Review of 2D animation software: TVPaint Animation
I have been studied 2D animation for four years and it’s also the fourth year for me from starting use TVPaint Animation. The current version in my computer is TVPaint Animation Standard (11.7.1–64 bits). For me it is a really powerful software for 2D fame-to-frame animation production. Till now it has helped me with 4 short animations, and I will love to keep using it for my future works. I’d like to make a review of TVPaint Animation in order to help you built a basic understanding of it.
The History of TVPaint Animation
As a well-known 2D animation tool, TVPaint Animation has a history dating back to 1991. It was developed by a French software company called TVPaint Développement. This software was originally released as a drawing program for the Amiga computer platform, a line of computers that was particularly popular during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was initially designed for graffiti, then gradually been developed into a software more suitable for 2D animation production. Now TVPaint Animation is widely used in not only animation but also film. It provides animators with a powerful tool for creating high-quality animations.
What can TVPaint Animation do?
Customized specially for 2D animation, TVPaint Animation provides a wide range of various digital drawing tools powerful functions to make 2D animation production an easier process.
The very basic function for a 2D animation software is drawing. In TVPaint Animation 11, there are various kinds of brush tools can imitate realistic painting effects like oil painting, watercolor, chalk and so on. Also, it has brushes with all kinds of textures, which makes it a real convenient for making backgrounds and special environments in animation. However, we all know that most brushes provided by the software itself are not that practical. If these brushes don’t suit you, it is possible for you to customize your own brushes in TVPaint Animation! And don’t forget to use the grab tool under the brushes, it can help remember your own brush settings and make it convenient for you to use them next time.
What should a professional 2D animation tool be able to do? First is handle hundreds of layers. In some cases, you need to create a scary number of layers to complete a single scene. TVPaint Animation can support multiple layers of animation, background and duplicate structure. But the exact number may vary depending on the version and hardware configuration. It is also possible to classify these layers into different colors and manage them by classification as some other software.
The animation timeline and keyframe are also easy for users to set up and modify. The nonlinear editing functionality that TVPaint Animation provides enabling users to edit and organize animation sequences, which is really useful for post-production. A really good point in TVPaint Animation is that users can mark a single frame with different colors just by right click on that frame and select image labeling and then select set label to choose a color. This function is very practical when doing teamworks.
TVPaint Animation also provides various effects like keyframing, transformations, motion blur etc. And a really good thing is that TVPaint Animation can handle complex animation projects and various effects while retaining smooth operation. You don’t need to wait for hours in front your computer to see the outcome.
For frame-to-frame animation, TVPaint Animation has a transparent table panel to approach the onion skinning function. It can show 10 frames front and back at maximum. each frame’s color and transparency are changeable.
Users can import their masterpieces in several different formats after they have done their work in TVPaint Animation. Not only in video formats, but also only one picture of the hole work. This enables users to edit and polish their animations in other software. And it is possible for users to import sequence images in multiple formats into TVPaint Animation, but the software only recognizes images as sequences when you name the pictures with sequential numbers.
TVPaint Animation is now available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. This makes it convenient for users to open their projects on different platforms and allows people using different computer systems to work together.
Summarize
Overall, TVPaint Animation is a high-performance software for 2D animation production. It offers a wide range of advanced tools and functions that make creating animation not that complex for newcomers and make more possibilities for experts to discover.
