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Flickbook Vs Flipbook

W

Whitecloak

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hey all,

I really want to get one of these apps, but I'm unsure which is the better.
Price isn't a concern, also I'm not hugely talented as an artist.
I was hoping for some opinions from people who have both.
 
Flickbook: created to be simple, easy to use, and effective at what it can do.
Flipbook: created to be feature loaded overly capable. Flickbook has a nice interface, Flipbook is a little less than enjoyable to actually do stuff with (but does more). So if you're into specifications and want a lot of features go with Flipbook, if you just want something simple to fool around with go with Flickbook.
 
A couple simple but valuable features I wonder if Flickbook has that are not clear from the iTunes page.

1: Zoom? Can you zoom in closer while drawing? This is almost a must do do any small areas when drawing with fingers.

2: Brush size? So far the all examples seem to have the same brush size, even the little previews shown in the list of animations seem the same. So can you use a larger brush size?

3: Colors? So far, it seems like you have only 9 choices of colors. I know you can build them up to shade, but are there are color sliders? I take this means there's no eyedropper too to redo a color off the canvas?

4: Eraser? Can you use an eraser, or the only thing you can do are undos?
 
just out of curiousity, do EITHER of these allow you to publish your animations to youtube or something similar?
 
lindsayanng said:
just out of curiousity, do EITHER of these allow you to publish your animations to youtube or something similar?
Click to expand...

Flipbook allows you to upload to their flipbook.tv site, which has a gallery of submitted animations. Apparently the site will continue to grow and have more features, like ratings and stuff.
 
I don't know what Flickbook is capable of, but Flipbook's video tutorials have really impressed me:
http://www.flipbook.tv/info/

Looks like a LOT of work went into this app, and I'm now thinking it's DEFINITELY worth the price. In fact, I'm surprised it doesn't cost more. I've been debating on which one to get myself, and I'm leaning towards Flipbook now.

But if you want something simple to play around with, it looks like Flickbook is more than capable of doing simple animations for a cheaper price.
 
lindsayanng said:
just out of curiousity, do EITHER of these allow you to publish your animations to youtube or something similar?
Click to expand...

Like mentioned, there's Flipbook.tv site you can upload your animations to directly from the iPhone with FlipBook. It's converted to h.264 format, which I think is what youtube uses. Even after uploading, you can edit the framerate, portrait, landscape, notes, title, loop, private, public, all from the site without having to reupload. I just noticed a download like, which will let you save as .mp4, which is compatible with youtube.

Or on the phone, Flipbook lets you export every frame to your photos. The author I think is working on a few more options.

And I think Flickbook author will have some options that didn't make it in 1.0
 
To test out youtube, I uploaded two things I've done in Flipbook.

A doodle I've been working on during things like commercial breaks, or before bed. And my first animation using all that I could from the app.

After they were on Flipbook.tv, I right clicked and saved as on the download link in the edit page. Went to my youtube account and uploaded those .mp4 file.

Here's the doodle I was working on, a chase scene, landscape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqnS40EV6iw

That one above is pretty simple when it comes to tools. I just kept the brush size the same, didn't use much color. Left the default dark background on. But you'll notice how I made use of duplicating frames, so I didn't have to redraw the entire scene here and there. Or how I used drag to move shapes for some animation at a fraction of the time. I zoomed here and there to help with the truck, seeing how at times my entire finger was the size of it.

EDIT: I'm waiting for the 2nd one to process on youtube, this one is portait, so I wanted to see how it handles it.
 
TimothyB said:
To test out youtube, I uploaded two things I've done in Flipbook.

A doodle I've been working on during things like commercial breaks, or before bed. And my first animation using all that I could from the app.

After they were on Flipbook.tv, I right clicked and saved as on the download link in the edit page. Went to my youtube account and uploaded those .mp4 file.

Here's the doodle I was working on, a chase scene, landscape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqnS40EV6iw

That one above is pretty simple when it comes to tools. I just kept the brush size the same, didn't use much color. Left the default dark background on. But you'll notice how I made use of duplicating frames, so I didn't have to redraw the entire scene here and there. Or how I used drag to move shapes for some animation at a fraction of the time. I zoomed here and there to help with the truck, seeing how at times my entire finger was the size of it.

EDIT: I'm waiting for the 2nd one to process on youtube, this one is portait, so I wanted to see how it handles it.
Click to expand...

TimothyB -- Very cool animation!

I'm excited to finally test Flipbook out myself later this week.

It's funny -- I've been looking at animations on flipbook.tv all week, but it wasn't until I viewed this one on YouTube that the lack of sound became very apparent. I wonder if adding in sound on top of an animation is at all possible, or if that's just WAAAAAY too complicated to do in any iPhone app. Obviously you can use the mp4 file in some other program to edit in sound -- but it would be cool to have it within the app too. Either choosing a music file you have on your iPod, or even adding a voiceover from the mic. I'm probably just dreaming, though...😀
 
And here's the 2nd toony animation, so it seems Youtube also keeps the correct shape for the portrait animations too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6VvsfdSVys

In that one, I used layers to have the background separate, and color sliders gave me that extra control on color. Used various brush sizes for the character lines, but by using eraser, I was able to shape the lines by carving at them into points. Coloring was easy another layer so I could draw behind the black lines.

