I have a question for a niche group of people.
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I just tried Krita for five minutes. I could not work out how to draw two shapes with a line connecting them. That's the thing I do most often in a vector-drawing tool. OmniGraffle 3 had a really nice magnet model, 6 made it worse but still okay.
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@eclectech just took a look. Toonbooms licence model is subscription crap. But I remember my switch from flash to hype having a rather flat learning curve. Happy to help.
@grmon Ah, that sounded promising, but I don't have a Mac (realise that should have been in my initial list now). Will have a look at the others on the alternativeto site though, just in case...
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I have a question for a niche group of people.
The question is for people who have used Flash or Animate to make 2D animations.
Have you found alternative software that has the same overall user experience as old school Flash?
If yes, what is it?
Please note I am aware of a lot of animation packages out there & I know a lot of them are great, but I have a LOT of experience in Flash & if I can ditch Animate but keep the overall experience that would be perfect.
Thanks.
@eclectech I wish I had answers for you. Any chance you were part of the Flashkit community back in the day?
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I just tried Krita for five minutes. I could not work out how to draw two shapes with a line connecting them. That's the thing I do most often in a vector-drawing tool. OmniGraffle 3 had a really nice magnet model, 6 made it worse but still okay.
@david_chisnall For vector drawing Inkscape is my go to tool.
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@eclectech
Then you understand the horrific touch of dread I had when I learned abput Apple's plans to make Logic and Final Cut subscription-based.@slowtiger It sucks doesn't it? You have my sympathies.
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@david_chisnall For vector drawing Inkscape is my go to tool.
@eLearningTechie The best I can say about Inkscape is that it works, but the UI is incredibly clunky and I spend so much time fighting it that I can't focus on what I'm trying to draw.
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@eclectech I've used Tumult's Hype https://tumult.com/hype/ as a replacement for Flash for web animations, and they have a free trial if you have a Mac. There is some overlap, though nothing quite matches Flash's old vector tools. The nice thing is you can easily mix and match bitmap and SVG components, and the output can be tweaked in a text editor if need be and it is all in basic web file formats.
@GiantGinkgo Damn, second recommendation for that, but I don't have a Mac (which I realise I should have stated up front - still it might be useful for others as it appears I'm not alone!)
Thanks though!
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@eLearningTechie The best I can say about Inkscape is that it works, but the UI is incredibly clunky and I spend so much time fighting it that I can't focus on what I'm trying to draw.
@david_chisnall @eLearningTechie The (sort of) funny thing there is that Inkscape has been recommended to me as an alternative to Illustrator, and my one overriding experience of Illustrator is that the UI without fail makes me want to bang my head on the wall.
Fortunately I have very rare need to use it, only ever if someone sent me a file in it.
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@eLearningTechie The best I can say about Inkscape is that it works, but the UI is incredibly clunky and I spend so much time fighting it that I can't focus on what I'm trying to draw.
@david_chisnall I agree and transitioning to it wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but I'm quite stubborn, so for me it's working out great. But we're all different. Luckily there are loads of tools out there to choose from.
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@eclectech I wish I had answers for you. Any chance you were part of the Flashkit community back in the day?
@ryan Aw, thanks. There have been a few leads to follow up at least.
I wasn't part of the Flashkit community - I think they might have been more technically adept than me (if memory serves)
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@eclectech
Yes, Moho handles bitmaps as easily as verctors. I even have characters which are part vector, part bitmap, or even video (mov).
The timeline will look instantly familiar.Feel free to ask me any question per mail, or directly in the Moho forum: https://lostmarble.net/forum/
@slowtiger This is definitely promising. Thanks.
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@david_chisnall I agree and transitioning to it wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but I'm quite stubborn, so for me it's working out great. But we're all different. Luckily there are loads of tools out there to choose from.
Sadly, there seem to be very few tools with a good UI.
OmniGraffle 3 was more or less feature complete for me (the one missing feature I want is still not in 6 Pro: export to SVG keeping each layer as an SVG layer). I want that because Sozi can make layers appear and disappear in animations. A clone of OmniGraffle 3 would make me very happy. Newer versions of the same app make me a bit less happy and the alternatives I've tried just make me sad.
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I have a question for a niche group of people.
The question is for people who have used Flash or Animate to make 2D animations.
Have you found alternative software that has the same overall user experience as old school Flash?
If yes, what is it?
Please note I am aware of a lot of animation packages out there & I know a lot of them are great, but I have a LOT of experience in Flash & if I can ditch Animate but keep the overall experience that would be perfect.
Thanks.
@eclectech Rive is worth checking out, similar to Flash in some ways: https://rive.app/
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I have a question for a niche group of people.
The question is for people who have used Flash or Animate to make 2D animations.
Have you found alternative software that has the same overall user experience as old school Flash?
If yes, what is it?
Please note I am aware of a lot of animation packages out there & I know a lot of them are great, but I have a LOT of experience in Flash & if I can ditch Animate but keep the overall experience that would be perfect.
Thanks.
@eclectech https://www.synfig.org/
Synfig Studio? I suggested it to my "non techie" friend, and he picked it up fast enough
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@eclectech Rive is worth checking out, similar to Flash in some ways: https://rive.app/
@damianwalsh Thanks, will take a look.
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@eclectech https://www.synfig.org/
Synfig Studio? I suggested it to my "non techie" friend, and he picked it up fast enough
@howtophil Oooh, the screenshots on the webpage certainly make it look worth checking out - and it mentions vector animation too. Thanks!
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@david_chisnall @eclectech I don't know how https://friction.graphics compares to Flash or Animate as I've not used Flash in the last two decades and have never used Animate. I rarely do animation work, but have dabbled with Friction on occasion. It's pretty feature rich, but documentation could be better.
@eLearningTechie @david_chisnall @eclectech Friction might work, the UI/UX is more AE-like, but everything is vector (we also support bitmap), export can be animated SVG, video or image seq. Since I have not used Flash since ~2000 I don't remember the UX, but we are open for UX suggestions from Flash/Animate users.
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Secondary factor is I really don't like Adobe, and would like to ditch them. I have identified alternatives for everything else I use so this is my stumbling block.
Also don't mind paying for software, but would prefer 1. it wasn't Adobe & 2. it was a one off purchase rather than SAAS.
Quick thanks to everyone boosting and making suggestions here. I am making a list!
Might take me a while to go through but I will feedback (with particular reference to whether it's an easy transition from Animate) when I can.
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I have a question for a niche group of people.
The question is for people who have used Flash or Animate to make 2D animations.
Have you found alternative software that has the same overall user experience as old school Flash?
If yes, what is it?
Please note I am aware of a lot of animation packages out there & I know a lot of them are great, but I have a LOT of experience in Flash & if I can ditch Animate but keep the overall experience that would be perfect.
Thanks.
@eclectech I recall I created some animations with SVG and CSS and JS. I've coded it, but I'm sure something can export this combo. If not, AI can animate a well structured SVG to some extent.
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Quick thanks to everyone boosting and making suggestions here. I am making a list!
Might take me a while to go through but I will feedback (with particular reference to whether it's an easy transition from Animate) when I can.
@eclectech That'll be useful. Looking forward to your review as I'm always looking for new (free) tools to play with.
