Like to create flipbooks?

[TimothyB]

I was hoping that if I bought any sketch type app for the iPhone that I'd find one that could animate. It just seemed no matter what, drawings on the iPhone are going to be rough and quick, so it seemed like it would be fun if at least you could do rough animations, then work on it when you have more time later.

So, an app like that has finally come out:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=286348957&mt=8

Onion skinning feature so you can see ghosts of your previous frames. Layer system so you can keep backgrounds and static elements the same while you draw a new part. Maybe even move static layers. Only a simple brush, variable size, color slide, eyedropper, eraser, undo, zoom. Can use photos.

Price is high, but looks like the app is made well with a nice slick look.

Video tour: http://www.flipbook.tv/tour/

 

[carve]

Sweet app. Not worth $10 at all

 

[TimothyB]

Sweet app. Not worth $10 at all

Yeah, only reason I haven't bought it yet. $6.99 or $7.99 would look more attractive.

One thing I'm not sure off, as it's not made clear, is if you can work on an animation, then save it, and continue it again later. If it isn't editable, then I'd find it waste.

 

[SlapMonkey]

How are you guys saying that the price is too high!? At only $10!? Come on, some of these developers are putting quite a bit of work into some of these apps (unlike the silly flashlight apps.)

I just picked up this app and considering that it has the ability to have layers (no other Sketch app on the iPhone has this yet) and onion skinning as well as frame by frame drawing, then the ability to upload those frames as an animated movie, I'm surprised this app isn't $20!

Man you people are cheap here...

 

[Telp]

This looks like a great app. For $10 though, I do think this is a bit high. I am all for developers pricing there apps based on time spent on their apps, but honostly, for something that i would play around with a couple times and thats it, its not worth it to me. If it's worth it for you, then $10 might be a great price. All in all that, its a great idea. Glad to see developers with creativity out there.

 

[spyker3292]

There are so many great features in this app that I really do agree with the price. But in the end I think it should lower the price to compete with other applications. It's one of those prices that I think is good considering the quality, but too high for me to buy it. Like Beatmaker...

 

[TimothyB]

If it was $5-$7, I'd buy it right now. While the price of $10 is not bad considering, but after all my purchases this first month with the iPhone, I have to put it off until I used what I already bought a bit more, that's all

Is there any way to create a wish list for apps in iTunes? I guess I'll open up notepad instead to keep track of what I'm considering.

 

[wronski]

http://flipbookapp.com/

Here's another one that's been in development for a while. I'm told it will be better and cheaper.

 

[SlapMonkey]

http://flipbookapp.com/

Here's another one that's been in development for a while. I'm told it will be better and cheaper.

Interesting. Named the same as well. How would you know if it will be better and cheaper? (unless you are the developer ) I hope so as competition is good to push these apps forward.

Doing some research on the developer of the Flipbook app that's already out, pretty impressive. The guy who created it not only an award winning nature photographer, he's a technical director and coder at Pixar! So the guy has got some talent (he also coded the Lightbox program for Macs.)

 

[spyker3292]

Doing some research on the developer of the Flipbook app that's already out, pretty impressive. The guy who created it not only an award winning nature photographer, he's a technical director and coder at Pixar! So the guy has got some talent (he also coded the Lightbox program for Macs.)

Hmmm...... pretty impressive.

 

[wronski]

Not me. Just someone I know. ;-)

 

[spyker3292]

Not me. Just someone I know. ;-)

If this... person... has any other info I'd like to know ASAP. Before I just end up buying this . Will it have layering and ghosting effects? What's the price? When could it be out? And what makes it better? Care to share a screen?

I doubt he will answer many, if any, of these questions. But I might as well try .

PM me if you want...

 

[wronski]

Sorry, I really shouldn't say more than the better and cheaper bit. If it's any consolation there's a high resolution icon on this page: http://olliewagner.com/

 

[joshanon]

Hi there,
I'm the developer of FlipBook (the one you can buy). First off, let me say that it's always great to get feedback for what people want, and I certainly have a to-do list already of things to make FlipBook even better. However, I've already seen some really amazing things come out of people's fingertips on flipbook.tv.

Next, let me take a minute and comment about the price. FlipBook is one of the most sophisticated content-creation tools for the iPhone. It's not a port from another platform--it's built from the ground up to make it easy to create great movies with your fingertips. People who animate for a living contributed to its development. Some of its features are even patent-pending. You can also use it to draw on top of photos or make stop-motion movies.

