Your software is fantastic, it would be great to have keyboard control and move between keyframes (not normal frames) using keys like 1 for back and 2 for forward and 3 for playback, also regular arrow keys to move one normal frame forward.Selecting multiple bones and moving them would be nice too.Or when you select bone with shift then previous bone folows the one you selected , so you select knee bone with shift and then thigh bone will move and rotate so you can bend legs easily like that.

This is an incredible piece of software with huge untapped potential and seemingly abandoned by its developer.

You have all the tools you would need to create skeletal animation for 2d games in it, but not a single way to export it as json data!

The suggestion is to use dragonbones export format. Why? Because the runtimes for games that it uses dont require the developers to purchase any licenses. Some blender addons have implemented it as a result.

So for example a game developer can use anime effects to create an animation, export it as dragonbones json data and make it interactive, like this:
https://pixijs.io/examples/#/plugin-dragonbones/eyetracking.js

and the dragonbones js runtime
https://github.com/DragonBones/DragonBonesJS/tree/master/Pixi

All we need to make this happen is the export to json feature.

But why use anime effects over dragonbones editor?
Anime effects is truly open source and also runs on linux. Dragonbones editor is not. Actually AnimeEffects its the only open source fully featured 2d skeletal animation app out there. But nobody is using it, because it doesn't export the data in a format that is useful for game dev

Documentation
https://developer.egret.com/en/apidoc/index/name/dragonBones.EgretEvent

also on the data format
https://github.com/DragonBones/DragonBonesJS/blob/master/docs/DragonBones_5.0_data_format_zh.md

There is a Dragonbones C++ runtime here
https://github.com/DragonBones/DragonBonesCPP

Sorry to ask this naive question. I am a freshman of QT. But as I see other projects, most of them have .ui files. Since this project uses QT. Why there isn't .ui file? How did you design the UI of the software during programming?

Hello everyone, if you're interested on this project and want to see bugfixes and new features you can check out the currently maintained fork over at https://github.com/AnimeEffectsDevs/AnimeEffects
Cheers!

To avoid overlapping father and son bone, which led to confusion in the image. Hope bones support change length

when i resize the canvas it only resizes to the left instead of the center
is there anyway to fix that?

before resize

after resize

Hi,
I noticed that a location of settings are not unified in Windows 10.
Key bindings are saved to %APPDATA%\AnimeEffectsProject\AnimeEffects.ini,
while other settings such as languages and a window position are saved to the system registry
where key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\AnimeEffectsProject\AnimeEffects.
The app should not write anything to the registry unless it is distributed in a installer package.

this difference comes from usage of QSettings class.

        QSettings settings;

and

    QSettings settings(QSettings::IniFormat, QSettings::UserScope,
                       QApplication::organizationName(),
                       QApplication::applicationName());

I confirmed this issue at v1.3 release and git master on my Windows 10 Home (version 1607).

It would be great if you could jump to the next/previous keyframe using hotkeys.

@hidefuku @henrich Hi! I want to congratulate you on your tool AnimeEffects. It is very well done and so far very promising!.

I wanted to ask if it's possible to do the following operations in your program:

1. To have one bone to be the parent of (X) number of individual layers. That means having any bone I choose to directly influence any layer. Also for a bone chain to influence a hierarchy of layers.

I've tried to use the current bone tool with a folder that has the artwork nested inside with other folders and it works OK, but with this method all the images are deformed by the other bones. The problem is that I want each layer transformation property (rotation, move, scale) to be modified only by a single bone, disregarding any other bone influence over the same image.

For example if I have an ARM made of three (3) pieces in different layers. ARM > FOREARM > HAND. I want to have a bone chain that allow me to manipulate these layers separately, that means one bone would only influence a single layer each.

2. Is it possible to bind one bone from layer A to other bone in layer B so one bone can become parent of the other in a different layer? This would help to create complex binding between many layers joining chains of bones into a single skeleton.

Example. I have the same ARM with a three (3) bone chain in layer A, and on layer B I have a body where I created a SHOULDER bone. I would like to parent the arm root joint to the shoulder bone to allow for the shoulder bone to move the whole arm.

Thank you for your hard work on this excellent program. I'd like to help out but I don't know how to code in C++ & QT 😭 however If there's something I can help with, like testing the program or promoting the site let me know.

I'm a freelance animator and I'd love to recommend this software to my colleagues so I'm excited to see how this software will evolve 😄 Thanks!!!

