Dongle Nubbins Everywhere (Flatting, Procreate Dreams)

Last night I fell asleep at 7:30 while putting Kiddo to bed, then slept straight through until 7:00 the next morning. That's my little snapshot of this week.

Flatting continues! While I was working on Monday and Tuesday, I recorded some snippets of the process and turned it into this video that I posted to Instagram.

[ Ahhh, apologies for posting a screenshot with a "play" arrow in it. Deceptive! ]

I would love to share it anywhere else, but Instagram lets you set your videos to copyrighted music, and I like doing that. I hope you can watch it without needing to log in. If I tried posting the same thing to YouTube, I don't know what happens these days, but it used to be bad. Same for uploading the video straight to Patreon — I do not know how aggressive or accurate their copyright detection systems are.

This was a good excuse to finally — finally! — try "Procreate Dreams," an animation app from the people who brought you the drawing app Procreate, released in November of last year. I bought it on day one and, despite my excitement, had not tried it… until this week!

Procreate Dreams figures in the video above in those little "pops" when areas fill with colour. That's not an effect that actually happens every time you fill a shape in Photoshop, much to my disappointment.

You probably don't need my review of Procreate Dreams, but I was so smitten by the idea of "the guys from Procreate make an animation app" that I immediately jumped on the bandwagon, maybe hyped it up to myself and others, and now feel obliged to weigh in.

My feelings are similar to those I've heard from others with professional animation experience. It falls short from a traditional animation perspective in that controlling the timing of each frame is cumbersome, as is "flipping." It falls short from a digital animation perspective in that I can't, say, set a series of frames to loop (so it's difficult to make "boiling lines"). It even falls short from a Procreate perspective, in that it only has a subset of Procreate's decent drawing tools.

On the other hand — and this is the other reason I wanted to mention it — it does feel lovely. I think they get something just right about the interface and the way they ask you to manipulate the elements of an animation timeline. (This is not to say it's always smooth or easy; keyframes are a pain in the ass, especially adjusting the easing.) Or maybe it's the way that it doesn't feel like digital animation, and it doesn't feel like traditional animation, it's its own weird thing on the side, something borne from the strange limitations you get when you're trying to do something super technical in an approachable way with limited hardware resources. I'm not sure.

It's no Flash CS3*, but I look forward to watching it evolve. I have been reliably informed that Procreate asked for feedback from professional studios and boy did they ever receive it.

In fairness, right now the only animation-making apps I have at hand are Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Dreams. Of the three of them, if I have to animate anything, I'm for sure using Dreams.

And if you're someone who wants to add a little zip to a video, or who wants to experiment with animation, Dreams might offer wonderful opportunities. Though… you might end up scratching your head, feeling like there's something you should be able to do but can't, or that "this should be easier." Maybe the problem is me asking for too much, but in my short time trying it, I found enough of those little blind spots that I worry it might be discouraging. That's a shame, because making animation — even though it is tons of work — can be an absolute joy. It's my favourite type of magic, the kind that can even astonish the magician.

* I will defend Flash (i.e., Macromedia Flash, then Adobe Flash — the exact same app that cluttered your web browser powered Homestar Runner and was used to make any number of animated series, e.g. My Little Pony) to the moon and back. It was not especially reliable, but it worked in very flexible ways and offered lean but useful options, and maybe this feeling is genuine or maybe it's Stockholm syndrome, but I came to love using it.

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In other news, I bought a video capture device. It was on sale! And it turns out I do have another computer I can use as a streaming PC. I'll be running tests next week.

Unfortunately, setting it all up makes my desk look like the inside of the trash compactor in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Black noodles of cabling and dongle nubbins everywhere. Will my desire to start streaming outweigh my distaste for all the clutter? WE SHALL SEE.

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Until next week,
I remain,
its own weird thing on the side,

TC