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DS homebrew announcements > FlickBook 0.3 (was older versions) - an animation toy

#139192 - masscat - Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:32 am

Version 0.3 of Flickbook is now available over on the Flickbook web page.

A preview of version 0.3 of Flickbook is now available over on the Flickbook web page.

Version 0.2.1 of Flickbook is now available over on the Flickbook web page.

Version 0.2 of FlickBook is now available over on the FlickBook web page.

  • Fix for frame order corruption
  • Reduction in stylus jumping
  • Larger GUI tool buttons
  • Added first, last, next and previous frame navigation buttons
  • Reversed the direction of the shoulder button stylus frame drag to feel like you are dragging a continous strip.
  • Ignore drawing strokes that are outside the drawing area, stopping them causing an indication that the film has changed.


You can see some example animations over on YouTube.

If you are still using version 0.1 I strongly suggest you upgrade.

Last edited by masscat on Tue Apr 08, 2008 6:19 pm; edited 3 times in total

#139202 - pas - Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:29 pm

Maybe post some mirrors so we all can download it ? I for example can't access you site, even thought I want really to try out 0.2 !

EDIT: sorry for PM'ing you two times...

Ok, I got it downloaded, it works fine, but I still hope that you will include a function that automatically copies the previous frame to the new frame if ">" or "]+" is pressed. (this button could look like this: "o>n"

Ah and ! I miss a "undo" and a "cancel" button too. A filler tool would rock too

#139262 - Obi - Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:56 am

Nice app, but the GUI could use some work. Favorite'd devblog.
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#139294 - rhaleblian - Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:22 am

nice - the classic bow and arrow animation - good choice for a demo.
a cool idea.
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#139331 - eric3dee - Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:57 pm

I've been dying for something like this to release. I've been fiddling with Colors! in the meantime. I am a 2D animator, and I could seriously see this coming in handy. Anyways, I thought I'd share what I came up with in the first 10 minutes of using your app.
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
Great work-- I'm sure you don't want to hear them by now, but I have many feature requests for you now ;) hehe
The GUI graphics could certainly use some help, and I would gladly volunteer my time/services to help you out in that area if you want. If you are interested, PM me. Keep the releases coming!

#139344 - euqiddis - Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:43 pm

eric3dee wrote:
I've been dying for something like this to release. I've been fiddling with Colors! in the meantime. I am a 2D animator, and I could seriously see this coming in handy. Anyways, I thought I'd share what I came up with in the first 10 minutes of using your app.
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
Great work-- I'm sure you don't want to hear them by now, but I have many feature requests for you now ;) hehe
The GUI graphics could certainly use some help, and I would gladly volunteer my time/services to help you out in that area if you want. If you are interested, PM me. Keep the releases coming!


the bunny is cool, anyway of slowing it down?

#139349 - eric3dee - Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:15 am

I suppose I could slow it down, but this is the framerate Flickbook animates at (12 fps). The best way for you to see it slower is to just d/l the .gif file to your computer and use an "animated gif" editor (such as Imageready and either view it frame-by-frame there or change the framerate.

#139353 - dub3000 - Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:49 am

this looks great - can't wait to try it out!

what's the maximum length of an animation?

#139368 - masscat - Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:29 am

eric3dee wrote:
I suppose I could slow it down, but this is the framerate Flickbook animates at (12 fps). The best way for you to see it slower is to just d/l the .gif file to your computer and use an "animated gif" editor (such as Imageready and either view it frame-by-frame there or change the framerate.

You can playback at 12 or 6 frames per second. The AVI exporter can also generate 12 or 6 frames per second AVIs (the half speed checkbox).
Nice rabbit.

dub3000 wrote:
what's the maximum length of an animation?

The size of the animation is only limited by the size of your flash cart/memory card.
The AVI exporter can currently only handle about 21000 FlickBook frames. Which is about a 30 minute film at 12 frames per second.

#139468 - pas - Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:01 pm

so, what about continouing this project at weekend
?

