Interview

Other frames from the video. Click images to enlarge.

How was for traditional animators to learn using the TAB?
The budget did not enable us to work with experienced staff, so we worked with fresh new animation talents. They employed less than two weeks to became productive with the TAB and they liked the software very much. I think it will became one of their favorite tool to make animation.

Did the TAB influence the final budget?
Yes, definitely! We had at least two choices. We could draw on paper with a traditional digital light table, or we could draw directly in a digital system with any graphic software. Both those solutions were too slow to keep our deadline. With the TAB we could work extremely fast during the film production, much faster than in a traditional workflow.

Did you have any budget limitation?
It was a low-budget production. For a project like this, the TAB can reduce the budget three or four times less than an ordinary production.

How much did you spare in terms of time?
According to our experience we spared about 50% compared to traditional animation. We avoided every scanning session and we found in tab many drawing and animation helpers, like the automatic inbetweening, a great tool.

Which part of the work was done completely in the TAB?
We imported in the TAB a raster image of the painting, which was the theme of our video, then we used it as a reference for drawing every animated level. All the animation sessions, linetest and camera movements in a multiplane environment were done in the TAB. Then we added some effects in Digital Fusion and Avid.

Which TAB feature was particularly useful in the production process?
We used a lot the Pinch tool, with it you can move lines as if they where rubber strings, no need of control points! Also the Iron tool was very "popular", it allows to smooth lines locally, the perfect tool for our case. And the automatic inbetweening of course.

What did the users like most in the TAB?
The TAB has a clear and easily-understandable structure, well-divided interface, and the drawing tools are like hand-drawing, therefore the final result can be very similar to the hand-drawn animation.

Did the TAB influence the artistic result of your work?
Fortunately it did not! With other software we had to modify our concepts, because the software made technical limitations in our work. This is not the case of TAB, it does what you want.

What do you like most in the TAB?
Line Modifiers and automatic inbetweening.

What do you like least in the TAB?
We long for having the Alpha channel in export, we know it is coming soon…