[HN Gopher] Expressive Animator: free software vector animation ...
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       Expressive Animator: free software vector animation and motion
       graphics editor
        
       Author : brylie
       Score  : 83 points
       Date   : 2021-07-10 10:09 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.expressivesuite.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.expressivesuite.com)
        
       | dylan604 wrote:
       | >Supported browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge
       | 
       | You forget the best viewed at 800x600 badge!
       | 
       | Seriously though, why is this even necessary? What are you doing
       | that can't be done in FF or Safari?
        
         | p_j_w wrote:
         | >What are you doing that can't be done in FF or Safari?
         | 
         | It actually works in FF, so maybe testing to make sure it
         | works? If their Github account is accurate, this is done by a 3
         | person team, so resources for that sort of thing are probably
         | not abundant.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | How about Dev A = Chromium, Dev B = FF, Dev C = Safari?
        
             | Zababa wrote:
             | Are you going to pay them money for the FF and Safari
             | version? Or maybe contribute some code?
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | I'm contributing by offering suggestions on how to
               | maximize the use of their time. I'm not even asking for a
               | consultant's fee.
        
               | Zababa wrote:
               | That's not maximizing the use of their time. Why spend
               | time supporting platforms to please someone complaining
               | on HN that will never use and never contribute to their
               | project?
        
               | hutzlibu wrote:
               | "Seriously though, why is this even necessary? What are
               | you doing that can't be done in FF or Safari?"
               | 
               | Do you really think this is a helpful suggestion?
               | 
               | You are simply suggesting more work for the dev. That is
               | not really helpful.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | So what don't you simply answer the question of what's
               | being done that they feel the need to call out Chromium
               | based browsers?
        
               | hutzlibu wrote:
               | Like the other poster said: testing.
               | 
               | The browsers still do not provide a consistent behavior.
               | 
               | When your goal is to ship main features as soon as
               | possible, you cannot give priority to a niche browser.
        
               | brylie wrote:
               | Another commenter pointed out that Firefox doesn't yet
               | offer PWA support.
        
       | adamnemecek wrote:
       | What's crazy is that they seem to be using a js (wasm) port of
       | skia.
       | 
       | https://github.com/ExpressiveSuite/SkiaJS
       | 
       | edit: upon closer inspection it seems to be a wrapper, not a
       | port.
        
         | stoicjumbotron wrote:
         | Woah! On a side note, William Candillon, one of the developers
         | (creators?) of reanimated[0], animation library for React
         | Native replied to the first comment in one of his YouTube
         | videos[1] that the team is looking into integrating Skia into
         | React Native for better performance.
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.reanimated2.com/
         | 
         | [1]: https://youtu.be/RHlGPIEThdo
        
       | rchaud wrote:
       | Hard to understand what this offers. The linked web page barely
       | says anything. The roadmap links to a Github page that is even
       | less clear.
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | My immediate question as a cranky ex-animator who occasionally
       | thinks of trying to get back into it:
       | 
       | Can I draw stuff directly in this, or is this just an After
       | Effects to your as-yet-unreleased Canvas's Illustrator?
       | 
       | And by "draw" I don't mean "hassle with the pen tool and basic
       | shape tools that I see down the edge of the toolbar in your
       | screenshot", I mean "quickly draw lines with some kind of
       | pencil/brush, and do some kind of simulation of frame-by-frame
       | animation".
       | 
       | The screenshots just look like After Effects, and, well, that's
       | just one visit to the Creative Cloud app away for me.
        
         | hutzlibu wrote:
         | To me it seems, it aims to be something like Adobe Animate
         | (formerly Flash), which is really something we need OpenSource.
         | 
         | But there would be lot's and lot's of work to be done, to
         | really compete with it(I cannot find any drawing tools as of
         | now). But it looks good so far, I think.
        
       | bogwog wrote:
       | Seems pretty solid, but very barebones. There doesn't even seem
       | to be a way to change the interpolation curves between keyframes
       | (unless I missed it?)
       | 
       | The open source world needs more tools like this, so keep it up!
       | I'll certainly be watching this.
       | 
       |  _EDIT_ I just saw this:
       | 
       | > Supported browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge
       | 
       | That's not good. I tried the preview in Firefox and it seemed to
       | work fine. You do you, but if you're only targeting Chrome then
       | count me as one potential user/customer lost.
        
         | lights0123 wrote:
         | That's directly under
         | 
         | > Cross-platform, online and offline
         | 
         | > Work directly online in the browser or install the PWA
         | (progressive web application) and enjoy a fully offline
         | experience.
         | 
         | Chrome and Edge support PWAs, while Firefox does not.
         | 
         | Of course, I could be interpreting this wrong, as saving and
         | loading does not work in Firefox.
        
       | Reubend wrote:
       | Looks really nice. I think you've done a good job with the
       | landing page. The app itself is pretty barebones right now and
       | doesn't seem to support importing images or exporting video
       | (correct me if I'm wrong)?
       | 
       | I'm curious how you plan to handle rendering the animations to a
       | video. I think that will be a really challenging part to do in-
       | browser, but maybe there are some libraries for this that I'm
       | unaware of.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | Someone has already compiled ffmpeg into wasm, so there's that
         | as an option. As slow as that might be, but it could be done.
        
         | detritus wrote:
         | I'm afraid that I disagree with your appreciation of the
         | landing page. It seems, from first blush, that I can't get an
         | immediate sense of what it does and how it does so, exactly. A
         | link to some video description or example would be handy.
         | 
         | I can't even find something on YouTube?
         | 
         | Do I have to install and see? If so, that seems like a wee bit
         | of a high bar.
        
           | bonestamp2 wrote:
           | Agreed. As soon as I knew it was an animation tool, my next
           | question was: which formats can it output? That would tell me
           | a lot about what I can use it for and infer some things about
           | what it does. That is not answered on the landing page.
           | 
           | Even after using the app, I can't figure out how to
           | save/export to any format other than their own (eaf). Maybe
           | that's why they don't mention it on the landing page. I have
           | high hopes, but it needs more work before it'll be useful to
           | the masses.
        
         | devwastaken wrote:
         | One way would be to connect the browser version to a desktop
         | version, so you can save your project and open it in desktop
         | which can access video encoding.
        
         | johndough wrote:
         | Two options to record canvas to video file:
         | 
         | 1. MediaRecorder (requires browser support)
         | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MediaStream...
         | 
         | 2. ffmpeg.wasm https://github.com/ffmpegwasm/ffmpeg.wasm/
        
       | cycomanic wrote:
       | Can this animate and export svgs? I have been looking for
       | something that can do that for a while but didn't really find a
       | satisfying solution so ended up manually editing the svgs (which
       | is quite laborious).
        
       | brudgers wrote:
       | Repository, https://github.com/ExpressiveSuite/ExpressiveAnimator
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-11 23:00 UTC)