I've been working with and saving a project with no errors for about 12 hours. After closing for a break and attempting to open later I am now receiving this error and can not open the file. The .anie file is not in plain-text when opening so I have no idea if recovery is possible or what the actual issue is.

Is there nothing I can do to recover the file?

Can you make support of Open GL 3 version system too??

This is a call to the users of AnimeEffects to provide example projects to help us test/develop and promote the application.

AnimeEfects needs an examples repository where we include community made files would really help us with catching feature regressions. Something like
https://github.com/DragonBones/Demos

If you have an account on github, please zip up any example project you have and are willing to share with the community and drag and drop it into the reply field here.

If not, feel free to send it to [email protected] and I will do that for you.

Each demo project will include credits of who made it. If you do not wish to, we will keep you anonymous.

You can provide a license for your file when you submit it. I suppose it would be easier to make it creative commons, but for our purposes the file is just for demoing and testing - so it doesn't need to be allowed to be used in other projects.

SFW content is preferred, remember someone might be tinkering in their lunch break :)

How can your project file help developers:

• We can use it to test for regressions and performance
• It can potentially attract more developers to get involved as it will let them play with your file straight away when they open animeEffects for the first time - easier to start figuring out what it can do without being an artist and spending hours to set up a rigged character.
• Your file can demonstrate how the app works and what it can do - to those devs who are not animators/artists and just want to tinker with it to improve it - it will give them a toy to identify weak parts of the app that can do with some improvement.
• With every demo file you provide, feel free to also write down what is the biggest feature you are missing in animeEffects and why it would be so important for your workflow

I am looking for the masking tool , but I can't find it. I believe he doesn't have this tool yet. It would be very nice if they would add it.

why AnimeEffects don't have 32bits version??

If you for example want to set a start keyframe you have to click and drag the thing you want to change and then drag it back to the original position. I think it would be better if you could hover over the thing (property/transform) you wanted to keyframe and press a hotkey to set a keyframe instead.

Hey,

This software is really amazing! I'm an animator who was looking for something that I can use to animate vector logos. This beats all the other stuff, because this software is clean and straight forward. I have a few requests though. I don't know if you're open to requests:

1. Closing windows - can we have an "X" button so that we can close the project windows that I don't want

2. Drag and drop - Sometimes I may want to drag a new background/ png into my project. At the moment the software doesn't allow you to add new resources/ asserts after you have already started animating

3. Hot keys/ keyboard buttons to allow animators to increase and decrease brush sizes. You can use the + (plus button) and the - (minus button) or this [ button and ] that button to increase and decrease brush radius (especially when we are using the Free Form tool or something)

4. Using delete button - On the timeline I wish I could use DELETE to delete all the Keyframes that I have selected. That would really help.

5. A darker interface would be nice (but this is the least important request that I have) I think the other features are more important

I also think these additions will really make your software very user friendly, especially for professional animators that are already loving it. If you can't do all the upgrades and I can only choose one request I would request for point number 2 ( Adding the option to drag and dropping new resources into the program).

That being said I would be EXTREMELY happy if there is somehow who knows how to add all of the features above.. and I'm sure a lot of animators would also love the update.

Have a pleasant day,
Tafadzwa

It looks like this But no files appear. This file is missing.

Will it import existing SVG animations? Like those: http://www.tbyrne.org/viber-animated-svgs

Hello! Every time I finish extracting the files and putting ffmeg under the files, that works just fine. But when I click to open the bunny icon (the application), it goes to a blank screen before closing out. I went through over the course of 2 days, checking to see if I have all the requirements and checking GitHub for solutions. I already ran it as an administrator, troubleshoot, and went through the requirements and files needed to download.
I have a 64bit Windows with enough RAM, and WinRAR. Is there anything I can do?

Azagaya, I installed qt creator here, opened the file and I can't run this. Looks like is missing "kits". You know what is?

I'll try download Windows version and use it with wine (I don't know if it's possible but i'll try).

Is there any instruction to build AnimeEffects? It seems AnimeEffects is built based on qmake so I guessed below build instruction from the .pro file.

# on Linux (maybe same on macOS)
cd AnimeEffects/src
qmake
make

Onion skin would be a wonderful feature

Hi, currently and as of August 2017 the state of development for AnimeEffects has been halted due to unknown circumstances. The original developer @hidefuku has been missing from this repository and any of his / her social media account. We sincerely hope they are doing well <秀福さん, 元気にやっていることを願ってるよ! > 😔

This thread has been created to discuss the future of this project as some developers and users are interested in continuing the development of AnimeEffects.

