Software for portfolio

 For the portfolio, the software that I will be using is Callipeg on iPad Pro, this is a mobile app used for animation and it can be either bought outright or pay in subscription form. I will be using this app to create various scenes for my 2-3 minute animation and also show what it takes to create a simple animation.

First, when the app opens, it displays an empty screen with very little options such as Import, Select and New Shot. 

To create a new animation, I selected the 'New Shot' button that allows me to adjust the resolution and frame rate before starting a new project, I set my preset to '1280 by 720' pixels at a frame rate of 10. I will adjust the frame rate later as I start making frames on my timeline.

 Once the project is created, I am greeted with a canvas with all of the buttons and tools hidden away. This app is purely gesture based so no tool has any labels written on them. I put down several key frames to show how the drawing would look like.

 After one frame and then starting a new one, I turned on the onion skin tool. This tool allows me to show the previous frame and gives a reference point for the new frame. It is a useful tool and one that keeps the animation consistent. I have set the colour for the onion skin green so it is easier to see.

 As I put more frames, I can pan through my drawings through the timeline on the bottom of the canvas. The onion skin tool also shows the next frames in form of a different colour. I have set the next drawings to be shown in red, this way it is easier to detect the animation if any adjustment is needed.

 Finally, once the key frames are set, I can then start adding colour by creating a new layer within the timeline. This ensures that I do not start colouring on the outline layer and so therefore it is simpler to manage. I will be using the bucket tool to fill the drawing, however the actual tool is not present in the app but in the form of double tapping on the section which needs to be coloured. Unfortunately one drawback about this feature is that it takes a couple of seconds to fill the canvas, and then re-adjust so that it renders the drawing properly. I find this unintuitive as a regular bucket tool would have been much faster.

 

 Other small inconvenience about this app is that it does not support stablization so lines are not drawn smoothly, a quick moving action from the stylus can negate some of the curve in the line but not entirely. Other than that, it is a good app and that I will be using till the portfolio animation is completed.

 Finally, I would also like to mention Callipeg's website for gesture tutorials and other various ways to use the app. I believe there are so many ways to adjust and manipulate the frames that this page is a good place to understand and learn more about animating.