It isn't easy to write a sophisticated app designed for a computer that fits in your hand. Not to mention that the price of the app supports hosting our community site, flipbook.tv, where you can upload and share your movies. I'm guessing that if you are someone saying this software isn't worth $10, you have never tried it, and you have no idea why someone would want onion skinning or layered drawing. And if you have tried it and feel that way, please use the feedback forum at flipbook.tv to describe why.

Furthermore, look at the other drawing tools on the app store. Sketches was originally priced around $7 (they've lowered the price after being in the top paid apps list for the past couple of weeks). FlipBook's drawing tools are more sophisticated--it's the only app with layer-based drawing--and we go one step further by letting you animate. Plus we host your movies on flipbook.tv. There is far more in FlipBook for just a few dollars more. That's less than a gallon of gas.

If you want to purchase the Arnold Schwarzenegger Total Body Workout music album from iTunes, you'll pay $10.89 and get bored after one listen. If you decide to buy dinner at Chipotle, a burrito, chips, and drink will cost you over $10 and last maybe 20 minutes. If you go see a movie, it'll cost you over $10, and you'll get bombarded with ads before the movie starts. And how much did you pay for coffee at Starbucks this morning?

I know that a lot of the low-cost utility apps have created the expectation of a very low price point for iPhone apps. But if people are willing to pay $2.99 to show a picture of a glass of beer on your screen, I find it astonishing that people object to $9.99 for a powerful content-creation application.

Best,
Josh

 

[TimothyB]

Well, I just bought it.

I know I'll have fun with it. Back in Junior High, 1994-1995, I had a digital pocket assistant. Qwerty keyboard and opened up to a really wide screen that only showed 10 lines of text. But, this gadget could flip fast through notes, like a flipbook, and when bored, I created animations using text characters, and no copy functions for each page.

 

[olliewagner]

Hi, developer of Flipbook here (the other one).

I'm really glad to see an interest in the type of app so far, and was amazed to see that someone else was coming out with one at the same time. Our version has been submitted, and should be out as soon as tomorrow (whenever the iTunes team approves it).

Our version, named "Flipbook Touch", focuses on simplicity in creating flipbooks, and lets you do so with ease. We use some very clever techniques to keep our animations smooth as butter (it was quite a challenge with the limited memory available on the iPhone).

We strongly believe that simplicity will be key for this type of app, as it is on the iPhone, and you'll want to get satisfying results very quickly. Flipbook Touch will show you an underlay of the previous frame ("onion skinning") so it is easy to create the next one, and our colors "build up" so you can shade your objects without having to fuss with color selection. Playback can be done in a single run or loop mode (double touch "play" to loop), and we have an innovative slider control for scrubbing through frames.

Other features include undo and erasing abilities (just shake like an etch-a-sketch!). We can't wait to hear what you all think!

Flipbook will be available shortly for $4.99

 

[TimothyB]

Some quick thoughts for future additions to the first Flipbook app:

1: Fill Bucket tool. I noticed double tapping the brush icon fills, but only the entire screen. Maybe while drawing, double tap will fill?

2: Option to hide layers like in photoshop. But, since you can rearrange the layers, a work around is to drag one you don't need to the bottom under other layers.

3: Transparent layers controls. Could be useful for certain effects like clouds, water, smoke, glows.

4: Would be nice if you can reorder the frames. Say you change the entire scene for a while, but then want to go back to a scene from before. You could try to copy and paste each layer, great feature by the way, but it would be nice when duplicating an earlier frame to place it where you need it.

5. Rotate and scale. Already cool that you got a move layers feature. But an option to rotate and scale a shape would also be really cool for animation. Tough though, with two fingers already dedicated to zoom.

6. Maybe a burn and dodge tool, to add extra shading when you need it. Possibly with slider for hardness, size, strength, and even if the stroke will auto fade strength to simulate pressure. Seeing how this only done to painted areas, it won't create partial transparent areas.

7. Layer transparency lock. Say you created a ball, now you want to shade one side, but you have to follow the edges or you go outside the ball. It would be nice to lock the layer transparency so all new drawing only appears in areas that have been painted, like using a mask.

8. For some reason, I prefer CMYK sliders. Just seems more natural to get the color I want, and the black slider is nice to quickly adjust the shade of a color. Any change of that showing up? Or maybe brightness, hue, and saturation controls along with the RGB sliders.

