Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

[Mathias]

I am salivating uncontrollably. In case you needed to know.

Look at this.

http://www.cacani.sg/

http://cacani.org/

https://www.youtube.com/user/cagntu/videos


Now brace for disappointment: as far as I can tell, the software in question isn't yet publicly available, despite its ~5 years in development.
I'd pay a high price for such a tool.

I'm trying to find out if there's a realistic ETA or not.

Just something to be aware of.



04.28.14 EDIT*

Received a response to my questions about an ETA and price. I'll share it here:

Thanks for the inquiry in CACANI. We do not have a specific time for release, but we will be updating our facebook page on any new announcements.

We can not comment on pricing at this time, but we are looking at the possibility of different price ranges.

Keep on checking our pages for any new updates.

Thank you for the interest,

Jose Velasco
CACANI Chief Operating officer

Their Facebook page is apparently their chief means of updating the public at large:
https://www.facebook.com/CACAniAnimation
CACANI Facebook vidz

[32]

Can't exactly tell to what extent this is automated but I can't imagine it's any more advanced than Toon Boom Harmony which can do automatic in-between and pretty complex rigging. Takes some setting up but the results can be pretty phenomenal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zffikdymFRE
This is 5 unique keyframes, one day of rigging and 20 minutes of animating if I recall.

[rikfuzz]

As far as I understood there is no rigging involved (although I presume some hinting), but I could be wrong. 

[32]

Well maybe rigging isn't exactly the correct term but I imagine the pieces are individually layered and told where they need to go. Maybe I'm wrong and it's smarter than I think though.

Edit: should probably clarify that the video I linked requires some pretty in depth prep work but something to the standard of what I'm seeing in these Cacani videos would be something you could easily do off the cuff in a few minutes in Harmony.

[rikfuzz]

I think the whole point is that it doesn't have all the technical set-up / prep work. Admittedly there's not much information about it yet, but no reason to suggest it can't have any benefits over Toon Boom.

[32]

Yeah of course not, but Toon Boom is out there ready to play with right now

I would be really surprised if they've found a way to make it any easier though, it really is a matter of drawing your two keyframes and couple of button clicks later you can have it inbetweened with ease and all that fun stuff. Morphing to have the program draw unique inbetweens rather than just moving them is a bit more hands on if you want really accurate results but it does a half decent job on its own. Really hard to say how the workflow with Cacani compares but the result looks more or less the same. Obviously something to keep an eye on but if anyone is looking to give this type of animation a go there's software out there already that can do it fairly easily, if not as easily as Cacani might.

[CACANI Team]

Hello 32,

Harmony currently can not match the in-betweening abilities of CACANI. Like it was mentioned, CACANI  doesn't require any type of rigging. You can work by using multiply layers within a "Cel" or can just not used them and draw everything in a single Cel or layer. Is a matter of taste, but most traditional artist will try work on single layer or very limited amount. No rigging what so ever is needed, minimizing the technical for artist. Tweening results are different than in-betweening, although they can look similar.

The software is not for sale due to production trials. We are making sure CACANI is production ready, before it moves for commercial use. Harmony could work together with CACANI since Harmony does not posses the strengths CACANI focuses on, (no need to replace one software with another). And the same can be said about CACANI not having Harmony's strengths such as node composting, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics, effects, etc...

There is no other software in the market that can currently match CACANI base on the strengths it focuses on. Most 2D software do not focus on traditional toolsets anymore (they make some additions but very little), but they focus more on puppet style (Flash style) tools. This have made them stagnant on their offering when dealing some professional studios. Precisely because of this CACANI is getting more attention.

Now that said, Toonz, Toon Boom, TV Paint, Anime Studio and others are fantastic tools if they can offer what the artist is looking for for their projects.

[32]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to this  . It would be great if you have any videos or reading material to give us an idea of what the process of working with the software is like. Is the aim to be able to hand draw two unique frames and the software can in-between those? That would be something wholly unique to the workflow of Harmony or really any animation software I'm aware of.

I love the idea of a more hand drawn tool set with the in-betweening ability of puppet style animation but I have a hard time imagining such a program haha.

Thanks again 

[Manupix]

Hello 32,

Since you guys are checking this thread, I might as well warn you than your brand name sounds rather ridiculous in French. Thought you might want to know XD

[CACANI Team]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to this  . It would be great if you have any videos or reading material to give us an idea of what the process of working with the software is like. Is the aim to be able to hand draw two unique frames and the software can in-between those? That would be something wholly unique to the workflow of Harmony or really any animation software I'm aware of.

I love the idea of a more hand drawn tool set with the in-betweening ability of puppet style animation but I have a hard time imagining such a program haha.

Thanks again 

We can not show much since we are not releasing the software yet. Once we are preparing for a release date, there will be proper documentation.

The short answer to your workflow scenario is, yes, you need to draw the Keys within the software. Then freely create as many in-between as needed.

The potential release of the software commercially is nearing