Vpaint is a new vector technology/open source specification that solves limitations of current vector graphics. it's designed to suit animation needs better than svg.

Limitations of vector graphics software and how vpaint solves them
Watch siggraph video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdQFAMe7TlY

Here is how vac works in terms of animation:
http://www.dalboris.com/research/vac/

more videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMHlwr ... YbCWY3i2oA

Vpaint will be released as open source technology. Here is it's website:
http://www.vpaint.org/

I'm not much of a video person (have seen far too many really, really bad ones), so I didn't look at them. But I did briefly look at http://www.dalboris.com/research/vac/ and the PDF download. And I think I have a general idea about this. WOW!! And I'm looking forward to trying Vpaint. Do I understand correctly that it's not released yet?

I have a question. For the brief part that I read of the PDF, this approach seems to me like it would apply to 3d animation, more effectively than 2D. And on the dalboris website, the gallery there shows all 3d images. But on the Vpaint website, it specifically refers to 2D animation. I might have to break down and watch the video. Is the video narrated, at least? Or else find some time to read more of the PDF.

Anyway, the question I have. Is it more effective for 3d animation? Is the 2d Vpaint just a very early iteration of this technology, which will eventually evolve to 3D?

Do you mind if I post these links to the Inkscape developer mailing list? Or are you already planning to announce there? (not many developers participate in this forum)

It is out. The source code is available:
https://github.com/dalboris/vpaint

open source too. maybe inkscape devs could look into it

And for people who want to just try it out, win mac and linux builds are available:
http://www.vpaint.org/

I also posted it at the mailing list here:
[email protected]

Let me know if its the right one. Also spread the word and lets get the links,demos and papers to the right developers.

brynn wrote:Anyway, the question I have. Is it more effective for 3d animation? Is the 2d Vpaint just a very early iteration of this technology, which will eventually evolve to 3D?

Hi, I'm the developer of VPaint, I just come across this thread through a Google search, so I figured I can answer this question here.

I don't have a plan right now to extend this method to 3D animation, although it's definitely something that could be interesting. The end goal and motivation really was 2D animation from the beginning.

There are a few reasons why I think that this approach is better suited for 2D rather than 3D:
[*] In 3D, typically a -lot- of triangles are used, while in 2D, you only have a few edges and faces. This makes 2D more practical to define this structure, especially since (for now) topological events have to be specified manually, and it would be thousands of them in 3D.
[*] In 3D, it wouldn't be as useful since, most often, there is no -need- for changing the topology (often, the changes of topology in 2D are coming from the projection of a 3D non-changing topology). That being said, sometimes, you would need a change in topology in 3D as well (e.g., cell mitosis), and it would be interesting to use similar methods. It's just more rarely useful.
[*] Finally, while the data-structure for extending this to 3D would actually be easier than 2D (I know, it's counter-intuitive, The reason is subtle and kind of hard to explain, I won't go into this right now), it would be in practice very hard to visualize. Seeing a 2D animation as a 3D object (2D+time) is somehow doable, but aving a 4D object (3D+time) would probably be hell for artists.

That's why I stuck to 2D for this project But yes, it is in theory applicable to 3D as well, and it would be interesting to see what's possible there.

Cheers,
Boris

Well, I can't understand much about the technical stuff. I had read some of the info at the links posted above, and that's how it seemed to me. But thanks for explaining.

Congratulations for advancing this research, and I look forward to trying it out.

It`s nice to have you here, dalboris, and am glad to see your comment since it answered some of my questions.
Have you heard about Anime Studio (SmithMicro)? It`s a 2D vector animation sw and is "approachable" trough lua scripts. Would be great to hear your opinion on that piece of sw.

Hi! I heard of Anime Studio about 10 years ago already, I knew some people who love it, but I never tried it. I should add it to my list of things to have a look at. Thx for your support!

blurymind wrote:open source too. maybe inkscape devs could look into it

That seems to be a misunderstanding (see this thread on the Vpaint forum). The idea is to make it proprietary code.

Err... sorry, but no, not at all. If -the idea- was to make it proprietary, I wouldn't have released it open source in the first place. All I said was that the license was MIT, so it's possible to make a proprietary software based on VPaint, and that I -might- consider doing it one day if it seems the right thing to do. That's entirely different. Open source code cannot become "proprietary".

Oh, OK, sorry for my misunderstanding then...

No problem