Drawplus and Flash Piplines  for some of us are still too complicated .
I am not afraid of hard work but to make custom characters in CTA2 is way too complicated and time consuming especially if I use imported motions from iclone that requires the different angles.
The RL Team's super talented so I'm sure you can come up with a plugin or something for your loyal custmers.
I know there is a Flash plugin but if you don't have Flash it doesn't help us.
Please don't make us wait for CTA3,the joy of CTA2 was replaced with frustration. 











| Windows 11 64bit / iClone7 Pro / Headshot Plug-in / Character Creator v4 / Perception Neuron Profile for Motion LIVE 2D Plug-in/ CrazyTalk 8 Pipline / FaceFilter v3 PRO / Cartoon Animator 5 Pipeline/Serif DrawPlus X8 / 3DXchange 6 Pro / WidgetCast PRO / DP Animation Maker / PopVideo 3

Yes, I like your idea and I have an even better one:
integrate Ibis Fernandez software "Puppet Producer" as a plugin within CTA2.

Of course, I would like to pay for this plugin, but please let it be a CTA2-pluggie.
THIS would be a really great deal.

I appreciate the vote of confidence but at the heart of the issue is the fact that CTA does not have basic ink and paint tools. If only CTA had the ability to draw and edit images directly in the software a lot of the issues people have in customizing characters would be over. You could go into character composer, select a sprite, and just edit it at will. It's a lot easier said than done though. Anime Studio has ink and paint tools, but even drawing the simplest of things is the most difficult thing in the world. You still end up having to use Illustrator or Flash for your artwork in order to get any serious work done.

At the very least, RL should open up CTA itself to developers. Put out an API and let us roll our own solutions that work directly inside of CTA. Heck it could lead to a whole new marketplace of custom tools and widgets created by the community itself. I know i would love to build my own character design feature that works directly in CTA. I actually have a great idea for one but without access to an API, there's nothing much that can be done.

This is what Macromedia did when they enabled support for plugins. My Toon Titan, and Puppet Producer plugin, as well as some of my less popular ones like my camera system for Flash, came about as a result of us creating our own tools for Flash.

The real sad thing is that if RL waits too long it might be easier for someone one to just use a similar concept of character construction and use it to build a plugin that would allow this type of animation inside of Flash itself without the need for CTA.



Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

True, the drawing tools in Anime Studio Pro are a bit different than the typical bezier approach of illustrator, but once you've gotten use to them, creating in ASP is most certainly not the most difficult thing in the world.  I find it much much easier to use than the drawing tools in Flash.

you shouldn't have to "get used" to it before it can be used effectively. These should be simple, essential tools that should just work without thinking about it.

In flash you select the pencil tool, and your draw lines with it. It does exactly what you expect should happen. Same thing with the brush tool. If you draw a circle and the you click it with the paint bucket tool enabled, it fills it with a color... it's what you expect should happen and it takes a split second.

In ASP. You have to define the line, enable it's visibility, adjust it's width in a different panel and define whether or not its connected to other lines. WTF? Can a brotha' just draw a freaking line? Let's not get started on the process involved if you want to fill a shape with a color.

(k so this has gotten easier in the last version)



Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

It's clear you haven't used it in a while because this isn't the case.  You can click options to make it behave this way, as in a legacy mode, but it's most certainly not how it works today.

Any chance you can make a video of yourself drawing something basic, like an apple or a flower pot? Something super simple.



Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

When I get home from work, I'll investigate getting a screen recorder and doing so...

I haven't used ASP for a decade or so. I used it when it was called Moho, I guess.
You can draw an apple starting with a simple Circle and flower pot with a rectangle. Just add a node  and drag. That's it.
Whatever, you do after cleaning up in flash, you do it in the very beginning in ASP. Draw with minimal line. The Bezier lines are very smooth. Assigning the line weight used to be really interesting, now I recall .
You have both Bone and vertex animations in ASP. Squash and Stretch is so easy. Animations are very organic.
With your talent you could do great stuff in ASP. I am no way commenting on CTA. I like CTA. I am not comparing.

I must say , I realy  love to draw in AS more as in Flash.

Especially , I can draw nice clean Outlines with weights and it is exportable to CTA .
In Flash I  have only a straight line,  or I need to draw with the brush tool or converted into Fill,  For my taste not so nice and clean like in AS

Maybe  it is a completely different workflow to draw as one would expect from another application , but if you know the tools it is a very nice drawing tool.
it has even a scribble mode for rought  sketching.
I'm missing nothing in AS or xara.
http://city.reallusion.com/ContentPreview.aspx?i=JCTd86b9566d711ef153&g=
for a  example,  all that stuff in this pack is completly draw with AS .

Also I prefer xara , but it can not export line with weights.

Flash is only a means for the nice Puppetproducer tool for me.


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