#139483 - nozzy - Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:54 pm

As mentioned above this is something that I have longed for as a brew for the DS. I'm an animator for
a games developer and have been demoing it for the guys at work and everyone was totally
impressed, the sylus jogging is sooo sweet :)

As eric3dee mentioned a tighter GUI would really help things along, I am also up for
giving ideas/critic/features of what I think would be nice to have.

A few functional additions that would help me out for v0.3:

- To be able to play back as a loop.
- A possibility to insert frames between 2 frames.
- A background layer that is static and locked.
- A roughing layer/or laying for animations.
- To be able to rotate/scale the paste buffers before pasting.
- Pressure sensitive for line thickness.

Again keep up the good work, this is the start of a great piece of software.

#139503 - masscat - Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:44 pm

Thanks to all who have posted/emailed suggestions, keep them coming. I am listening and taking note.

Before I add new features there will be at least one maintenance release to tidy up the texture handling (the frames are drawn using the 3D hardware). This will allow me to remove the flicker when playing back and provide a platform for adding new features.
The first new feature will probably be adding some form of layers support.

Can people be more specific about the GUI issues/improvements?

nozzy wrote:
- A possibility to insert frames between 2 frames.

You can do this with the "Add before" and "Add after" buttons. They add a frame before and after the current frame.

#139564 - nozzy - Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:00 pm

masscat wrote:
You can do this with the "Add before" and "Add after" buttons. They add a frame before and after the current frame.

Ok, thats great :)

masscat wrote:
Can people be more specific about the GUI issues/improvements?

For me these guys have hit the button with "Plasticanimationpaper",
http://www.plasticanimationpaper.dk/description3.asp.

A simple, stylish and effective layout. Would you like some mockup ideas?

#139573 - eric3dee - Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:51 pm

I think Nozzy's got the right idea-- I would also really like to see maybe some higher res support and definitely some line anti-aliasing. A color wheel like colors! had would rule... in fact, if we could animate Colors! we'd be in serious business ;) Hehe-- well, my comment on the GUI was simply in reference to the color scheme and overall look of your buttons could use some help-- it doesn't look "creative" friendly-- and once again I am more than willing to help if you'd like. Sorry to keep bringing it up, but the Colors! GUI is wonderful and pretty ;)

#139574 - eric3dee - Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:55 pm

Also-- before I forget: The zooming is cool and all, but if you are going to zoom that way, it'd be nice to have a quick/easy way to get it back to 100%. Honestly, I'd be fine with set zoom in/out levels, and instead use the scrubbing thing for something like screen rotation-- I know I can always just rotate my DS, so maybe thats not the best idea).

#139596 - masscat - Fri Sep 07, 2007 11:22 pm

nozzy, eric3dee, or anybody else, mock up of interface ideas/concepts would be useful.
Some details:
The tools windows are 16 colour only, three of which are the base colour and button high and low light colour. This can change but there are limits on the amount of memory available (what this limit is depends on where FlickBook goes).
They must be rectangular in shape.
The DS screen is only 256 by 192.
Tools windows can easily be made to pop up (reaction to button press for example).

eric3dee:
Higher res, beyond 256x128, may not be possible. This comes down to the amount of available texture memory on the DS (I am using the 3D hardware of the DS to display the drawing screen). With onion sinking and the future addition of layers this can be in short supply (there is at most 384KiBs available for the drawing screen).

When it come to colours (not the excellent homebrew app) where Flickbook goes with them I have not decided yet. The only reason for the red and blue colour is technical (the DS does not support 2 colour textures). I may split the app so you ink and colour an animation separately. Or it may stay as black and white (+red and blue) only. Again this is mainly technical due to the amount of memory.

Do people want colours or would they prefer layers?

There is a "center/reset view" button that returns the frame draw and tools windows back to there default positions.

#139617 - eric3dee - Sat Sep 08, 2007 5:47 am

Alright- sounds good. I'll try to find some time in the next week to mess around with interface design. As far as color/layers goes, I think I'd prefer layers over color.. specifically one layer for roughing animation, then one layer for cleanup... but cleanup (ink/paint) in a separate app could be a neat idea too. How about antialiasing? Is that still a possibilty? You've got a great little app here... ever since the DS was announced I've dreamed about Mario Paint for the DS (animation, painting, and music fun :D )... maybe that could serve as a good inspiration for the gui... Thanks again for this app-- its alot of fun!

