I actually sat down and tried to do my job animating in Krita for once, and I must say it was relatively smooth, great job!
I constantly ran into two ‘issues’ which aren’t really issues, technically. just things I ran into and I wanted opinions on. Also a bonus question which isn’t really an issue.
Clicking a frame on the timeline doesn’t mean you’re editing that frame
It’s been a long time since I last animated in Flash, probably 8 years or so, but I vaguely remember the keyframing system.
In Krita, whenever I wanted to edit a frame, I would click the frame, and start drawing. This led to major problems I ended up having to fix, because it turns out you can select a frame and simultaneously draw on an entirely different layer? I feel like that layer should be auto-selected if a frame on that layer is highlighted. I ran into this about 6 times in a 2 hour session. Thoughts?
There were times where I’d duplicate a layer, then select and drag the frames on the new layer to another part of the timeline. I’d then play the animation to see how it looks, it’d play through once, then just start looping the part I had dragged. Took me a bit to realize that it would only loop the highlighted part. Maybe this should be an option at the top of the timeline (on the frame numbers) instead? Or at least have it disable-able? Especially since ‘deselecting’ frames is unintuitive. I end up just selecting some other random frame.
Bonus: Is there a reason to show onion skinning when the animation is playing? Is that a bug or have animators requested that?
Hey Ralek,
I used a lot professional animation software (Flash, TVPaint, Toonboom …) before I heard that KRITA has some animationtools. Then I started animating with KRITA, struggeld a lot in the beginning and after some time and some KRITA updates I started to love it.
1
I agree with point one, its easy to get lost between the layers. You always have to check, if you’re animating on the right frame AND on the right layer. I normally use to lock the layers I am not woring on.
2
I really love that I am able to play only a part of the animation by selecting a row of frames. I use it very often.
But I see some potential at this topic. In TVPaint there are different modes of playing the animation for e.g.:
Play
Play from beginning
Play from current frame an go back to current frame
Play forward and back by pressing keys, coming back to current frame
Play between Markers
Play Fullscreen
… and so on.
Anyway, for me, this really basic functionality in KRITA works fine.
Bonus
XD … I also asked this very often :D. And I asked me also, if playing with activated onion skins needs more cpu power? It’s definately something, you don’t need.
At all, have a look at the shortcuts. There are some for animation that makes life much easier and I was totally happy when I discovered them. Mostly about that there are 2 for flipping between keyframes and one for toggle onion skinning at all.
I don’t see onion skins when the animation is playing.
I’ve just tried it with 4.4.8, all the 5.0.0-beta releases and the Dec 19 5.1.0-prealpha.
Which version(s) do you see it happening on and which operating system are you using?
I’m not aware of any option that might make it happen.