Hi there..
I have been animating with two d softwares for awhile now.. and, working in commercials, it is very rare that after effects or some sort of comping software is not used to" maketheprettydrawingslookbetter!)
So..
I've just heard of a software called MIRAGE..
it is supposed to be a good two d paint animation software .. allthough not it's number one feature, since it is sold as a video editing software..
Has anyone tried it ??
What do you guys think of it?
P.
well, not talking about mirage, which looks ok in the screenhots, but usually, doing 2d animation with a mouse on the computer really irritates :)
unless you use a pen which is really cool :)
but as far as i see it, i can do the same stuff with any other 2d software with photoshop.
Visit my site http://www.animdesk.com
Hello Pascal
I'm a freelance 2D animator and my main working tool is.....
Mirage!
for me its simply the best program for paperless 2D animation
because its bitmap based (as apposed to vector based)
the drawing tools have a very natural(not digital) look
this allows me to keep my drawings loose, which fits with my animation style
it offers good animation tools:excellent lightable, instant realtime playback.
in combination with tons of filters and keyframable effects
you can have unlimited ammount of layers, in and export video.
this also makes it higly suitable for rotoscoping.
and also very important, Mirage offers very good and fast support through their site and forums
on their site you can find examples of 2d animators that also use mirage as their main tool:http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/user_pfierlinger.php
greetings
Peter
Peter Wassink - Digital 2D Animator
Hey , Peter!
great to hear!!
I've been using Flash for all of my animatics.. then, it usually goe soff from there, since theflash output isn't the greates in the world when it comes to putting it on tv( i'm not talking about the cleaned up symbol animation stuff, but the hand drawn one!!!)
I have been looking for a decent quality for rendering , and, from what i have heard .. Mirage looks very good!!!
Thanks Peter..
I'll give it a try.
DO you have any samples of your work on line by any chance??
and.. do you know if there's a way in mirage to import flash lines and turn them into pencil like textures??
P.
Yes i worked with flash too, it never worked for me
i became so frustrated with the total lack of intuitiveness
and the way it tends to always change your line after you make it, drove me nuts.
so i can't really answer your question on importing flash lines into Mirage,
i'm pretty sure you cannot import vector images as such
but just ask this on the Mirage/Bauhaussoftware forum, someone will know.
here is some of my stuff http://www.geocities.com/komodovar
(its an old site, working on a new one with some clips on it!)
Peter Wassink - Digital 2D Animator
HEY PETER!!!
i just took a look at your site
It is very nice.
I like your style .. a lot!
wow..
now.. let me ask you this..
what did you do that required you to use mirage in that??
and .. do you find it very intuitive??
P.
>>what did you do that required you to use mirage in that??
well off course looking at the stills, these could just as well be done in other software like photoshop or Painter, but what i required mirage for is the timeline.
because it can do what these other package do but in addition it has a timeline that makes it very easy and intuitive to animate.
and this leads me to your next question:
>>and .. do you find it very intuitive??
i do.
but this offcourse is a biassed opinion...it has become somewhat hard for me to judge, i'll explain.
Mirage somewhere halfway in the nineties (ancient history in software land) started out as paint programme on the Amiga and was called Tvpaint
(at that time i worked mainly with Dpaint on the Amiga) then Tvpaint went to pc and was renamed Aura, Aura became the long awaited succesor to dPaint on the PC and was effectively the first usefull paperless animation tool available on the PC.
(most of the stuff on my site was actually done in Aura, some even in Dpaint)
a couple of years ago Aura changed hands and was renamed Mirage.
all this time the basic of the programme hasn't changed, and this basic is what makes it so good to do animation in.
for me Aura was intuitive because it was a lot like dpaint and off course Mirage is intuitive to me because its basicly the same as Aura.
so how intuitive it would be for you is hard to say, i can safely say its more intuitive than Flash.
but off course you'll have to learn it, but all the basics you can learn in a couple of days and if you start with the excellent tutorials to be downloaded on the bauhaussite it'll go even quicker.
Mirage added a lot of extra filters and functions compared to Aura. to know and understand all of them will take you much longer but they are not essential in creating animations (i mean things like: particle effects, wrapping grid, volumetric light, pixeltracking, rotosplines, image stabilisation...etc. all really cool stuff but not esssential, so you can start by neglecting those ;) )
hope it helps
greetings peter
Peter Wassink - Digital 2D Animator
quick question-does Mirage offer any audio tools for lip sync, etc? Can one make a complete audio/visual production using Mirage with pre-recorded sounds?
there is a sound layer in the layer panel
this layer is 'scrubable' so you can spot sound in mirage for lipsync purposes
since mirage also plays back instant you can immediately check if the sound is sync with your animation.
animations can be exported with sound (for instance as avi's or Quicktimes)
there is no automatic lipsync module implemented (not yet anyway)
Peter Wassink - Digital 2D Animator
hey, peter..
thanks for all the feedback
really sweet
p.