#139634 - pas - Sat Sep 08, 2007 2:03 pm

oh, and masscat, please don't forget about my: automatically get the last frame in the new one Idea, cause I would really need this to be able to draw more effeciently

#139648 - nozzy - Sat Sep 08, 2007 3:59 pm

masscat wrote:
nozzy, eric3dee, or anybody else, mock up of interface ideas/concepts would be useful.


Flickbook mockup

Here's my cut at the kind of look and layout I was thinking of, all credit going to the PAP guys for the Icons, etc I have used .
I have kept things roughly where you have them now. Things like adding frames is enough with one insert you can always
move in the sequence to add a frame where you like, the 2 delete buttons could be replaced by the delete button going red
first then deleting on the second press?
A nuke button to re-start.

A time-line instead of just writing the frame on the upper screen, maybe not as advanced as this.

A loop button :)

A slider for line thickness (or if you up looking at pressure for line thickness like "colors"?).

A blue for roughing, and of course B/W.

The mask buttons, whole, partial and rotate mask. As for turning on and off and multiple pastes, is it possible as I mentioned
with the frame delete to have a lock out with the buttons? e.g, press the mask button, it changes a shade of red and stays
down, you drag your mask and then press the mask button again and it pops up and the mask gets stored.

The "onion-skins", I think is enough with one button, I always have both before and after on
anyway? And one loop though the stored masks button.

Upper screen pretty much the same.

As for filling I really think this should be just an outline app. And really concentrate on nailing
down some useful tools for outline functionality.

I vote for layers if we have to choose, at least 2 if possible, but the more the merrier :)

I also think some kind of options window that can be popped up might save even more valuable screen space.

Edit:I just noticed I missed the reset button, but it should be there.

Hope it gives you some ideas :)

#139825 - eric3dee - Mon Sep 10, 2007 3:28 pm

Ya-- nozzy's mockup is great.. I still may throw something out there-- but thats pretty slick lookin nozzy.

#139843 - eric3dee - Mon Sep 10, 2007 7:51 pm

Alright-- here's my swing at the GUI. I tried to impliment some PAP, some Flash, and even some Mario Paint ;)

Top Screen:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
Bottom Screen:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

Now zoomed in to see better:
Top:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
Bottom:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

I really like Flash's handling of the timeline, so I did something similar where you can choose frames in more of a nonlinear fashion... it also lets you see which frames are empty and which have drawings in them (note the black dots and empty dots).
I also added a quick layer picker (assuming you could add in some layering functionality) with 3 layers.
One other thing- I removed the Save/Load functions, as I think they would make more sense as an options screen (a la Colors), mapped to the Start button or something. I also eliminated the white and opted for an eraser instead since I added the layering functionality in the mockup. Lets see.. what else... I agree w/ nozzy's comment about maybe double-clcking the delete or something instead of 2 buttons. I also figured the play button could be a toggle on/off thing (same with the loop button). I will post a mockup option/title screen too if I get some time. I can't say it enough... killer app- can't wait to see what ya do with it. I hope this stuff helps!

--Oh yeah! One more thing. The idea would be if the timeline got more frames than could be displayed at the bottom, you could hold down the same button you use to pan, and pan across the timeline to see more of the frames.

#139845 - nozzy - Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:44 pm

eric3dee wrote:
Alright-- here's my swing at the GUI. I tried to impliment some PAP, some Flash, and even some Mario Paint ;)


Perfect eric3dee you've hit the nail on the head. A really nice clean pixel gui, nice idea with the flash
timeline and I agree on the seperate window for options/saving.

#139846 - eric3dee - Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:22 pm

Thanks nozzy.
I've used alot of ToonBoom and Flash, but never PAP-- I may need to check that out sometime.

Here's my swing at a title screen.
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

#139852 - eric3dee - Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:40 pm

Options screen:
Top:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
Bottom:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

I left room for anything you may want to add later, i.e. credits/calibration/etc.

