Animated Drawing

[anjan_oleti]

I was searching for an software which would turn a sketch into a drawing animation...

Then, I came across "DrawSWF" here...
http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/OpenSource1/index.html

The program is cool, but just wanted to know if there is a software which does the animation AUTOMATICALLY, given a photo or a sketch, without the requirment to do all the drawing??

Thanks!

[mouser]

that's actually a really good question.
before people say it's impossible, there are plenty of photoshop plugins and other graphics painting tools that take a photo and turn it into paint stroke effect, so there's no reason this couldn't be done (though it surely would not look as nice as a real recording of someone doing the painting).

[PhilB66]

I have bookmarked a few animation tools a long time ago but have to give them a try yet. See if it is what you are looking for:

1. Pencil - a free, cross-platform open-source 2D animation\drawing software. It features bitmap and vector drawing tools, layers, cameras. It supports import of bitmap images.

2. Express Animator© - $39, trial available, Features:

• Import Flash Animations (SWF files) into your project for editing
• Import bitmap images (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF) into your project
• Import vector graphics (SVG) into your project
• Import and export Enhanced Metafile clipart (EMF)
• Import wave sounds and music (WAV) into your project
• Use hundreds of included graphic pictures (Dingbats)
• Export animations in Adobe Flash format or as Windows Video (AVI)
• Export single frames in Microsoft's Silverlight format, PDF files, postscript (EPS) files, Scalar Vector Graphics (SVG) files or as plain bitmap files (BMP).
• Import Motion Capture files (BVH)

3. Anim8or - a 3D modeling and character animation program (Free). Features:

• 3D Modeler - Create and modify 3D models.  Built-in primitives such as spheres, cylinders, platonic solids, etc.; mesh-edit and subdivision; splines, extrusion, lathing, modifiers, bevel and warps,
• TrueType font support - 2D and 3D extruded text for any TrueType font.
• OpenGL based real time operation,
• Import and modify .3DS (3D Studio), .LWO (Lightwave), and .OBJ (Wavefront) object files,
• Export .3DS files,
• Built in 3D Object browser,
• Jointed character editor,
• Morph targets,
• Anti-aliased software renderer for high quality, production quality images,
• Create 3D scenes and animations and output .AVI movie files, .JPG and .BMP images,
• Supports textures, bump maps, soft shadows, spotlights, fog, and much more,
• Texture support for .BMP, .GIF, and .JPG format files,
• Print images of scenes and models.
• OpenGL shaders for realistic previews.
• Scripting language.
• Plig-ins for parameteric shape and object export.

[anjan_oleti]

Thanks PhilB66, for the suggestions!
But, well... they are the normal animation programs
What I am looking for, is a program which will show/exhibit/animate as a video, the "DRAWING/SKETCHING PROCESS" of any drawing/sketch/photo that is given a input.

[mouser]

No one has found a program that does this yet?  Surely it must exist.
There are some amazing plugins and graphics programs that will make any photo look like a hand painted piece of art.  The best of these tools do operate by simulating the drawing of strokes of paint.  Surely someone must have taken this to the next logical level and made something that animates the process, no?

[eschen]

I would suggest a screenrecorder in addition to a program that does the painting automatically. I bought Corel Painter 4 Essentials about a month ago. It allows to follow an automatic redrawing of an image or photo to something painted. Well, it looks like a painter doing her work (if you don't activate the transparent presentation of the original image). If I use a screenrecorder to track what's going on on the screen this should create your demanded result.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1190317151777

Hint: the automatic painting is not available with older releases than Painter 4 Essentials. So, don't mix up with this offer (I updated because of some nice features of Photoimpact, e.g. Golden Ratio Crop or flexible calendar design, but not because of the additional free stuff), that delivers the old and ugly user interface of Painter Essentials 3:

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1192197450406

Regards Rainer

[cmpm]

Check this out and see if it's close to what you want.
Also check the links section.

http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php?id=Home

oops, sorry, it's been suggested.
But still the links may lead to what you want.

[cmpm]

Ignore the prompts to register with version tracker.
It will download.

It's 8 years old but still works fine.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/13212

The program is cool, but just wanted to know if there is a software which does the animation AUTOMATICALLY, given a photo or a sketch, without the requirment to do all the drawing??

[anjan_oleti]

I would suggest a screenrecorder in addition to a program that does the painting automatically. I bought Corel Painter 4 Essentials about a month ago. It allows to follow an automatic redrawing of an image or photo to something painted. Well, it looks like a painter doing her work (if you don't activate the transparent presentation of the original image). If I use a screenrecorder to track what's going on on the screen this should create your demanded result.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1190317151777

Hint: the automatic painting is not available with older releases than Painter 4 Essentials. So, don't mix up with this offer (I updated because of some nice features of Photoimpact, e.g. Golden Ratio Crop or flexible calendar design, but not because of the additional free stuff), that delivers the old and ugly user interface of Painter Essentials 3:

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1192197450406

Regards Rainer

Thats pretty cool! thanks!

[anjan_oleti]

I would suggest a screenrecorder in addition to a program that does the painting automatically. I bought Corel Painter 4 Essentials about a month ago. It allows to follow an automatic redrawing of an image or photo to something painted. Well, it looks like a painter doing her work (if you don't activate the transparent presentation of the original image). If I use a screenrecorder to track what's going on on the screen this should create your demanded result.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1190317151777

Hint: the automatic painting is not available with older releases than Painter 4 Essentials. So, don't mix up with this offer (I updated because of some nice features of Photoimpact, e.g. Golden Ratio Crop or flexible calendar design, but not because of the additional free stuff), that delivers the old and ugly user interface of Painter Essentials 3:

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1192197450406

Regards Rainer

Thats pretty cool! thanks!

Is there anything similar to this for 'DRAWING' rather than painting??
Thanks!

[mahesh2k]

More Softwares in this categaory are :

1. Toon Boom (Storyboard, Animate, Studio Pro)
2. Synfig (Free)
3. Plastic Animation Papedr

[40hz]

Many moons ago, there used to be a nice little program called Sketcher by Fractal Design Software (the makers of Painter before they got bought out by Corel) that did that.

Sketcher is long gone, but you can get something similar from Project Dogwaffle.

Take a look at the animation features in the documentation (link below) to see if they have what you're looking for.

Animation: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/help/PDHelp/index.htm

Homepage: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/products/index.html#whatis

Is there anything similar to this for 'DRAWING' rather than painting??

Any draw program that supports a process called tweening should work.

Info on the tweening process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweening