Retas which was here in Japan from the beginning), so at the moment it's difficult to figure who is using what.
It's a shame since the quality of the results is really great sometimes.
(nb: I'm not going to give studio's name since we have NDA with most of them, getting autorisations can require a long time)

And is TVP's import API documented and can be used by others? I'm just speculating here

Yes, sure, you already have our wiki here :
http://wiki.tvpaint.com/index.php?title=George" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In fact, most of the serious studios are using our API or asks us to tweak the software with scripts. Especially in Japan since they need to adapt the software to each of their specific workflow.
Those options explained previously by Jet, for exemple : http://forum.tvpaint.com/viewtopic.php? ... 800#p87800" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; are now part of some scripts & tools created in Japanese studio (at least until we update the software with more & new internal options, since we use to do so with oftently asked features and prefered scripts).
They even have been improved to manage more colors than R,G,B.

That said, we are still working hard to improve our products and their respective "business model" (I don't like the name, but it's the idea).

[slowtiger]

Sounds good, definitely. And I know from experience how hard it is to convince any company to switch software (not in animation, but this applies everywhere).

So it's totally possible to write an importer in George? That's amazing. I wonder if a list of existing importers would make marketing easier (and convince other buyers)?

[Fabrice]

So it's totally possible to write an importer in George?

not in George (George will only use the existing software options) ; but probably in C++ as a plug-in, using the TVPaint SDK.

If I remember well, someone did something like this to import photoshop brushes in Aura (aka TVPaint 6.0) days.
(not possible to make the same internally though, because of some patents from Adobe, if I remember well).

The problem with making an importer is that we can't easily include it in the existing code as there are patents hidden everywhere.