#139868 - madwurmz.com - Tue Sep 11, 2007 12:53 am

Looking sharp eric3dee!
I hope it will be iplemented cause current UI is pretty nasty :) The program itself is really funny.

... when reading this topic I thought it would be fun to have Mario Paint feeling to it and went ahead using the original flickbook interface.. I Didn't know eric3dee posted new shots.

gif:
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]

psd:
http://www.madwurmz.com/flickbook/flick-interface.psd

feel free to be inspired.
I'll give it a rest now.

#139917 - eric3dee - Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:36 pm

Very nice madwurmz-- I'm totally with you on the whole Mario Paint feel. I love the switches-- I had forgotten about those :)

I assume everyone saw "Animanatee" that just released? Now we've got competition ;) Please don't abandon us masscat!

#139926 - nozzy - Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:34 pm

eric3dee wrote:
I assume everyone saw "Animanatee" that just released? Now we've got competition ;) Please don't abandon us masscat!


Exactly, how are things going masscat? I took "Animanatee" for a spin, I think the title screen with the load/save option
is the way to go, but not to sure about the holding down of the shoulder button for the tools, i think my left index finger
would cramp up after about 10 minutes. Maybe a flip screens like "Nitro tacker".

Its nice to have all the tools grouped like that and have a clean area to work in?

Nice work madwurmz.com and eric3dee, the mario paint theme would be a nice way to go.

Another thing I am not to sure about with "Animanatee" is the way the layers are
working at the moment, being forced to have a copy with the BG layer.
I think a "BG" layer should be just that a static "BG" through the whole
animation, and then have the possibility to have more layers, for roughing, etc.

#139927 - pas - Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:41 pm

IT IS a static layer, BUT more than one are sadly not allowed, but I don't mind, as soon as he implements a proper Eraser, but like I said, everyone, Flickbook & Animanatee have both their benefits and drawbacks, I for example enjoy pressing the L button to be able to get the Menu, it is just a matter of personal preferences.

Last edited by pas on Tue Oct 30, 2007 9:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

#139928 - nozzy - Tue Sep 11, 2007 6:58 pm

pas wrote:
IT IS a static layer


I quote from The thread:
" BG gets copied over when you create a new frame, so you can have a persistent background, or modify it as you go".

It copies the previous frame, so every frame is a copy of the previous frame
on the BG layer. A static BG layer for me would mean 1 frame that i draw out
roughly where my key frame are going to be, or just a reference of where a character will go.

In "Animanatee" at the moment, if I would want to change the BG for a whole animation
I would have to do it on every frame in the BG layer. Where as if there was 1 static layer it would be just one drawing/frame.

#139938 - masscat - Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:09 pm

eric3dee wrote:
I assume everyone saw "Animanatee" that just released? Now we've got competition ;) Please don't abandon us masscat!

I am not abandoning FlickBook (although I have not had time to work on it since 0.2).
FlickBook and Animanatee can happily live together and since they are developed separately they will follow their own path. But I am happy to share ideas and other things with DekuTree64 (for example the Java AVI exporter).

#140350 - masscat - Sat Sep 15, 2007 3:21 pm

There is a new version of the Java AVI exporter available on the Flickbook webpage.

Changes:
  • Faster export
  • Allows setting of the frames per second (1 to 100, default 12).

The Java source code is also available if people are interested.

#144235 - ickyb0d - Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:16 pm

awesome stuff, loaded it on, and in about 2 mins i came out with this - [Images not permitted - Click here to view it]. Great program. Although I couldn't get the jar to recognize the BMP directory, I was still able to combine all the frames using ImageMagick.

#147152 - trabitboy - Sat Dec 15, 2007 12:44 pm

hello,
just wanted to drop a quick word
to say I find Flickbook awesome and
I use it every single day !!!!
Really the DS has the perfect format for such an app.
Congratulations for such great work then ;)

#147422 - masscat - Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:41 am

I am glad that people are using and enjoying Flickbook. It is not forgotten and hopefully I will be able to give it some time soon for some updates (no promises when though).