Without zoom to get in close to the eyes and such for that extra level of control it would have been a lot more sloppy, or taken many more undos. I Still got in over my head and went beyond the casual animation I think the app is meant for.
 
Rojo said:
TimothyB -- Very cool animation!

I'm excited to finally test Flipbook out myself later this week.

It's funny -- I've been looking at animations on flipbook.tv all week, but it wasn't until I viewed this one on YouTube that the lack of sound became very apparent. I wonder if adding in sound on top of an animation is at all possible, or if that's just WAAAAAY too complicated to do in any iPhone app. Obviously you can use the mp4 file in some other program to edit in sound -- but it would be cool to have it within the app too. Either choosing a music file you have on your iPod, or even adding a voiceover from the mic. I'm probably just dreaming, though...😀
Click to expand...

Thanks

I hadn't thought much of sound, I was just happy with the app so far. Sadly, seeing how this app already taxes the iPhone memory, sound might be impossible to throw into the mix, unless there was a separate editing mode just for sound with 4 tracks and like you said, using the mic for voice over or even to do your own sound effects. But imagine how bad that might sound on flipbook.tv.

Overall though, considering the length of the animations, sound might not be worth the hassle. And if you have a long line to say, duplicating the frame enough times to give you the room could be time consuming and waste resources, unless we get control on how many seconds a frame will play.
 
TimothyB said:
I Still got in over my head and went beyond the casual animation I think the app is meant for.
Click to expand...

Hey, if the app is capable of doing animation this advanced, why NOT do it? 😀
Flickbook seems to be tailor-made for "casual" animation, but Flipbook has such advanced controls/features, it's almost begging for users to push the app to its limits.

TimothyB said:
I hadn't thought much of sound, I was just happy with the app so far. Sadly, seeing how this app already taxes the iPhone memory, sound might be impossible to throw into the mix, unless there was a separate editing mode just for sound with 4 tracks and like you said, using the mic for voice over or even to do your own sound effects. But imagine how bad that might sound on flipbook.tv.
Click to expand...

True.
Like I said, I was just dreaming. The animation is cool enough -- and if sound is really THAT necessary, you could always edit it in another program.

TimothyB said:
Overall though, considering the length of the animations, sound might not be worth the hassle. And if you have a long line to say, duplicating the frame enough times to give you the room could be time consuming and waste resources, unless we get control on how many seconds a frame will play.
Click to expand...

So how long CAN an animation be? Is there a limit? The ones on flipbook.tv have been pretty short, but I wasn't sure if that was because they take forever to do, and people just don't want to spend that long working on them, or because the longer they are, the more memory is required and the more sluggish the app becomes. Just curious.
 
i LOVE people who just say "get this, i read its good"

freakin..

Anyways.. AWESOME! seriously, i am SOOOO psyched about this. This seriously would give ANYONE something to do when waiting, sitting on a train, hanging out at the dog park, or watching their husband who is OBSESSED with riding BMX bikes ride over the same jump again and again.. Sorry - went a little overboard

Anyways, i am REALLY excited abotut his.. So you used FLIPbook for this right? not FLICKbook? Just wana make sure i purchase the right one.

Its really neat to be able to youtube it too. That is what i was hoping for because well, you KNOW everyone watches youtube, and its easy to get other people to visit your youtube site.

As for the sound, HOW FREAKIN COOL would it be to do voice overs for your animations? I mean, they have voice recorder apps, so it would just need to be something like that, maybe come with some stock sound effects, and just layer that over the animation. I mean, i COULD use the Final Cut Pro on my cpu in order to add sound, but that takes away from it being on an iphone..

I think that adding sound could be in the near future for these developers. Even the option to just use clips form your music library would be neat.
 
ya he used flip for that it's a lot better with tons of more features. Check out the thread for flipbook it's somewhere here. It has lots of comments from the dev. He's also adding anew upload mode
 
i just downloaded it, my hubby is going to kill me, but THIS IS AWESOME!!

i am totally into graphics and drawing, always have been.. now i can actually MAKE something of my doodles.. I LOVE th eoption to use an actual PHOTO and create an animation from that too!
 
oh yea.. i just downloaded FLIPbook..

i am trying to get used to it though.. having some issues. its funny, iwork with layers ALL THE TIME and i cant get it on here..


If create a layer as the background like i saved GRASS as a layer, can i JUST copy the layer instead of the whole thing?
 
lindsayanng said:
oh yea.. i just downloaded FLIPbook..

i am trying to get used to it though.. having some issues. its funny, iwork with layers ALL THE TIME and i cant get it on here..


If create a layer as the background like i saved GRASS as a layer, can i JUST copy the layer instead of the whole thing?
Click to expand...

The layer controls are on the top right of the main menu, an icon with 3 lines. Create up to four layers. Use edit to change the name or change the order of the layers. If you change the order, it occurs through the entire animation.

