Was it just a waste of time?

Miscellaneous
1

I registerred yesterday on this forum after I installed Pencil2D (MS Win version 6.06)
I worked through some tutorials and than I tried to make my first animation that I wanted to render to a video.
But I had to find out, that camera animation does not work at all.
Is this really so, or how can I progress?
Or is it better to delete this Programm again from my computer ???
I hope, that not many are frustrated like me at the moment ….

Best regards
Ernst

2

@Ernst First of all sorry to hear about your problem. Let’s see what can be done to get to the root cause of it, although these issues are very rare in actuality.

Pencil2D 6.06 doesn’t exist. It’s either 0.6.0 or you got a version from a different download site, however if the latter was the case we urge you not to download version from any other place other than http://pencil2d.org/download as we can’t provide support for custom made version by other people; we can only vouch for what we present here.

However by your description since you’re having issues with the camera motion then it must be a really old version of Pencil2D, If you like you can test the latest development build from February 5th 2019 which is a WIP version in development state, but even then it has many fixes in comparison to such an old version. Here’s a direct link for that:

Windows (7+ [x64]) : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1juDKIkv1F8fuNruGBwauA_y-7UNWibis

If after trying this version your problem is fixed please let us know. If it’s not then please let us know as well so developers can take a look at the problem at hand.

If after this you still have major issues or you simply don’t like Pencil2D, then don’t worry we can provide you with a list of alternate animation software here: http://pencil2d-software.tumblr.com/post/145767476221/when-youve-worked-all-day-on-your-animation

3

Dear Jose,

thanks for your detailed answer.

Sorry, the correct version is:

Version: 0.6.2

Operating System: Windows 10 (10.0)

CPU Architecture: x86_64

Please tell me:

Is it at all possible with this version to make camera animations (and other animations) and render this to videos?

Best Regards

Ernst

4

@Ernst Thank you for clarifying the version of Pencil2D you’re using. Indeed it should work on that version.

To animate the camera you have to:

  1. Actively select the camera layer (it should become faintly lighter). This is important, otherwise you will only modify the drawing VIEW itself as if you were moving the paper in your table.

  2. Select the navigation tools (i.e HAND tool) to manipulate the camera.

  3. By using the Hand tool click and drag the view and you will PAN the camera. The drawing will remain stationary on the canvas, but you’ll visibly see the viewfinder changes position.

  4. By pressing the CTRL key modifier and dragging up and down on the view, the camera will ZOOM in or out

  5. By Pressing the ALT key modifier and dragging left or right the camera will TILT / rotate

  6. To animate the camera, in the camera layer you can see the small yellow squares that represent the “keyframes” of the camera.
    These keyframes record the state of the camera motion at the current frame. To modify the first keyframe the red playback header must be ON the frame number that corresponds to the keyframe position.

  7. Navigate to a new frame number (e.g frame 12) and ADD a new keyframe, using either the (+) plus button next to the “Keys” label, or using the Animation menu > Add Frame option.

  8. You now just have to set the initial and final position of your camera in different keyframes and once that is done Pencil2D will interpolate the motion between any two given keyframes.

Unfortunately only the Camera layer has interpolated animation features. So to animate objects in a bitmap or vector layer, you have to do it frame by frame for now. Pencil2D is mainly geared towards emulating and improving on traditional (hand-drawn) animation workflows, but don’t let this discourage you.

The camera motion will be rendered to video in versions 0.6.2 and above. If you are still havin issues with this version please try using the development version I linked in my previous comment. It’s basically a snapshot of the current Pencil2D version along several improvements that are being prepared for the upcoming release of 0.6.3.

If you have any other issue please do not hesitate to let us know. We’ll try to do our best to help.

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