#147445 - jester - Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:22 pm

keep on supporting and you can be rewarded financially.
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#148519 - Mouldy Krayon - Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:53 pm

I love this application!!!!!!!!!!!

This is my first animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Z0asKexYM

I am not good at drawing, but I am happy about this as it is the first animation i have ever done!!!!!



Will update with 4 more in coming days.

#151254 - masscat - Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:24 pm

Kermit The Frog wrote:
It's not easy bein' green.

Finally been able to give Flickbook a bit of time, resulting in Flickbook_0_2_1.nds

From a feature point of view, it is the same as 0.2, with the only addition being that you can move between frames using left and right on the d-pad (and Y and A for the lefties) - why I did not do that originally I do not know.

What has changed is the user interface - it is no longer green. The title screen was created by eric3dee, taken from earlier in this thread (many thanks). Most of the buttons/icons are taken from the icon library from the Tango Project.

It is also skinable, so you can change the look of the interface should you wish. A skin comprises a number of BMP file with particular names located in the Flickbook/skin directory. These files must be 256x192 size and 256 or 16 colours BMP files.

You can find an example skin (the default skin compiled into Flickbook) here.
If you want to play with a skin you will need an application that allows you to control the palette (The Gimp was used to make the default skin).

The title screen is a simple BMP file called title.bmp.
The buttons for other screens are described using three file, for example newload_normal.bmp, newload_pressed.bmp, newload_mask.bmp.
The _normal.bmp and _pressed.bmp give the normal and pressed image data for the buttons. These files should share the same palette otherwise strange colour changes will happen.
The _mask.bmp file defines the shape and active area (the bit that will react to a stylus touch) of the buttons. The colour index of each pixel is used to do this. Colour 0 does not form part of any button. The shape of first button is given by colour 1 and 2. The active area of the first button is given by colour 2. Colour 3 and 4 define the second button in a similar manner and so on for all the buttons.

#151259 - eric3dee - Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:09 am

Hooray! Downloading now.. so glad to see some progress being made on this ;)

btw- loved the Kermit comment.

#152338 - masscat - Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:48 pm

What comes after 0.2.1?
A preview of release 0.3 is what.

You can get it here.

Changes:
  • 256 by 192 sized frames
  • 256 colours
  • saves to /data/Flickbook
  • get to name films (no more film_a, film_b)
  • a palette editor
  • selectable past and future onion skinning of 1 to 3 frames
  • get a nice warning when exiting without saving
  • change to the flickbook.xml format
  • lots of internal changes to the way Flickbook works

You cannot load films from earlier version into this version. I may put a film converter into the Java export app.

Why the preview?
There is a little bluish button on the right of the screen that does not do anything yet.
There have been lots of changes to the way Flickbook works and I would like any feed back on problems. You may want to backup the contents of your flash card before using (just in case).
The Java exporter application needs updating to support the new flickbook.xml format and I need a working DS app to provide me with some test material.

How to use?
Changes to control from version 0.2.1:
You will be prompted for a film name if you select the new film button. Enter a name and press the on screen return key.
Onion skinning is now setup using eight buttons near the top left of the screen. The two middle blue buttons clear any past/future onion skinning. The buttons to the left and right of these setup 1,2 or 3 frame onion skinning.
To delete the current frame touch and hold the delete button (minus sign next to the playback/frame control buttons). A second delete button will appear just above this. To confirm the delete slide up to touch this second delete button and release the stylus from the screen. Releasing the stylus any where other than the second delete button will cancel the delete.
There are four colour select buttons. The one that looks like an eraser always selects the background colour. You can assign any of the 256 colours from the film's palette to the other three. Touch and hold any of the colour select buttons to be taken to the palette editor. The lower portion of the palette editor shows and allow you to select colours from the film's palette. You can edit the colours using HSV H, S, V and RGB R, G, B sliders. Select a colour select button and then select the palette colour to assign it that colour.

#152354 - eric3dee - Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:17 am

sweet! I look forward to checking it out! Thanks!

