Screenlight - Prerelease Feedback for Your Animations and Videos Before Public Release

Screenlight. An app for collecting feedback on video projects.

One way to give your animated productions the best chance of success is to prescreen them with a test audience before you release them publicly online or send them off to a festival etc. Big, Hollywood studios do this all the time so they can make changes that will hopefully give their movies a better chance for success, so why shouldn't you?

While it may not be practical to gather an audience together, and have them sign a bunch of non disclosure agreements, for your 2-3 minute animated production, Screenlight is a free (with paid options for additional features), convenient, online app, that's a great alternative.

Screenlight is actually intended to be a group productivity tool for gaining client feedback on every step of a video production but the 'free forever,' single user, one project,basic account, is an ideal feedback tool for small, independent productions and hobby animators.

Simply upload your video(s) (up to 1 Gigabyte) to your Screenlight Project, share the link with anyone you choose, and they will not only be able to view your production but will also be able to leave time coded comments and draw annotations right onto the video itself.

Screenlight Interface. Comments are timecoded
and annotations can be drawn right on the video.

Shared links can be password protected, limited to commenting only, viewing others comments, and downloading files. You can also add an expiry date to a link's functionality. Free accounts have an unlimited number of reviewers (who do not need an account themselves to give you feedback).

Feedback is stored with the video so you can see exactly what each comment refers to. You also get email notifications of when comments have been received.

The service is not limited to video. You can also upload audio and image files for feedback. I tried uploading a PDF file and, while I got a message saying they weren't supported at this time, you could still download the file with reviewers having the ability to leave comments on the download page. I'd definitely love to see support for PDF files (perhaps convert each page to an image file or video slideshow?) as it's a common format for support documentation.

Screenlight is device independent, meaning your reviewers can view your content on any device from a desktop computer to mobile phone. The review page is simple, clean, and responsive.

If you do have a larger team (of up to 25), or just want the additional features of a professional account with unlimited projects, prices start from just USD$9.00 per month per user.

Personally I think the free account has more than enough to be extremely useful to a one person team. It's easy to quickly post a video online and get conveniently organized feedback without the concern of accidently making your production public. Definitely a much better option than uploading to Youtube and keeping your video private, or using a file sharing option like Google Drive or Dropbox.

I actually wish I'd discovered Screenlight much sooner. It definitely would've come in handy for my animated video explainer service, and is a tool I will be using more often from now on.

Comments

Eight 2D Animation Apps For Your Phone or Tablet Mobile Device

M obile productivity apps have become so capable that they can be great alternatives to their PC/MAC equivalents or serve as great tools in their own right when you're away from your desk. While some apps simply mimic their desktop counterparts, others offer well thought out, touch-friendly interfaces that are easier and more fun to use. Every so often I check out what's available for 2D animation for Android devices, since that's what I use, that can complement my workflow with Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5. Some may be available for Apple devices as well. Below I've listed six free (F) apps (with optional paid (P) upgrades) on the Google Play Store that you might want to explore. Some are just fun apps on their own while others may be useful as part of your workflow on bigger animation projects. Not all are exclusively animation apps and could be used on any production. JotterPad (F/P) The name JotterPad makes this sound like a notepad application but it's ...

Creating an AI Digital Avatar and Voice Clone of Myself with Free and Low Cost AI Tools

O ver the years I've looked at various ways of creating and animating a digital avatar, from simply creating a character for Cartoon Animator and voicing and animating it myself, to creating a live motion capture ready Vtuber avatar puppeted and voiced by me in real-time. In the last year or so, making photographic images talk, using AI and AI voice cloning has really progressed. To the point where I wondered if I could create a photographic AI avatar of myself, complete with my cloned voice, that I might use on some of my videos? Creating My Avatar: Artflow To create my avatar image, as far as I'm concerned, Artflow.ai is the best value AI site for creating consistent digital characters (or 'actors' as Artflow calls them). That's pretty much their entire focus. Artflow's actor model training user interface. You get your first actor for free, 100 free credits per month (which equates to 100 still images per month - get an additional 50 credits if you sign...

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D...

Five AI Generative Image to Video Tools For Animation You Can Try Free Right Now

The Emo Girl Character created by Start Animating. A I generative video isn't new but it is the next big thing in the visual imaging space as various development teams work to perfect the generated output. Just like generating still images AI video sometimes struggles with physics, arm and hand movement, and the general structure of things. However it is getting better and, as is the catch cry of all AI development, this is the worst it will ever be, because it's improving fast. If you're an animator one current potential use of generative AI video is to animate your key frames, as opposed to generating something entirely from a text prompt. Starting with an image helps to keep your characters and art style consistent across AI generations. With that in mind I tried five, free image to video AI generators to see what their potential might be and whether they can handle cartoon style characters well. Note all but the last entry on the list do not create any sound with the...

Hand Drawn 2D Digital Animation - Get Started with These 3 Free Applications

Penguin Jump Pencil Roughs by TET. Hand drawn 2D animation, more commonly described as 'traditional' animation, where each character movement is meticulously drawn frame by frame is still one of the most versatile forms of the art. Essentially, if you can draw it, then it can be animated. There's really no limits other than your own drawing and animation skills. If you already have a digital drawing tablet or pen display monitor and want to get into hand drawn, 2D digital animation then these three applications are a great starting point and they're all completely free.

The Ultimate Independent Animator's App and Resource List - Animation and Video Life

Image created with Cartoon Animator 4. Being an independent animator is not like a studio animation job. There's so much more to do that is indirectly related to the actual task of animating. Over the years I've sought out many apps, tools, and services that can help me achieve that one single task, expressing myself through animation. Below is my Ultimate Independent Animator's Resource List for 2024 (last updated Oct 2024). It started out as a list of free or low cost apps that could help you in every stage of producing either 2D or 3D animation, and then just kind of grew from there. You may not have been looking for a Time Management App as much as you needed something to get you started in 3D animation but when those commissioned projects start coming in you'll have a head start on maximizing your time. All the apps and services on this list had to meet two main criteria: They had to be useful and relevant to an Indy Animator/artist. The base app/se...

How to Become a Virtual YouTuber (VTuber) - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar

Young TET VRoid Avatar in VSeeFace. In a previous YouTube video I demonstrated how you could use a webcam, Cartoon Animator and its MotionLive 2D Facial Capture system to create a virtual avatar that you could perform live during a live stream. Unfortunately the motion capture performance of this system is very average to say the least, and is even more expensive if you want to add hand motion capture via a Leap Motion Controller . This lead me down a rabbit hole of seeing what other solutions are out there, where I bumped into the world of the VTuber or Virtual YouTuber (creators who puppet and voice an on camera avatar instead of appearing on camera themselves). Specifically VTuber software, which has been a real eye opener for how expensive and far behind Reallusion's upper body motion capture system actually is. The VTuber world is heavily entrenched in the world of Anime so you'll see a lot of 2D and 3D avatars in this style. If fact, if an Anime avatar is your thing, y...

Animation and Video Life

Search This Blog