Part of this discussion has already taken place in #38 but to avoid derailing the original issue [DragonBones JSON Format Export] even further we have created this issue instead for all remaining developers and users to see and participate.

Previously Discussed Topics

1. Forking AnimeEffects and continuing off in a different branch while we wait for Hidefuku-san to come back.
2. Forking AnimeEffects and re-brand it as a new project (with proper credits to the original project and respecting licensing due to GPLv3)
   • In this aspect we're going to wait until Jan of 2020, to see if Hidefuku-san has issued any announcement on this topic.
3. Create a new organization to democratize developer access and better regulate the influx of PR's
   • The name of the organization has been proposed to be AnimeEffects-Devs for the time being. Once the due date has passed we'll re-brand it to the agreed name that is to be discussed later.
4. Broaden the application target market and promote it, not only for cut-out / modular animators, but also for game developers and game engines (e.g Godot, GDevelop, Xenko, Ct.js, Armory3D, etc) along runtime support integration.
5. Roadmap creation and hosting platforms
   • Trello
   • Github Project Boards / Kanban
6. New companion website hosting using github-pages
7. Creation of decentralized communication channels:
   • IRC: #animeeffects-dev on freenode (courtesy of @Larpon)
   • Discord: AnimeEffects Community Server (Direct Link Invitation: No expiration. No user limit)

Additional development proposals

• Separate the player and format into a library/runtime that can be integrated with - like the Spine runtimes or the DragonBones integration.
• Open up/change the file format. Make it easier to "hack" (e.h Krita's .kra, Pencil2D .pclx, Synfig .sifz formats are basically zip files containing both binary and text data)
• Do it for the good of humanity (Keep the license in mind... GPLv3 is not everyone's favourite)
• Cross-platform and cross-application integratation with FOSS & commercial animation software as well as game engines.

Re-branding Discussion

There was a brief discussion for names if a re-branding comes into effect, but these are not final and we'll welcome any other proposal.

The criteria used was:

• Anime-effects name doesn't really communicate what it does. "Anime" is an art style in the west, but a legitimate word in the east (it means animation in Japan). "Effects" is something people associate with compositing vfx or sound effects.
• AnimeEffects was probably meant to capture the Japanese market which depends a LOT in (Adobe) After Effects (particularly in studio settings and hobbyist circles). This app really seemed it was looking to fill the place that the FOSS DUIK plugins have in After Effects to provide skeletal character animation capabilities.
• If we're going about names, consider something that is catchy and communicates the core function of the software (even if it is expanded to be more complex, or have more functionality later on).

Proposed Names

• MangaBones
• Puppetry
• DollMaster
• SwiftBones
• Insert your proposal here

We hope that anyone interested in improving this excellent application will come forward. There is no small task when it comes to FOSS development and any kind assistance will prove to be of critical importance for the survival of this project moving forward.

Thank you in advance for your attention 🙇‍♂️

Special thanks to @blurymind, @herace, @Larpon for their initial interest and efforts to contribute to this renewal project.

Ive been working on this project for 9 hours now but when i opened it again the day day it says "Failed to load project.
Failed to solve id references." im very devastated right now what should i do about this?

Would be pretty cool imo. Imagine doing animatoon rigging on the way.

E.g. Left arrow for one frame back, right for forward

Right now its not possible to adjust single bone keyframe without affecting other keyframes, when you change interpolation of one bone then all other bones are affected, this is quite limiting considering many interpolation algorithms.You cant have Sinusoid interpolation in 4 different places on timeline because one affects all others, would be great to have sinusoid for bone 1 and 2 on frame 0 and 500 and another sinusoid on bone 3 and 4 on frame 50 and 300 without them affecting bones 1 and 4 and vice versa.
If i create bones for folder and then i create bones for layer inside this folder then i have some problems with folder bones not affecting layer anymore , so you can have only bones for folder and cant have extra ones forr layers inside this folder because it creates problems and disables other bones.
When you create new layer then its name is not copied from image name, its named "topnode" and would be nice if layer name would be changed automatically to image name.Saves time.
Ability to select multiple images to add resources would be great, now you can only select them one by one.
Ability to select multiple resources from list to create multiple layers with one click would be great too.

Will it provide an sdk like Live2D does?
The project is under GPL now.
The projects uses it has to be open source as well.
So it's impossible to implement an SDK for closed source use.

Right now you have to be very precise if you want to paste something to a certain frame, it would be nice if you could instead navigate to the frame you wanted to paste to and press a hotkey to paste to the current frame without having to worry about the mouse position.

When I try to open a .psd, every time it says "Failed to load the image file. error(6) unexpected end of file. (image data)"

I exported a project from Firealpaca, as CMYK PSD. I have the soft proof enabled, no layer is in a folder, I have FFmpeg installed. Does anyone know why nothing will work? I've tried with different files, too, so I highly doubt they're corrupted...I've never had issues with file corruption with Firealpaca. I've also tried updating Firealpaca, I've uninstalled and re-installed AnimeEffects and FFmpeg. Help?

As LICENSE file says, if you apply GPL-3 (or GPL-3+), it'd be better to add terms to your program files.

            How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

  If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

  To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It is safest
to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
state the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

    {one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.}
    Copyright (C) {year}  {name of author}

    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Probably you would think it's enough to add LICENSE files to your repository, but maybe someone would reuse your files in the future. At that time, including license terms to the files is good thing.

It would be useful if you could set a project default easing interpolation setting in case you don't like linear interpolation (who does?). This setting would then be used for newly created keyframes.

Or any other method really like changing easing settings for multiply keyframes at once.

Could you clarify AnimeEffects licensed under "only GPL-3" or "GPL-3 or later version"?

(It'd be better to use GPL-3 or later version if you don't have any specific opinion).

Would be really nice to be able to copy / duplicate layers

Application Error, the memory could not be written

I have an issue with my AnimeEffects, before I start I have a disclaimer that I'm only an artist and I'm not really good with computers or programs, so sorry! (Also english is not my first language)
Anyway, I got a problem right after installing AnimeEffects. Downloading and installation went smoothly, but program didn't opened so I restarted my laptop, wishing that maybe it could help.
It didn't.
When I open it, it shows me a message saying "Program AnimeEffects stopped working. Program has stopped working correctly due to the problem. Windows will close the program and notify You, if an available solution exists." (sorry again, it's a rough translation from polish which is also at the screenshots)
And it doesn't notify me about any solusions.
Is there anything I can do?

As far as I am concerned I am unable to use this, as I'm not sure what it does. There is no function to import images, there is no project file that shows the functionality. I open the software and there is just a set of tools and no options to do anything else.

Hi,

Anyone successfully installed app on ubuntu os?

• Install Qt5 first
• Did git clone of the app
• changed to the directory /src folder
• ran qmake but getting following errors

/home/osboxes/Downloads/AnimeEffects/src/AnimeEffects.pro:26: Unknown replace function: shell_path

Could we please have the option to set the various panels in the UI to something with a dark background?

The main window area is fine, since it is already dark - but the other panels are hard on the eyes - having very light backgrounds.

Thank you.

Greg Smith

Do you want to transfer some of the functions to OpenToonz? Very many will be pleased.
https://github.com/opentoonz/opentoonz

Hi,

I loved this tool to animate my psd files. I am not an artist or an animator but still, I was able to learn and use this tool quickly to create an animation.

After I created it, I am struggling to export. I followed the instructions and installed ffmpeg. Yet, the tool throws the error that I need to install ffmpeg. I use a mac. See the attached screenshot.

I really wish I can export and use the animations that I created. Please guide me if I am missing something. Thanks a lot.

Regards,
Divya

Please let the user choose, when setting up a Project, how many frames per second the animation will be - and to also choose to display the number of frames rather than the number of seconds as the unit of measure displayed in the Timeline.

Thank you,

Greg Smith

Opening it in qt creator, and then building seems to go smoothy, however when I try to start it with ./AnimeEffects in the src folder, I get this

if I move the AnimeEffects file to the parent folder, it does work! But why is it building it inside src?

I am new to qt creator, when I try the build and run command, it doesnt start at all. I get this:
:-1: error: You need to set an executable in the custom run configuration.
However the option to do so is impossible to find. Where is it?
These are my settings atm:

on the mac version you can't open a new project because the hole bare over the tool dock is not there.

This program is amazing, but I remember when I tried to export my animation as a gif, a lot of the colors were semi-distorted and it caused an orange outline to appear in my artwork. I'm unsure if it's because of the animation having transparency, or if it's just all gif exports.