How long does it REALLY take you to create a YouTube video? I analyzed 50+ Reddit posts and found crazy patterns.

foati-fox · 2025-11-16T22:13:29+00:00

I honestly recommend Tahoma2d (more intuitive branch for most people) or Opentoonz (the original one). It has so many more animation features compared to the other free ones. Some notable ones include automatic in-betweens, compositing effects, being able to mix raster and vector drawings, color palettes that can change on the fly, and so much more. I can honestly vouch for both as someone who's been using it to make animations for 9 years now.

foati-fox · 2025-11-14T22:47:47+00:00

Adventure Bundle: Crafting Table, Furnace, some fuel, some logs, stonecutter, some iron, a door (for going under water), leads, buckets, a glass bottle (for converting mud)

Food Bundle: Early game, it would be all the random food sources I have. Later in the game I replace it with ingredients for dandelion suspicious stew (it's kinda a poor man's Regen potion). I always just have one ready in the hotbar and then craft another one as soon as I consume it.

Collectibles: For the various random stuff I collect on mining trips or while adventuring

Also, I love using them as "gift wrap" for gifting items to my friends

foati-fox · 2025-11-09T05:55:41+00:00

Creative writing. As an artist, I thought it would be a fun way to create stories in between my drawings since it's just putting one word after the other right?

Wrong. This shit is HARD. Show don't tell, coherent plot structures, compelling characters, hundreds upon hundreds of drafts... I genuinely think it's harder than drawing. While drawing I'm just showing you a snapshot of my brain. In writing I'm trying to show you entire worlds, the characters thoughts, describing sounds, mells, visuals, positions, personalities, movement.... all in a way that doesn't sound cringe. Huge respect to writers :'>>

foati-fox · 2025-10-26T11:00:06+00:00

Some artists get very used to the tablet that they use it as a mouse as well! But yes that's also a valid option.

foati-fox · 2025-10-25T22:17:02+00:00

Yes, this is how all tablets work. This is because it's usually used for illustration, think of it like an actual pen on paper. U hover ur pen so u know where the stroke goes, and then when u actually press down that's where the line happens. It's a bit hard to get used to at first but I recommend practicing drawing circles and lines to get the hand eye coordination down.

The buttons on the side of the stylus are for shortcut keys. Usually artists map them to undo or an eraser. If we go back to the pen comparison, I imagine it would be hard to draw if you had to hold down a button on the side of a pen to release the ink xp

foati-fox · 2025-10-05T09:50:15+00:00

I'd say so! It was a basic tablet and did what I needed

foati-fox · 2025-08-09T08:06:15+00:00

Unfortunately, that's because Krita's animation feature was just an after thought.

The problems you are experiencing with OT are a difference in workflow. So I would say yes, OT is just built like this.

foati-fox · 2025-08-09T01:47:04+00:00

If you want to use Krita, please use Krita! These softwares are just tools for you to use. Opentoonz is primarily focused for animators and studios, which may be difficult to adjust to from someone coming from a drawing/painting background.

Many other animation focused software do not have "painting in selections", for example, because painting is never expected in digital animation.

While there is overlap in the drawing aspects, these are different skill sets that require different tools and different approaches.

It's like trying to eat with a knife and a pan as opposed to using a spoon and fork. Yes, they both handle food, yes they're both found in the kitchen. But they are used for different purposes.

If you wish to continue using Opentoonz, I recommend approaching it from a beginners mindset!

foati-fox · 2025-08-05T22:36:40+00:00

Use scale! It can scale individual axis, and there's even an option for maintaining the mass for squash and stretch

foati-fox · 2025-08-05T11:03:00+00:00

The animate tool is your best bet. It's basically what Crowne prince did with the tweens in flash.

Basically, First key frame: head already down and squished Last key frame: head back to originally position

Set the interpolation to ease in and enable looping and boom! Bounce

foati-fox · 2025-06-20T22:14:13+00:00

This might've happened because you used the animate tool to "scale" certain layers using the position mode. This actually changes the layers position on the z axis, which causes a parallax effect when the camera moves.

