Request for better animation tools

LMo

@kudo(Staff) thank you for your response in the After Effects + Mac thread. I decided to make a separate post rather than respond there since my response is mostly unrelated to After Effects. In the end, what I would REALLY love is to not need to use AE. But the Live2D animation tools fall short of what I need.

Basically, I love the way models look in motion when you test them out in Viewer or the physics mode. But achieving that look or level of fluidity in your animation mode is not possible in a logistical way. Read on:

First off, having the physics react to your movements in real-time is important because the flow of the physics somewhat affects how you as the animator will creatively move parameters in real-time. I wish Live2D had a much more robust animation mode (or even a separate app!) where your models behave like they do in Cubism Viewer.

The Live2D Animation mode tools need much better keyframe generation while dragging parameters in real-time (currently it comes out step-like, requiring rigorous deletion of extra nodes and smoothing the curve), or at least some much better smoothing tools or keyframe mass-reduction tools (like in AE) to combat this. Look at the pictures below:






When you animate in realtime with the mouse this is what it looks like. Step-like and not at all graceful like models behave in Viewer. What I want is for it to have that fluid sense of motion and come out looking like this instead:



That is a much more accurate depiction of what my mouse movements were. But getting that look requires a lot of extra time to go back through a long animation and refine what you did, deleting nodes and adjusting the bezier. If Viewer can follow your movements gracefully, why not then in Cubism's animation window? Of course, going back and making refinements is completely normal, but what is NOT normal is the weird flat, step-like result. I would not consider fixing this "refinement". All that time I'm spending refining the animation and making it look professional is instead being put to fixing flaws.

There is also a substantial hit to frame rate when in graph editor mode, especially when zoomed in to the keyframes. This makes it hard to quickly preview animation as you're refining the keyframes. I have to habitually hit "C" to switch back to the dopesheet every time I want to preview what I just did!

Live2D's animation window also needs a “camera” tool, to zoom in and out of and pan across an animation scene, or to make quick "cuts" to different perspectives of your scene when zoomed-in. Currently you have to move all backgrounds and models together after grouping in a folder. This is non-intuitive and so time-intensive that it makes it not logistical. But more importantly, there is another massive frame rate hit. If L2D had these features I wouldn’t even need to use AE!

kudo(Staff)

Hello, @LMo
This is Live2D Support.
Thank you very much for your patronage of our products.

 I have shared this request with the developers.
We will use this as a reference for future development.

To record the movement of the model by cursor tracking, use the recording function in the physics and scene blend settings screen.
You will probably be able to record the same movement as in the viewer. Please try to use it.
https://docs.live2d.com/cubism-editor-manual/switch-viewer-setting/?locale=en_us

hope that helps!