[HN Gopher] Create hand-drawn GIFs on paper
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       Create hand-drawn GIFs on paper
        
       Author : trueduke
       Score  : 323 points
       Date   : 2022-04-13 08:12 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.eatmy.art)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.eatmy.art)
        
       | vinnymac wrote:
       | Reminds me of Flipnote Studio on the Nintendo DS. Had a large
       | active community with a lot of creativity.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipnote_Studio
       | 
       | I am sure this will get used in a similar way. I'd be interested
       | to see a platform like deviantart, join forces with a new form
       | factor like this.
        
       | nkozyra wrote:
       | This is how I taught my son to do these, but just wrote a simple
       | script using the ImageMagick library and regular grid paper.
       | 
       | It's definitely not a huge technical wonder, but I swear he made
       | hundreds of them.
        
         | vanderZwan wrote:
         | How did you do the alignment?
         | 
         | I've seen various tools that let you take a picture and that
         | then automatically align the paper to scan it (sometimes with
         | and sometimes without QR codes in the corners) and I wish there
         | was some general "how to" tutorial out there for that kind of
         | trick
        
       | bennyp101 wrote:
       | This is really, really cool! The kids are going to love this!
       | 
       | I'm no artist, but it is super easy! -
       | https://imgur.com/a/hbCSkiY
       | 
       | Only thing is that the image didn't seem to work taking a photo
       | directly on my phone - had to move it to the computer to upload
        
         | georgyo wrote:
         | This was truly amazing, I hope the add more templates for the
         | non-artistically inclined. The fact that even I could do
         | something like this is amazing!
         | 
         | https://imgur.com/a/Up4vaXn
        
       | eljimmy wrote:
       | This is awesome! Will be sharing this with friends with kids.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | tyingq wrote:
       | https://brush.ninja/ is fast and nice if you just want to do
       | quick stick figure type animated gifs. Start by drawing something
       | simple in the current frame, then down at the bottom, use the
       | "duplicate" to make the next frame and add some changes, then
       | rinse/repeat.
       | 
       | No forced sign up, ads, etc.
        
       | edwinyzh wrote:
       | Wow! My kids will love it! I'll have them try this out on the
       | weekend.
        
       | globalise83 wrote:
       | Works very nicely - my stick man was able to score a goal and
       | celebrate! Firefox + Android
        
       | electricair wrote:
       | This would be a really cool integration with Paper Website
       | 
       | https://paperwebsite.com
        
         | thadk wrote:
         | And Field Papers
         | 
         | http://www.fieldpapers.org
        
       | SMAAART wrote:
       | This is fun
        
       | H1Supreme wrote:
       | Oh man, I love this!! I'm gonna send to my girlfriend who's an
       | Art Teacher.
        
       | AQXt wrote:
       | Amazing! I'll try it with my kids. :)
       | 
       | Suggestion: create an app so we can see the results immediately.
        
       | yreg wrote:
       | I like the simplicity, but it seems rather difficult to draw an
       | animation without an ability to overlay the frames.
       | 
       | Perhaps that could be solved by some kind of folded template? Or
       | a multi-page template that can be arranged and scanned in one go
       | in the end?
        
         | petee wrote:
         | You could print on Vellum, its slightly transparent and great
         | for transferring. I think thats what they used back in the day
         | too
        
         | whateveracct wrote:
         | You can a get cheap portable light table. I have a Huion one I
         | use for making papercraft greeting cards (I sketch the shapes
         | before transferring to colored paper via tracing).
        
         | yreg wrote:
         | I have to say though, the ability to paint a separate
         | background and foreground and choose the frame rate in the
         | template already is pretty cool!
        
         | isoprophlex wrote:
         | There appear to be thinly drawn grids in each cell to help
         | alignment?
        
       | matthewhartmans wrote:
       | This is really neat! Nice one OP!
        
       | lightwin wrote:
       | Very neat idea, definitely going to try making few gifs myself :)
       | 
       | Just found a minor issue, when we click on any image on templates
       | page, it gives a "Not found" error. May be you can link the image
       | to PDF so that user can click on image to open the pdf.
        
       | agbagbagb wrote:
       | Nice work. It inspired me to interrupt work and create this
       | 
       | https://imgur.com/a/MBIx7jJ
        
       | filipeisho wrote:
       | I cant scroll the webpage on iphone
        
         | tedunangst wrote:
         | I don't know what they've done, but eventually it unsticks if
         | you just keep swiping. Then it gets stuck again, then it
         | scrolls again. It's navigable, given sufficient patience and
         | effort.
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | Yes, it kept springing back, but eventually it worked
        
         | naetius wrote:
         | Same. Reader mode to the rescue!
         | 
         | Update: darn it ain't work
        
       | jack_riminton wrote:
       | Really nice combination of digital and analogue. I wish more
       | websites were more 'hand-drawn'
        
       | MrYellowP wrote:
       | It's like taking something that's decades old, trying to make it
       | look fresh. One can do this easily in paint.net using the
       | animated gif plugin, without being required to draw into a grid
       | and _without requiring an internet connection to be productive._
       | 
       | The actually _good_ part is the domain name.
        
         | teh_klev wrote:
         | > and without requiring an internet connection to be
         | productive.
         | 
         | Then who would you show off your animated gifs to?
         | 
         | I think you've completely missed the point of this app in a
         | somewhat exceedingly miserable and uncharitable way.
        
         | asiachick wrote:
         | I agree that this is arguably more about "wow, it's cool and
         | maybe more fun to draw on paper" than "this is actually the
         | easiest way to draw animations in 2022 for most kids".
         | 
         | Most kids have access to a phone/tablet and would probably do
         | better with something like this?
         | 
         | https://animatic.io/
         | 
         | Then again i guess it's easier to draw with pens, pencils,
         | markers, crayons than it is to draw on a phone/tablet.
         | 
         | But yea, it's super cool to do it on paper too. I'd be nice to
         | make the site mobile friendly. Of course this requires access
         | to a printer. I haven't owned a printer in 9 years :( Maybe the
         | next version could use ML or something to let you hand draw the
         | grid.
        
         | bennyp101 wrote:
         | Wow - did you miss the part that it is using a pencil/pen and
         | paper? Not a graphics tablet, or a mouse, but drawn by hand and
         | then converted to a gif?
         | 
         | I think it's pretty cool that you could print out a template,
         | draw/paint/scribble some bits, take a photo, then have an
         | animated gif!
        
           | k_ wrote:
           | Exactly. Might turn out great for kids as a first initiation
           | to animation, will definitely try with my daughter!
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | robin_reala wrote:
       | I thought this was going to be instructions on how to make a
       | flipbook animation, for the kids that are more familiar with GIFs
       | than those.
        
         | dfxm12 wrote:
         | Yeah, the submitted title is not good at conveying what this
         | actually is.
        
       | hwers wrote:
       | I think this is really cute and wonderful. I think there's some
       | room to improve here, e.g. an AR ghost overlay of previous frames
       | as well as ML extracted frames from pure paper without having to
       | print a template (both of which I believe are feasible). But
       | overall I love that people are experimenting with this stuff (and
       | wouldn't want to react negatively here in any way to discourage
       | this type of work).
       | 
       | Some might argue moving from digital to pen and paper is a step
       | down but I'd argue the opposite. I'd love and look forward to a
       | possible future where we move digital advancements into the
       | analog world in this way. As Theil says you can barely tell the
       | difference between this world and the 80s if you remove cell
       | phones and computers, but things like this are a cool way to
       | hopefully get us closer to computers aiding more natural forms of
       | interaction.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | derac wrote:
         | I love this project! I agree support for arbitrary grids would
         | add a lot to the user experience. You might not even need ml
         | for that. For instance, look for the blob of uninterrupted
         | color that occupies the largest contiguous space in the image
         | and interpret cell order within it by a function of their
         | midpoint and filter for size. You could draw missing outside
         | walls via convex hull generation first.
        
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       (page generated 2022-04-13 23:01 UTC)