Skip to main content

Animation Paper V5.0 Alpha 2 Pre-release

Animation Paper V5.0 Alpha 2 Pre-release UI
Animation Paper V5.0 Alpha 2 Pre-release.
Animation Paper strives to be the best tool for digital hand drawn animation by not only recreating the traditional animator's table in a modern user interface, but also automating many of the more tedious processes so you can focus almost entirely on drawing.

At the time of writing Animation Paper V5.0 is only available as an Alpha 2 Pre-release, and still does not have all of its features implemented, such as the ability to add audio (due to be part of the Alpha 3 release scheduled for the end of May 2020).

Animation Paper has been completely redesigned and updated from th hand drawn animation app that was formerly known as Plastic Animation Paper (PAP) which, at the time, was easily one of the best apps for the sole purpose of creating hand drawn digital animation roughs.

You can still download PAP completely free from the Animation Paper website. If you look past the extremely dated 90's interface it's still a great tool. I wrote about PAP here and I wrote about the developers plans to begin developing Animation Paper here in March 2014 and here again in July 2014.

If you want to get hold of Animation Paper early, for free, you can sign up for the beta program. Once released a full license will be a one time payment of US$79.00.

Obviously it goes without saying Animation Paper (and PAP) works best with either a drawing tablet or pen display monitor. There are no drawing shortcuts like clicking and dragging out shapes or creating editable vector lines etc. This is purely a drawing app for creating traditional (but digital) hand drawn animation, the way old school animators worked on actual paper, but with modern automations that take a lot of the grind out of the job, as well as speeding up the process.


If you've never learned hand drawn animation - and let's face it a lot of newer generation animators have never needed to learn drawing skills - then Animation Paper's X-Sheet vertical timeline will be a bit of a culture shock. However, if you're learning hand drawn animation from what is considered the 'bible' for animators, Richard Williams, The Animator's Survival Kit, you'll really appreciate the close correlation between a traditional paper X-Sheet and Animation Paper's digital interpretation (which is much simpler and easy to use).

Since I've only tried Animation Paper's Alpha 2 release, it isn't really fair to give this app a full review here. However times have moved forward since 2014 and there are other apps that include hand drawn animation tools including; Clip Studio Paint, and several completely free apps. Blender and Moho have both added better support for 2D hand drawn animation as well.

If you've used any of those you might look at Animation Paper and wonder if you even need it?

All I can say is, if you just want the purest hand drawn animation tool experience, short of using actual pencil and paper, Animation Paper is that. It's an app that gets out of your way and lets you focus on just the drawing.

Primarily it's a tool where you can create all your animation roughs up to inking stage (currently but color is planned to be added soon), and then you can export those frames into whatever app you want for further processing etc. Or you can just export your scenes as movie clips as is.

Animation Paper will be available for both Mac and Windows PCs. I kind of hope some day they'll turn it into an app for tablet devices too because the simplicity of the entire app really lends itself to those  devices (and who wouldn't like to get away from a desk to create animation?).

If you want to get a complete overview of Animation Paper so far it's well worth watching the short tutorial videos on Animation Paper's Youtube channel.

No release date has been given but from what I've seen I'd speculate a possible 4th quarter of 2020 release wouldn't be unrealistic. That's a complete guess based on what I've seen and proposed features yet to be implemented. Regardless, if you have an interest in hand drawn animation this is one application to watch.


Popular posts from this blog

Can You Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 for Free Using Their 137 Official YouTube Video Tutorials Sorted Into a Logical Learning Order?

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at

AE Juice - Animation Presets, Motion Graphics, Templates, Transitions for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Other Video Applications

Level up you video edits and animations with AE Juice's motion graphics and templates. Some days you just don't have the time to create flashy motion graphics for your latest video or animation. For some of us it's more a question of our own artistic abilities being a little less than the awesome we'd like them to be. Whatever reason a resource like AE Juice's animation presets, motion graphics, templates, and transitions packs for After Effects , Premiere Pro , and other video applications can really make your work stand out very quickly. AE Juice gives you access to an instant library of free, premade content elements and sound effects, which you can add to with additional purchases of various themed packs from their store. There are three ways to manage their content, all of which can be used in commercial projects . The AE Juice Standalone Package Manager makes it easy to browse previews of all your pack contents and to download and find just the elements yo