#152374 - masscat - Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:20 pm

There is a bug in the 0.3 preview:

If you enable more than 4 frames of onion skinning then some of the frames will display as blank.

EDIT: I have updated the preview with a fix.

#152385 - eric3dee - Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:56 pm

First off, I'm loving it-- much more pleasing on the eyes these days too ;)

It took me awhile to figure out some of the operations (particularly anything I had to hold down to figure out)... maybe you could have an instructions screen similar to colors?) Just a thought. Also, is there a way to loop playback? That would be nice too. Keep the updates coming- I love this app :)

#152387 - masscat - Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:26 pm

eric3dee, good to hear you are enjoying the updates.

I will probably use the flickbook web page for instructions for the time being. Although I have not updated it to include the features in the 0.3 preview and will not until I release the full 0.3 version.

I did mean to put looping playback in but forgot about it (it is easily implemented). Something like doing a 'hold' on the play button to start doing looping playback.

How are people getting on with the 'hold' a button to do a second function thing?
The reason for it is to try and reduce the number of buttons needed by providing two functions through one button. I do plan to provide three methods of button input, a single tap, a double tap and a hold.

#152393 - eric3dee - Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:40 pm

I like the hold idea actually- it just caught me off guard (took me a second and a re-read of your post to realize it was there)-- maybe shorten the hold pause? Glad to hear looping will be in there :) I look forward to the full 0.3 release. For future versions: I still really wish there were a movable timeline in this or Animanatee-- this is one of the greatest things about animating in Flash (the ability to slide around keyframes (or frames with drawings in them) and time an animation that way).
You rock.

#152440 - SilentSniper - Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:12 am

in version 0.3 I noticed that when you zoom in and try to draw it is off does not draw where you are actually touching, instead it draws where you would be touching if it was at normal view.
One thing I would suggest is using the start button to save and calibrate the screen and other stuff(like in colors) it would free up a bit of space. maybe you could even have the option to change the framerate.

#152459 - masscat - Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:44 am

SilentSniper: bloody hell zoomed drawing is broken isn't it, I will fix that before the full 0.3 release. Thanks for letting me know.

#152509 - masscat - Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:38 pm

I have updated the preview with a fix for the zoom bug (thanks again for the report).
As a bonus I have put in looped playback - press the play button to play once to the end of the film, 'hold' the the play button for looped playback.

Edit: Version 0.3 of the Java Exporter is now available.

#152617 - sormint - Tue Mar 18, 2008 6:48 am

Perhaps instead of so many buttons for onion skinning you could just use the "hold" function on two buttons that would each have a drop down list for 1-3 frames each.

#152649 - masscat - Tue Mar 18, 2008 10:26 pm

sormint wrote:
Perhaps instead of so many buttons for onion skinning you could just use the "hold" function on two buttons that would each have a drop down list for 1-3 frames each.

I was not happy with the onion skinning buttons as I thought they were a bit fiddly to select the desired number of frames. Implementing a system like you suggested has made things clearer. There will not be an update of the preview though as it is moving towards the full 0.3 release and currently not in a state for public consumption.

#152652 - sormint - Tue Mar 18, 2008 11:33 pm

First of all, great job masscat! I'm really happy you're updating this software. The new changes since 0.2 are fantastic. I wasn't a fan of the old green interface.

Quote:
For future versions: I still really wish there were a movable timeline in this or Animanatee-- this is one of the greatest things about animating in Flash (the ability to slide around keyframes (or frames with drawings in them) and time an animation that way).


I agree whole-heartedly with eric3dee on this one. When animating pose-to-pose you need to be able to flip between just your keys even if they're on frames 1, 8 & 12. Usually I would just take those three pieces of paper and put them together on my pegboard without any extra pages in between. In Maya I can either start with those poses on frames 1,2,3 and then re-time them once I'm happy with the poses or I can drag them around on the timeline to adjust the timing while still being able to flip between them with the "," and "." keys. If it's too hard to implement a timeline with moveable keyframes than maybe you could make it possible to flip between only the frames with drawings on them using the d-pad. In that case, it would also be useful to have two modes for onion skinning: on based on frames - and the other based on drawings, regardless of what frames they are on.

