AuthorTopic: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation  (Read 13304 times)

Offline 32

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #10 on: June 24, 2014, 08:37:27 am
I'm sure you probably answered my question but the claim is pretty spectacular if I understand correctly. In my usage scenario I could as a person having no familiarity go into the software and hand draw say two key poses of the same character and the software would in-between these? By hand draw I mean as you would with traditional pencil and paper animation.

Keep us posted on release, you've got me interested.

Offline CACANI Team

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #11 on: June 24, 2014, 09:21:35 pm
The software, does have limitations also. There is always limitations to how much the software can in-between 2 images.

Characters that topology change too much will require some planning adjustments. The aspect that animators have to keep in mind is when there is "occlusion". This means when one body shape covers another. Occlusion is interesting because the software does not have a brain to determine missing data, so the user will need to think before moving into in-betweenig.
We have  ways to by pass this of course, but this was to give you some perspective.

CACANI is not a magical software, we simply figure ways to make a process that wasn't tackled by others software possible. But there is always limitations mind you.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2014, 11:51:37 am by CACANI Team »

Offline 32

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #12 on: June 25, 2014, 10:30:07 am
Thank you for the extra detail, that's exactly what I was wondering :). Will be interesting to see where those boundaries are, I didn't really expect an entire character would be possible cause that certainly does sound magical but even relatively simple hand drawn shapes can confuse other software (Harmony included) so any substantial advance in that department would be a truly disruptive innovation.

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #13 on: June 25, 2014, 11:53:54 am
Thank you for the extra detail, that's exactly what I was wondering :). Will be interesting to see where those boundaries are, I didn't really expect an entire character would be possible cause that certainly does sound magical but even relatively simple hand drawn shapes can confuse other software (Harmony included) so any substantial advance in that department would be a truly disruptive innovation.

CACANI can do full characters, simply that the user has to know the caveats.

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #14 on: June 25, 2014, 12:35:07 pm
Interesting, do you have an example of the kind of complexity of design it could handle, assuming you knew the caveats? Is the user actually required to do anything extra in program to address these or is it more of a matter of understanding in what way to draw things?

At this point it's probably worth just waiting till you guys are ready to show off the program in more detail so I'll stop asking questions :-X. I didn't think you were claiming the software was capable of these things initially because your website/ youtube channel didn't say anything specific to that effect so I had assumed the style of animation you wanted to facilitate was far different (as that's what it looked like to me in the videos and also I thought this kind of technology was still well out of reach). In any case I hope I continue to be proven wrong cause this might be something worth getting as excited about as Mathias was.

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #15 on: June 25, 2014, 07:07:47 pm
Interesting, do you have an example of the kind of complexity of design it could handle, assuming you knew the caveats? Is the user actually required to do anything extra in program to address these or is it more of a matter of understanding in what way to draw things?

At this point it's probably worth just waiting till you guys are ready to show off the program in more detail so I'll stop asking questions :-X. I didn't think you were claiming the software was capable of these things initially because your website/ youtube channel didn't say anything specific to that effect so I had assumed the style of animation you wanted to facilitate was far different (as that's what it looked like to me in the videos and also I thought this kind of technology was still well out of reach). In any case I hope I continue to be proven wrong cause this might be something worth getting as excited about as Mathias was.

I can not elaborate further. A consumer or beta should come soon enough.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2014, 01:35:13 am by CACANI Team »

Offline Mathias

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #16 on: October 24, 2014, 02:44:24 pm
I have a very encouraging update on the CACANI situation!

A private, non-public beta testing program has begun. Certain individuals are being invited to participate.
This means the software is very far along and stable.

Stay tuned.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2014, 06:06:50 pm by Mathias »

Offline Conzeit

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #17 on: October 30, 2014, 01:45:34 pm
I think you should convince them that we should be among those certain indiviiduals  >:(  :crazy:

This sounds very good, I might do my next personal animation project in cacani if it's as good as it sounds

Offline Rosse

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Re: Cacani - Computer Assisted Cel Animation

Reply #18 on: December 07, 2014, 12:01:14 pm
CACANi is out since a few days. Currently windows only. I think I read somewhere, that there will be an OSX Version later on, but I can't find the information again. Maybe @CACANI Team can say more about it?

Website: https://cacani.sg
There are also a lot of Workflow Videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/cagntu/videos

There's a short promo which lasts until Dec. 8th ($167 instead of $239 for a perpetual license).

It looks quite powerful, but requires some thinking/planning with more complex animations. I'm not sure how to handle situations which requires lot of geometry changes / new lines each frame. But with experience such situations can be automated as well, maybe just need more keydrawings.

@CACANI Team:
- In the perpetual license, will I have access to future updates for free?
- Will there be an OSX Version in the future?
- I saw you used Microsoft Surface Devices since the early days. How do Surface Pro 2 and Pro 3 compare to each other (especially Wacom vs. N-Trig in terms of palm rejection)? Can you recommend the Pro 3 for CACANi?

[edit]
@CACANI Team: Have you seen the ETHZ/Disney Research paper for "automation of thight inbetweens"? They use algorithms to determine which lines correspond to each other in different frames and have ways to manually re-connenect them when the algorithm fails:
https://graphics.ethz.ch/publications/papers/paperWhi10.php
https://graphics.ethz.ch/Downloads/Publications/PaperVideos/2010/Whi10%20-%20Eurographics2010%20-%20BetweenIT.mov
https://graphics.ethz.ch/disclaimer.php?dlurl=/Downloads/Publications/Papers/2010/Whi10/Whi10.pdf
« Last Edit: December 07, 2014, 12:09:44 pm by Rosse »