Therefore I decided to introduce not only raster layers, but vector layers as well. They are quite well suited to render the traditional animation style: contours filled with some colours – inherited from the “cell(uloid)” style. Vector graphics can be rendered at any resolution, can easily be deformed and resized, colours can be readjusted, etc. On the other hand, I also convinced myself that vector graphics rather than raster (bitmap) graphics were useful for making animated drawings. This definitely called for the possibility of superimposing layers. On the one hand, the basics of traditional animation is to sketch pencil tests, and then draw clean images on top of those sketches.Īnother fundamental of traditional animation is to be able to organise separate elements (background, character, or parts of it) into different superimposed layers. Pleased with the result, I went on with more ambitious goals. This became v0.3 of Pencil, released in October 2006. I got in touch with Patrick, and started implementing those functions, along with cleaning the original code. Obviously what was needed was more drawing tools to fill shapes with colours, and some selection tools to move things around. When I became aware of this programme, I realised that it could be evolved into an application for making traditional animations rather than just pencil tests.
PENCIL 2D PLUGINS MAC
The Mac version could output QuickTime files.
PENCIL 2D PLUGINS WINDOWS
It was developed under Qt 3 and made available on Macintosh and then Windows platforms under GPL license. The animation could be played at a specified frame rate, and in addition it was possible to add a background image and a background sound. The drawing tools were a pencil and an eraser, along with a colour chooser. It included a drawing area, a single-track timeline where keyframes could be added, previous and next onion skins. It was a simple yet effective pencil test (a.k.a. Pencil was originally an application created by Patrick Corrieri by the end of 2005 under the name “Pencil Planner”. It is currently based on my original vision and discussions with Oluseyi Sonaiya and Ian Moore. I will revise it as it becomes necessary during the evolution of the project and following discussions with contributors and users of Pencil.
It is designed to serve as a reference and guideline for contributors of the Pencil project.
Abstract: The document is an attempt at defining the concept behind the Pencil project.