Artbreeder - Using AI created Character and Background Content in your Animations

A selection of User/AI generated images from Artbreeder. If you're looking for an endless supply of 2D character and background images for your animations then Artbreeder , an online Artificial Intelligence (AI) that generates image mash-ups you can tweak as much as you like, could be the ultimate content library. What is Artbreeder? Artbreeder is free to use though there are various paid plans, that give you additional features, such as higher resolution download images or more settings to play with. All images created on the site are Public Domain (CC0 License) and can be used in commercial projects. Using Artbreeder's online app you can generate head shot portraits, full body characters, landscapes, and other scenes simply by choosing two or more existing images to mash together then, using a series of sliders, to select which traits from each image you wish to lean toward in the final image. Photo Comparison - Top is my original uploaded photo. Bottom is Artbreeder's ap

Jarrad Wright, The Big Lez Show - Who Would've thought Animating with MS Paint Could Take You So Far?

A friend of mine recommended I should check out The Big Lez Show after I mentioned to him I make animations for living. He said the show's creator, Australian animator, Jarrad Wright , just makes episodes from his home using MS Paint. Somewhat shamefully I hadn't heard of The Big Lez Show, but the fact that it was being made with MS Paint absolutely hooked me into checking out. If you've never heard or seen the show then you, like I was, are probably thinking how good could it be? MS Paint has kind of a cult following of hardcore animators but no one would use it as their primary animation tool on a series, right? WARNING - before going any further, you need to know The Big Lez Show and its humor contains some pretty strong language. By strong I mean it's peppered very liberally with the 'F' and 'C' words and is very every day Aussie, blue collar speak. Unapologetically, all of that, is part of why it's so good. There's a good chance you've

Moho 14 Released - Still the Best 2D Animation Software for Indy Animators on a Budget

Moho 14 Released. Regular readers know I am a Reallusion, Cartoon Animator advocate through and through. Hands down I would recommend Cartoon Animator 5 first over Lost Marble's Moho 14 to anyone who is just starting in 2D animation, is a team of one, or just needs to animate as quickly as possible. However, feature for feature, Moho is, arguably, the best 2D animation software for the rest of us who can't justify a Toon Boom Harmony , or Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (and even with their applications Moho is very competitive on features). You can get started with Moho Debut for just USD$59.99 which is a cut down version of Moho Pro but it still has the most essential features needed for 2D animation. While Moho Pro is a whopping USD$399.99 (Cartoon Animator, which only has one version, is just USD$149.00) upgrades to new version numbers come down to a quarter of the price at USD$99.00. Even though Reallusion just released features like Motion Pilot Puppet Animation and

Reallusion Releases Cartoon Animator 5 - One Version, More Features, Lower Price!

If you're serious about producing 2D animation as quickly as possible, while still achieving professional results, Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 makes the most compelling case yet as your animation studio/tool of choice. Cartoon Animator's point of difference has always been its ease of use and accelerated workflow. Creating fast, 2D animation using puppet, bone rigged based characters and props, on a stage with 3D depth for easy scene parallax effects. As it has developed Reallusion has incorporated more advanced features like motion capture for both face and body as well as being able to export scenes to post production tools like After Effects with the addition of plugins. After moving away from Flash based vector image support for a few years, Reallusion is back with full .SVG (scalable vector graphics) support for resolution independent graphics. They've also added Spring Dynamic physics and Full Form Deformation tools, both of which make it ridiculously easy t

Cartoon Animator 5 and G2 Characters - Why You'll Probably Never Use Them Even Though They're Great

Since I've previously covered how to get the most out of your purchased G3 and G1 characters for Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5, it would be remiss of me not to look at the greatest character rig of all time, G2 characters. G2 Characters have been mostly relegated to legacy status since Cartoon Animator 3 but, as a rig that let you create fully 360 degree turn-able characters that moved in 3D space, animated with 3D motion files, and were mostly vector based, there was nothing else like them in any other 2D  software. The problem was, even with the templates provided by Reallusion for both Adobe Flash and Serif DrawPlus , they were complex and time consuming to make from scratch. They were also difficult to customize because there was no way to export and edit individual parts. G2 characters just weren't easy enough for the casual Cartoon Animator user to customize so they fell by the wayside. However they're still fully supported in CA5 with all the same functional