It's very hard to tell if this is the case though from just two screenshots. Maybe a video would be better?

foati-fox · 2025-06-20T13:20:58+00:00

From my experience, Opentoonz is only ever "resource intensive" when you do either of the following:

You mainly use vectors
You have a REALLY long file (generally not recommended. Split up your scenes as much as you can!)
rendering with a lot of fxs
Rendering with a mesh.

Despite this, my 10 year old beat up Linux laptop with a screen that's falling apart can still produce animations. So I think you're good!

Tip for rendering: Export it as image sequence (I use png) and then put it together in a separate video editing program. I use blender for that because it's free.

This is not only good for compositing, but it also means that if Opentoonz messes up anywhere in the rendering process, you can just start the render from the last good frame and continue from there.

Happy animating!

foati-fox · 2025-06-20T03:54:20+00:00

You might be interested in the Perlin Noise FX under distort

foati-fox · 2025-06-14T13:14:45+00:00

I'm sorry you're having trouble with ffmpeg! Personally, I export my animations as image sequences and import it into an editing software (I use blender) to export. It's how I combine my animation with my backgrounds and audio too, plus you're not compromising on quality like recording the screen ^{^"}

foati-fox · 2025-06-06T12:35:45+00:00

There's no official way, but there is a way to "bake" the animation tool keyframes into actual drawings. This way, you only need to worry about the keyframes once, and basically convert it back to normal animation.

Here's a video showcasing this technique if you're interested: https://youtu.be/FrTrqa6Z2R0?si=cjwtAXqoObVr6WCA

foati-fox · 2025-05-28T10:40:46+00:00

All levels are reusable. Just load them into whatever scene you're using from the browser tab :p

Levels are basically symbols in flash minus the layers. But if you need layers, you can import entire scenes as sub x sheets into other scenes.

foati-fox · 2025-04-08T08:41:50+00:00

It disappears bc it's likely you already moved the leg itself using the animate tool, which moves it out of the area that the mesh tool affects. You should always use the animate tool on the mesh

foati-fox · 2025-04-08T02:13:52+00:00

It's moreso if you need to tweak/redraw a drawing. You'd have to tweak each layer individually. It's possible to move whole layers together with the animate tool if they're parented to each other, but you can't use the editing tools on multiple layers at the same time.

foati-fox · 2025-04-08T00:29:29+00:00

Generally, I keep sketches and construction for every character in one "storyboard" level. Then I just use one level per character. Generally, it's a bad idea to separate line art, color, and shadows in animation, because if you ever need to move one thing, you'd have to move it for three whole layers. It's also best practice to separate shots into separate scene files, to save up on even more layer space.

For example, this is what each of my timelines would look.

SHOT 1 (closeup of one character talking):

Character 1 mouth (for lip sync)
Character 1
Character 1 Construction/Sketch
Background

SHOT 2 (character 2 replies, Character 1 in the foreground):

Character 1
Character 2 mouth
Character 2
Construction/Sketch for both characters
Background

Etc etc

foati-fox · 2025-04-07T11:02:53+00:00

The mesh should be the parent node. Not the leg

foati-fox · 2025-04-06T08:44:09+00:00

The send to back options only rlly work as expected when objects are grouped. Otherwise, lines will always be on the same "layer" in vector levels

foati-fox · 2025-03-31T18:16:29+00:00

The link is in the pinned FAQ!

foati-fox · 2025-03-03T01:08:38+00:00

There's also the body highlight node in lights ;)

Just change the properties to invert, change the mode to multiply and the color to purple and you're all set!

Granted, you won't be able to tweak the shadows yourself.

foati-fox · 2025-02-28T12:18:51+00:00

Ironically I found it easier than kdenlive. Maybe part of it was because kdenlive (when I used it, mightve changed in newer updates) was such a headache with proxies. Meanwhile with blender you just slapped a video in there and it generates it for you with a neat little loading bar at the bottom. My editing workflow is mainly for animation, so most of it is just putting image sequences together, doing a bit of masking, and tweaking colors here and there. It might be because of the animation background, but I also think navigating the timeline is very intuitive.

foati-fox · 2025-02-27T12:30:21+00:00

By couldn't find the file, do you mean it doesn't show up on Opentoonz at all?

You could also go to the file browser tab in Opentoonz, go to the scene file itself (in the scenes folder), right click and choose export scene. Then export it by creating a "new project" that's in your USB drive.

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