On the grass layer, what do you mean by, "whole thing"? Yes, you can use copy to copy and entire layer, then go to another frame and paste it in any layer, erasing anything that was there before. You can of course duplicate and entire frame with all the draws in each layer. That can be done with the bottom right icon to view the frames, or you can set in the settings app to automatically duplicate a new frame all the time.

Don't forget in the main menu, double tapping eraser will erase the entire layer, or with the brush, fills the entire layer.

Can't find a shortcut for copy and paste. Just use the tool box, and the 2nd icon next to the drag icon will copy, then the 3rd icon for paste.

Three fingers will adjust the size of the brush or eraser. Two fingers to zoom, usually only works with up and down motion. And hold the finger for the quick menu. Also, in the quick menu, when going to undo, I find after selecting it, and tapping again real quick will do a double undo.
 
Hi guys,
As some of you know from the other thread, I'm the developer of FlipBook. I'm really excited to see all the great things people are saying here! Just to let you know, feel free to contact support at flipbook.tv or use our contact form on the site if you have any feedback, bug requests, or feature requests. It's hard to keep track of all the places people talk about FlipBook (and it's especially hard when people leave feedback in iTunes reviews where I can't contact the person and address any problems).

Anyway, we are working on a mix of improvements right now, including trying some different performance optimizations. While I personally doubt I'd every have enough time to draw a movie that is supposed to play back at faster than 12fps on a phone (a tiny, 5 second movie at 24fps means 120 frames to draw), we'd certainly like to offer it. I'm also trying to find an OpenGL ES/CG/Shark expert to help do some performance tuning to see what we can do (if you know someone, please have the person email me). It's sometimes hard for me to find enough time in the day to handle everything myself 🙂 Keep in mind I'm all for pushing the boundaries of what the iPhone and iPod Touch can do while keeping the app's interface as easy to use as possible!

We've certainly thought about sound, and honestly the hardest part is figuring out the right way to do it. Your best bet right now might actually be bringing the video from FlipBook into iMovie or Windows Movie Maker and playing there.

Just to let you know, we are releasing a 1.0.1 upgrade to fix an autosave bug (sometimes the autosave doesn't fire properly, and I believe we've identified and fixed the root cause) later this week.

Also, I'd really appreciate it if you like FlipBook, if you could spread the word, post a review on iTunes, etc.. As of right now, every dollar we've made has gone back into the app, and the more sales we have, the more we'll be able to provide for free, such as more hosted movies on flipbook.tv.

As a last request, let's try to keep things civil. Somehow, the Flickbook user base has suddenly developed a huge following of folks with similar usernames who claim FlipBook is bloated and impossible to use yet are never able to mention specifics (and every review that says it has too many features also makes sure to mention Flickbook). There have been some nasty reviews posted to both apps talking about that. While I can't speak for the Flickbook group and their approach, I can say that I have never supported someone posting a bad review for an app that they didn't purchase and actually give a fair chance to. Now if you do purchase FlipBook, dislike it/find it hard to use, get in touch with me, and I'll see if there's some way I can improve the app.

Have fun drawing!
 
i saw that adouble tap on undo does a re-do.. but maybe in the quick menu its different.

I figured out the layers and i am pretty syched that you can copy just one layer or ALL the layers, so you can have a background that can show up in every layer without too much work. I'm REALLY syched about this. this will kill the little bit left of time that i have to do nothing.

The longer i played with it, the easier it got - like with any graphics program.

I am just doing a basic flower growing cartoon just to get used to it.. i cant WAIT to really get going though..

so one last question - can you do a fill? Like fill in a circle that a drew? or do i have to color it in by hand? Is that the double tap thing you were talking about?
 
Lindsay, right now, you can't get to redo from the quick command bar (it's the quick command bar since it's designed to get you to common commands quickly 🙂 ).

Glad to hear layers are useful for you!

There is no fill tool yet, but it'd certainly be a logical addition.

And I have to laugh, as for every one post I see saying FlipBook is hard to use since it has so many features, I see ten or more posts asking for new features 🙂
 
I brought that up with the developer in another thread, so hopefully one day will make into an update, a fill bucket tool. Or even a lock transparency option for a layers so all new drawing will only happen in areas that were previously drawn, like in Photoshop. So you could do quick color shading without worry of it going outside the shape.

I managed to do my coloring quick by making it a layer under the lines. So I also mentioned an option to the developer on being able to merge layers. To free up the 4 layer limit after said coloring was done.

But for what it is, it sure has a whole lot going for it already, and any new feature just makes it even better.

Check out the developer responses to my thread here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/533982/

The program already works great and easy to use despite all the features, wait until you see what I requested in that thread. There would need to be an advance and novice mode, disabling and simplifying the interface for those that don't need all those options.
 
I never once thought there were too many functions. But I guess that's because I have worked with layers before. It was just getting used to everyhing. They should have an advanced useage video ontheir site. The how-to was too simple.

Anyways I can think of some more features, like a text box option, music! And paint can. But overall, I am very psyched. Now I wish I had a commute that I didn't drive. Or maybe a long trip coming up.
 
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