in Design / Development
Create Animations on you E-Reader: Interview with Jeremie Rousseau, founder of Pro Animation Software
Writen by Bogdan+ / Comments Off on Create Animations on you E-Reader: Interview with Jeremie Rousseau, founder of Pro Animation Software
Hi Jeremie, can you tell us a few words about yourself?
Hi, I’m Jeremie Rousseau, I am a 35-year-old French who lives in France with a passion for drawing using computers all the way from 1995 (you can see my old work, here) and I’m the owner of animation-software.com. After buying thousands of dollars of licenses for 3d and 2d software apps, my eye doctor told me that I put too much strain on my eyes and I need to stop working that much in front of my monitor. I was in shock because I didn’t want to abandon my passion for animations so I had to come up with a solution.
After researching alternative means of working without hurting my eyes, I discovered that it’s possible to pair a keyboard with an e-reader I thought to myself: is it possible to draw or compute a picture with this type of device? So I started learning how to program e-readers.
I checked the animation tool you created and found it very interesting. I like the idea of creating a tool to work on e-readers to protect your eyes. Can you tell our readers what your animation software can do?
I am trying to develop a complete animation app with layers, brushes, symmetry tools, golden rule tools, and many more exciting features. In fact, my app can do anything an animation artist would expect. It’s a pixel engine and it doesn’t use vectors or 3D such as openGL/webGl, it’s just pixels that you can export in PNG or JPEG and MP4.
I see that the app is currently available to the public. Is it still in beta or has it reached a stable version?
The first version was launched in 2018 as an open beta and included twelve actions without layers or a timeline. As for a deadline for a stable version, well, I don’t have an ETA yet since there is plenty of development needed in order to reach this stage.
What are the main features of your app?
Well, I think it’s the first app for creating 2d animations on e-readers so that’s the biggest sale feature.
Are there any limitations that your users should be aware of?
Currently, I’m not 100% sure if my animation software app is fully compatible with Kindle, Kobo, or any other e-readers under 10 inches. Creating such an app is a very demanding effort because animation software requires plenty of resources so I had to make it as light as possible. My app works on a web browser on a single CPU thread and it uses the RAM allowed by the web browser. I did a lot of tests on Dasung Paperlike HD 13.3 and the latest Onyx Boox Tab 13.3 inch and it works great!
Are you planning on adding other features to it?
Absolutely! Right now the roadmap covers more than 5 years of future work. I want to add cool things such as perspective tools, volumetric 2d light, timeline placement, a better tool to make your own pixel fonts, an improved way to personalize brushes, and also a 3D modeler. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
Do you have a public roadmap that your users can check?
Not really, not right now and this is one of the biggest problems of this project. I wish to forge a community for this app and allow its users to shape the future of this 2D animation software for e-readers. Having a community would be easier for me to get the feedback needed for a roadmap.
The application is free, do you plan on creating a paid version? Have you thought about applying for a crowdfunding campaign in order to finance the development of this tool?
My initial strategy was to have a free version and a Pro version that costs $100/year but I’m still debating if I should follow this path or do a crowdfunding campaign to get the budget rather than sell licenses.
Often people ask me if it’s open source and in fact not entirely. Some part is open source because it is written in Javascript or because I’m using libraries such as ffmpeg but for the moment I don’t want to put my entire project on GitHub.
How can users contact you if they have any suggestions or feedback?
They can reach me at https://essaie.fr/ for any feedback. For social media, here’s my Facebook profile.