@katekittens Hi Kate, you wrote this on your status update:
(I hope this is where I am able to ask questions) So, I’ve gotten into Pencil 2D just fine, but this is my first experience with actual animation software (The only ones I am familiar with is Firealpaca and Flip-A-Clip, which are barely suitable for something you want to be completely serious about) so I am a bit confused on the concept of frames. Navigating this website is a bit difficult, to say the least.Also, I’m not sure if I am able to zoom in or not (It’s totally fine if I cant, though it would be very helpful to know, as I am not using a tablet but a touchscreen computer and a stylus, so I do not have access to my keyboard as I am drawing)
Although I think I understand everything else, the layout is simple enough for me to find out on my own the things I do not know. Thanks! :)
Let me answer your questions in order:
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Normally for these kind of questions you should ask questions on the forum, creating a thread like I have so people can see your inquiry. You posted the message on your profile, which is not particularly visible.
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The concept of frames, comes from traditional animation, it’s not a particularly new concept.
Originally frames were “drawings” that were capture by a camera on film, and each frame corresponded to the amount of exposure, that is how many frames was a drawing exposed on the film. So in digital animation software both concepts sometimes kind of get fused together so you have the frame as a drawing “container” and the frame as a time unit. when you hear the term FPS, frames per second, it’s exactly that. How many frames you can SEE in one second. Normally animation is worked on 24 frames per second. That means you would see 24 drawings per second. But you don’t really HAVE to draw 24 “different” drawings. This is when exposure comes in.
If you have heard that animators say that they will expose each drawing on “two’s”, it means that each individual drawing will be held on screen for at least two (2) frames. So for a 24 FPS projection rate, you will effectively see 24 FRAMES, out of 12 DRAWINGS on screen.
In Pencil2D, Think of frames as drawings that are stacked horizontally and when <> (this last concept is a core principle of animation itself)
- Just in case, the site itself is not a drawing app. You have to download the software which It seems you have already, but won’t hurt to let others know.
If you want to try out the latest version, if you go on the front page, download the development version appropriate for your operating system. OR watch this tutorial. It was made on windows, but you should be able to follow it on any other platform right up until you have to unpack the thing:
- You can zoom the canvas by using the mouse scroll wheel up/down on bitmap and vector layers. However if you use the zoom function on the camera layer (to be on a layer you have to select it) you will LITERALLY zoom in the camera, and as such it will be animated. Be careful. You can also go to the menu VIEW > and use the Zoom+IN or Zoom+Out commands.
However since you say you’re using your stylus, for example I have a Wacom tablet but when I activate the touch functions, I can zoom in as you normally would using finger gestures (normally that two-finger open / close pincer gesture)
In the future we hope to have a navigator panel for people with touch screens. But for now I’d advice to change the default shortcuts to your touch screen buttons if possible to use in conjunction with the screen tablet stylus.
For any other issue feel free to reply to this thread.