Aside from the more general things like an intuitive interface, and control over the drawing tools (both of which are looking good in Flickbook right now) my list of top features needed in a serious animation app are (in order of priority):

1) the above mentioned ability to re-time my keys
2) ability to "flip" through my keys
2) layers (persistent background, and animated foreground)
3) onion skinning
4) undo

That's my wishlist, and it's great to see that it's already partially there.

I can't wait for 0.3

#152687 - moket - Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:52 pm

wow Masscat thanks a lot for the loop playback function, the only major thing I was missing. Gonna test this after work. thanks again.

#153169 - masscat - Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:50 pm

sormint and eric3dee:
I am getting an understanding of what you are after with the timeline thing. Reordering frames would not be difficult to implement in Flickbook so I will definitely look at putting the feature into a future release (not 0.3 though).

Originally I wrote Flickbook so I could make simple little stick men animations to entertain myself. But I am no animator so suggestions for features that aid the animation process are very welcome.

sormint wrote:
I wasn't a fan of the old green interface.

Not many people were. I did not even like it as it was not much fun to change or implement new buttons and screens - one of the reasons Flickbook sat idle at version 0.2 for so long. The move to the skinnable interface in version 0.2.1 means I can spend less time on the interface and more on the functionality and the interface looks much nicer too.

And just a quick test film showing layers working in version 0.3 (coming soon).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCGfagHgPKg

#153190 - eric3dee - Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:46 am

masscat wrote:
sormint and eric3dee:
I am getting an understanding of what you are after with the timeline thing. Reordering frames would not be difficult to implement in Flickbook so I will definitely look at putting the feature into a future release (not 0.3 though).

Sweeeeet! : )
Very glad to see layers are coming soon too :D

#153222 - moket - Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:49 pm

Perhaps markers to set up playback between specific frames. ( to be able to finetune a particular action).
photo backgrounds can be a lot fun to draw over.
not much to say except i m dodging my boss to hunt every new posts in this thread.
thanks you for letting us know about your progress.

#153241 - masscat - Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:19 pm

moket wrote:
Perhaps markers to set up playback between specific frames. ( to be able to finetune a particular action).
photo backgrounds can be a lot fun to draw over.
not much to say except i m dodging my boss to hunt every new posts in this thread.
thanks you for letting us know about your progress.

I have added a feature to my development version of the Java avi exporter that, given a 256x192 256 colour image file, makes a Flickbook film using the image as a fixed background layer. Once created, copy the film directory over to your DS flash card and then happily animate over the top. This version of the Java avi exporter will get released along with version 0.3 of Flickbook.

I will probably add a "play key frame to key frame" feature when I look into the whole key frame/timeline/frame reordering thing.

Edit: in a change of mind, you can get version 0.4 of the Java avi exporter (creates fixed background films) from the Flickbook page. And to take advantage, I have updated the 0.3 preview.

Changes to the preview:
Can select the layer you will draw to using tabs down right of screen (no layer creation in the preview).
Fix to the paste/mark region not appearing.
Onion skinning works as described a couple of posts back. There is now a limit of a total of 4 onion skinning frames available, this can be spread between past or future frames.

Edit2: there is a bug in the preview where if you open a film with a fixed background and then close it and open a film without a fixed background, the first background is still displayed (using the new film's palette). Workaround is to power off your DS after closing the fixed background film. Teach me to release updates to the preview willy-nilly.

#153961 - masscat - Tue Apr 08, 2008 6:29 pm

Version 0.3 of Flickbook is now available.

Changes are:
  • Up to four layers.
  • Fixed layers keep the same image for all frames.
  • Normal layers can change from frame to frame.

Plus the stuff from the preview of 0.3:
  • 256 by 192 sized frames
  • 256 colours
  • saves to /data/Flickbook
  • get to name films (no more film_a, film_b)
  • a palette editor
  • selectable past and future onion skinning of 1 to 3 frames
  • get a nice warning when exiting without saving
  • change to the flickbook.xml format
  • lots of internal changes to the way Flickbook works


Man on an island gives an example of the layers. The order of the layers is as follows (topmost layer first):
Normal layer
Fixed layer containing the tree.
Normal layer
Fixed layer containing the island and sea.

