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Mirage (edit “TVPaint”)
[important update] It appears that what I am mentioning at the end of the post is very serious, as far as I understand it Bauhaus is only a reseller and the French company is the actual creator of Mirage. The last version of Mirage available on Bahaus website is Mirage 1.5 which is not the newest release. The new release has been renamed TVPaint 8.1.1 (do you remember TVPaint?) and it offers features more suited for digital 2d animation. Buying from Bahaus will not allow you to upgrade to the new version and only TVPaint is intelMacs compatible.
Here is the 2d animation software I am testing those days. I have been trying several since the begining of the month in order to improve my drawing skills and hopefully my animation skills and a better understanding on spacing.
Just like every animation mentor students I tried PAP which seem to be the Zbrush of Digital 2d animation. An awfull interface that hides a software which only reveals himself once you get to know how it works. The drawing feeling is great but you can only draw in black or blue. The lack of coloring tool and only one layer just doesn’t do it for me so I tried Toon Boom.
Toon Boom is a cool software because it offers a landscape mode timeline where you hold poses instead of just copying them. Copying is good but if you make changes you would prefer to see them reflected on the held poses instead of deleting them all and copying them back. One great thing too is that you can rotate the workspace. Now one thing that can put people off is the drawing mode. Toon Boom is a vector software so every paintstroke is interpreted in a clean mathematical manner. It is great if you love sharp looking animations with a finished feel to it but not so great if you are the kind of guy who needs to rough stuff up before hand.
Next comes Mirage. I was reluctant at first because of the interface again but after few minutes and going through the various tutorials it doesn’t look so bad anymore and to animate you only need to know few things. I will either make a video very soon or a simple 2d animation tutorial to show you how it works. An animation toolbar is available but it doesnt’ look like it comes with the basic version of Mirage. Rusty Mills explains on his blog how he uses Mirage on his TabletPC (how long will I resist to buy a tabletPC…… ).
At the moment this is my favourite digital animation software. I use it everyday (few weeks left before the trial version expires) to do simple animation tests or sketch full poses, eyes and hand poses. My favourite tool is the size 3 blue crayon.
I won’t encourage you to buy Mirage for the moment as there seem to be a legal issue between french company TV Paint and Mirage. I don’t really know what is the whole story but TVpaint and Mirage are exactly the same software under a different name and color scheme (I have always prefered dark user interfaces though) .
Asus ep121 artist demo
Matthew Tardiff just sent me a link to a video he made demonstrating the Asus ep121 TabletPC in use with Sketchbook pro, Maya and my old beloved TV Paint. Check it out he paired it with a fancy tiny portable keyboard.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E1G9p4B9lY[/youtube]
via Lopsided circle
Related posts:
TabletPC category
My TV Paint toolbar
someone was asking about TV Paint on the AM forum so I decided to share my toolbar with everyone. The drawing underneath is based on someone’s blog.
You can download my toolbar here
http://www.olivier-ladeuix.com/blog/uploaded_images/tvpaint/Olive_TradiTools1.6.zip
Car pantomime shot (planning first part)
I don’t know how this happened but I lost the post I published few minutes ago…. anyway let’s type it again…
I am currently using TVpaint to plan my CG shots on a Tablet PC. It is just like working in 2d without the burden of storing, scanning, shooting paper and you can work anywhere.
Here is the first part of my planning for my new Pantomime shot.
Car pantomime shot (planning first part)
I just wanted to share with you my new planning method for CG animation… 2d animation! 😉 I am currently using the demo version of TVpaint 8.5 on my HP Tablet PC and that is just awesome.
Just like Zbrush, TV paint takes a bit of time to get used to but once you know your way around, it is very easy to start animating in 2d.
TVpaint doesn’t offer the bells and whistles of a good CG Fcurve editor but you can do some really decent flash like animation with a traditional feel to it, and that s all I need.