I better stop there, you might be laughing your head off at these type of features for the price of $9.99 app and limitations of the iPhone. Like you are probably thinking, "yeah, all that, and why not a magic wand tool tool, motion blur, how about a complete Photoshop while I'm at it"

 

[joshanon]

Hi Timothy,
I tend not to comment on my exact plans, but some of those items are on my to-do list. I'm not laughing my head off at all, because I've tried to set the bar very high with FlipBook's initial toolset and am excited you're asking for things like a dodge and burn tool instead of what I would consider basic tools that other, less-expensive programs lack.

Ollie, it's nice to see the shot of your app, and I look forward to seeing it live. From what I can tell, here are some of the differences that make FlipBook different from your app (it actually includes the basics you mention, including a slider to scrub through frames).

* FlipBook lets you draw on the entire screen, critical because the iPhone's screen is so small.
* FlipBook has a customizable brush and eraser, because one brush or eraser doesn't fit them all.
* FlipBook has layered drawing.
* FlipBook lets you onion skin the next frame.
* FlipBook has redo in addition to undo.
* FlipBook has copy and paste.
* FlipBook has a move tool.
* FlipBook lets you load images from a camera.
* FlipBook lets you easily get an h264-encoded .mov to keep on your computer or share on flipbook.tv. The whole point of a movie-making app is to get a movie file when you're done.

To me, those extra features are worth the extra $5. Perhaps some of you feel differently.

 

[iPhone3G]

Wow, great app Josh Anon. I only hope the good customer support continues and updates are implemented to improve the app even further.

Flipbook = An exceptional app with room to easily become a revolutionary example of what the iPhone is capable of.

Looking forward to see what updates you have in store for us.

 

[spyker3292]

Installing . I actually think I might just get both. You know, compare and contrast .

 

[genshi]

I edited my post to make my point simpler (I had written a long diatribe on the market, developers under valuing their apps because of some uninformed reviews, etc.)

I just want to say, I bought Flipbook when it came out and created an account at Flipbook.tv. I'm pretty impressed with it and feel the price is more than fair. I'll probably also buy the Flipbook Touch app just to compare the two.

I just hope that developers don't start to under-value their apps just because a few people always whine about and are always wanting everything cheaper.

 

[plumbingandtech]

I just hope that developers don't start to under-value their apps just because a few people always whine about and are always wanting everything cheaper.

Amen.

There will always be people that complain about prices. If you have a better product that has more (in your opinion.) developers, say it with the price.

 

[spyker3292]

I've had some fun with Flipbook so far. How do I actually view the flipbooks on Flipbook.tv? They are all just jpgs. Hm, works fine on my iPhone .

 

[joshanon]

Spyker, those jpgs are a QuickTime feature called poster images, and we use them so that you see a preview of the movie on your iPhone. If you click on the image, QuickTime will load and play the full movie.

 

[olliewagner]

Ollie, it's nice to see the shot of your app, and I look forward to seeing it live. From what I can tell, here are some of the differences that make FlipBook different from your app (it actually includes the basics you mention, including a slider to scrub through frames).

* FlipBook lets you draw on the entire screen, critical because the iPhone's screen is so small.
* FlipBook has a customizable brush and eraser, because one brush or eraser doesn't fit them all.
* FlipBook has layered drawing.
* FlipBook lets you onion skin the next frame.
* FlipBook has redo in addition to undo.
* FlipBook has copy and paste.
* FlipBook has a move tool.
* FlipBook lets you load images from a camera.
* FlipBook lets you easily get an h264-encoded .mov to keep on your computer or share on flipbook.tv. The whole point of a movie-making app is to get a movie file when you're done.

Hey Josh – First off I just want to say I love to see the creativity and effort you put into your app.

And that said, I'd also like to point out the unique qualities of my Flipbook.

* Flipbook Touch has very smooth playback. It's been buttery smooth even at monumental frame counts (we've gotten up to 650-something so far)

* We do not include things such as stop motion from the camera, moving, layering, etc... by design. Because we wanted to make something that was for the iPhone, it was therefore intentional that Flipbook Touch would not be a full featured animation program. It just lets you have fun and make smooth flipbooks quickly as you would on a pad of sticky notes.

And you're right about things like brush size and exporting. While we couldn't make these in for our 1.0 deadline, these are things we have been working on for a while. And also, this is just 1.0. Without adding bloat, we will also be integrating more unique niceties that make creating animations even more fun.