By drawing on the second normal layer it allows the man to go behind the tree.

#153988 - madwurmz.com - Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:40 am

Wow, that 'Man on an island' movie is really awesome! :D

#154045 - masscat - Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:33 pm

I have updated the Java Flickbook exporter (now version 0.5) to allow it to convert old Flickbook films (made with Flickbook version 0.1 or 0.2) to the new format used in Flickbook 0.3.

If you load an old format film there will be a "convert to latest format" item in the export menu.

So anybody who has created some epic film in an earlier release can now continue it using Flickbook 0.3.

#154051 - moket - Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:42 am

you re the man.
thanks a lot. I have to make something worth showing now I can t pretend to have lost my past trials T_T

#159353 - skello - Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:25 pm

Great app!.
wondering if there's a way to hide the menus and only display them by holding one of the trigger buttons. The menu currently clutters uo the limited drawing space.

#159356 - tepples - Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:21 pm

skello wrote:
wondering if there's a way to hide the menus and only display them by holding one of the trigger buttons.

You mean like in Colors!?
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#159367 - skello - Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:52 pm

Yeah just like colors

#159405 - masscat - Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:44 am

skello wrote:
Great app!.
wondering if there's a way to hide the menus and only display them by holding one of the trigger buttons. The menu currently clutters uo the limited drawing space.

Good to hear you are enjoying Flickbook.

As for hiding the on screen buttons, not at the moment.

I have not been working on Flickbook for a while (I go through phases of doing development on it). But when I do I will think about putting something like this in.

#159447 - skello - Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:29 am

[...But when I do I will think about putting something like this in.[/quote]

That will be awesome. thanks

#160306 - silent_code - Sun Jul 13, 2008 9:12 pm

This is awesome! I tried it out today and although it freezed a lot (on average every 5 minutes, but no interval and I still can't reproduce it), I made some funny little animations! It's very easy to use. Well, I only used the basic functions, but I'll try out the advanced features as well in the future (like layers - again: awesome!) :^)
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#160840 - opoppopopp - Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:57 am

tepples wrote:
skello wrote:
wondering if there's a way to hide the menus and only display them by holding one of the trigger buttons.

You mean like in Colors!?


i think you mean a 'Expert Mode' or 'auto-hide' thing...?

a loop mode ... plz,plz...

#160841 - masscat - Wed Jul 23, 2008 10:04 am

opoppopopp wrote:
a loop mode ... plz,plz...

You can do looping playback of the entire animation by touching and holding the play button.

#161039 - opoppopopp - Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:47 pm

masscat wrote:
opoppopopp wrote:
a loop mode ... plz,plz...

You can do looping playback of the entire animation by touching and holding the play button.

My fault, My fault~ i know some of the button is 'holdingable'...I should try the play button...

by the way...Believe it or not, 80% of the the reason i buy a NDSL is the Animation App...and at that time, i only know there is a APP called flipbook...
so i wish this app is keeping growing. i will support it and i wish i can do something helpful

#167698 - przem - Sun Mar 22, 2009 2:01 pm

Just saying thank you for these piece of software,
im using it with pleasure to sketch my animation ideas,
works well even crushing sometimes (because too fast clicking i think)

#172802 - burrisplace - Thu Mar 04, 2010 4:24 am

Would anyone have a few of their flickbook film files to share with me? I wanted to know if anyone could send me a few of their raw files to load onto my DS. I have a long trip to do with a few kids and wanted them see what others have been able to create. I am happy to share few as well. If you need the steps to copy the film files, each animation has its own directory (named after itself). Within these there is a Flickbook.xml file that gives the palette, layers description and frame order of the animation. There is a directory for each layer that actually contains the frame images. To copy animation onto and off of the DS copy the entire directory for the animation. That is, should you have an animation "HelloWorld" on your DS there will be a directory /data/flickbook/HelloWorld. To copy this off copy the HelloWorld directory and all its content. Thank you in advance.