RoughAnimator - animation app

Amazingly there are more than one option for animation apps here, HOWEVER this is the only one that has a friendly UI, not going to burn a hole in your wallet, it’s fast, all substance, no BS, and great for roughing something out absolutely ANYWHERE (Heck I’ve been animating in bed and it’s hella comfy) and if you feel up for it, you can make a fully fleshed out animation in this program, colors, clean lines, everything! Granted, this kind of a basic traditional 2D animation program, no peg system or anything stupidly fancy so don’t expect the ability to make parallax backgrounds, 2D rigs or importing brushes from other programs like Procreate or Clip Studio Paint but that’s not the point of this, because it’s in the name “Rough” and I absolutely love it for that. It’s very easy to pick up, saves instantaneously right as you close out of the project, and I can’t recommend this enough.👌👌👌 I do have a suggestion to give it 5 stars from me, and that’s a dark mode. I personally don’t like melting my eyes out, that’s just me, a bit of an odd opinion I know, but it’d make working so much better and possibly more visually pleasing. Just throwing it out there, but it’d be nice as an option in a future update, thanks! 😘

Okay, I’m not gonna try to go on an all-out rant, but I really need to talk about some problems this app has- Okay, so firstly, the cycle option?? What the heck does it even do?? I haven’t found one single person on the entire internet that knows how to work it. If you’re going to have an option, tell people how to work it, or check if it’s even functional. Secondly, you can’t copy and paste multiply frames onto the layer they’re already on. That may be a nit-pick, but it’s extremely frustrating to have to click the copy and paste button SO. MANY. TIMES. Not to mention making animations that are loops, and having to go through the trouble of seeing which frame is which, only to find you messed up an hour ago and can’t fix it without starting over completely. Okay, I’m done. Please, fix these. It would make so many other people’s experience with this app better, including mine.

I think Rough Animator is the best animating app on iPads. It’s easy, smooth, and it doesn’t crash. Some thing I wish were easier is placing an image in. I wish this was easier because when I’m adding in backgrounds, I draw from the same dimensions as the animation. Unfortunately rough animator doesn’t have a “center” option, so you always have to do it yourself. I’ll end up with bits of my background cut off of the color of the orginial background showing because I didn’t stretch it down enough. Another thing I find troublesome is adding audio. I’ve found a way to add audio, but it’s much harder than the way I’m about to explain. Adding in music from your iTunes is super frustrating because it doesn’t work. I click on the option to add music from my library, and the app crashes. Please fix this. One last thing is TRANSPARENCY. PLEASE... fix this. I’m having trouble editing my animations because I cannot export an animation with transparency. It’s SUPER frustrating because it’s such an easy thing to fix. PLEASE fix the transparency exports before anything else. Thanks

I’ve only been playing with it for a few hours, but I think I actually found a decent animation app for iPad. The layout of the tools is perfect. Everything I need is where I can tap it easily. This has been a frustration for me with a lot of the apps that hide things in pop up menus. And oh my gosh, an actual traditional timeline that you can edit on the spot! It also feels nice to draw in and responds well to the Apple Pencil. A lot of apps don’t have a lasso tool, and I never understood why, because it’s one of the most useful tools in drawing and animation apps. This one has it and it works perfectly! Finally, it isn’t blurry, even when zoomed in, which is also a problem I’ve noticed with a lot of the apps I’ve tried. I’ve had a project in mind to work on for a long time, and I think I’ll test it out in this app. Keep up the good work, animation apps are one of the things severely lacking on the iPad. This fills an enormous gap for me!

This app is everything I want in an animation app. Wonderful interface, excellent feature set. But the bugs make it practically unusable. The Apple Pencil support is poor, making uneven lines and accidental pressure blots at the start of the stroke. It also crashes when attempting to import a file from the windows version. Interoperability with other platforms was a major selling point for me, but not one of them work well together. If the developer would fix the bugs then this would be my favorite app on the App Store. If the developer is listening, please let me know where I can file bug reports. I’ve sent you emails but they appear to have been sent into the void... Update: Just tried 1.5.7. Apple Pencil support is still very bad. Every stroke starts with a blot at the beginning. Pressure is erratic. Update 2: Just tried the latest version. Apple Pencil support appears to be fixed!! Thanks for continuing to improve this! I’m having a blast with it now! Update 3: I’ve been using the app for a while now since pencil support was fixed and it continues to be my favorite app on the App Store! A feature request that could really improve the experience: Mirroring support. Being able to see and sketch from a reverse angle really helps get proportions correct. It’s the most major thing I miss when roughing out an Anim. Thanks so much for this app!