5 Ways to use Flipnote Studio in Animation Projects

Flipnote Studio and Flipnote Studio 3D are more powerful tools than they are given credit for. It's easy to focus on their shortcomings: for example, low audio quality, low resolution, and limited audio length. But despite these flaws, there are numerous ways that animators of any experience level can use Flipnote Studio in their projects. Here are my top 5.

1. Storyboards

As many readers of this blog will know, Shigeru Miyamoto used Flipnote Studio to storyboard his Pikmin short films. The storyboards are included as bonus content when you download the films for Wii U or 3DS. There is better storyboard software available, but Flipnote Studio has the advantages of being portable, simple, and free. You can even change the speed and add sound effects. Whee!

2. Create resources

This idea comes from one of my favorite projects involving Flipnote Studio, seen above. (Watch it in HD and full screen!) The creator of this video, Arman Bohn, used Flipnote Studio to create over 250 objects, and exported them as GIFs. These resources were then composed into a music video, using professional editing software AfterEffects. The final product isn't a "Flipnote" by any stretch of the imagination, but the beautifully jaggy line art associated with Flipnote shines through in this music video. Again, the advantage is that the creator didn't have to be at home, or at work, or anywhere in particular to create the resources. They could be drawn on a bus ride, or while laying in bed.

3. Draw scenes

This idea is much less editing-intensive than the previous one, but it still works quite well. For this music video, the creator exported many scenes from Flipnote Studio, and compiled these scenes to sync with the music. This entire music video (minus the music) could be entirely created using Flipnote Studio and Windows Movie Maker. And it still tells a beautifully sad story with awesomely stylized art.

4. Rough animation

This technique is great for those who have an animation software like Flash or Toon Boom Studio, but find drawing with a drawing tablet to be...less than ideal. (Especially if you have a simple tablet with no screen.) With Flipnote Studio, you can draw directly on the screen without buying a $1000 Cintiq. Then, you can export the animation as a GIF, import it into your software of choice, and trace over the lines to clean things up. (Or you could, you know, use a pencil and paper. But who does that these days?)

5. Do everything in Flipnote Studio!

If you do this strategy, you are committing to dealing with all the limitations that come with Flipnote Studio. You'll have to record your audio using the tiny and tinny DSi microphone. By the way, the audio has to be under one minute long, is that okay? Oh, and don't forget the file size limit Flipnotes have. You know, the dreaded "Space Bar?" That's right, even one minute of animation is too large most of the time. But despite all of these limitations with creating a "true" Flipnote...they're the only thing you can post on Flipnote Hatena Sudomemo, and as such, the only thing that can receive Stars. So really, it's a no-brainer.

That's the article, folks. What else can you use Flipnote Studio for? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments!

How Flipnote Studio 3D could bring Nintendo big bucks if that was the real issue.

A lot of people think that Nintendo is not releasing Flipnote Studio 3D because it would not bring them a lot of profit. And they have a point: after the 30-day free trial, they will only get about $0.99 per month per user. And that's only users who care enough to get a subscription! But here are a few ways Nintendo could significantly increase their profits from Flipnote Studio 3D.

1. Flipnote Gallery: World subscription: $0.99 a month

This is the most obvious, since it's already a planned part of the service. The small fee, when multiplied by the number of users, likely helps pay for the gallery's servers and moderation. And it gives subscribers 100 Coins, 3 Star Coins, and access to FG:W at any hour of the day or night. Not a bad deal.

2. Star Coin packs: $0.99 each

Since Star Coins are required to a) post a Flipnote with the guarantee that it won't be taken down in 30 days and b) add a Creator to your favorites, it's pretty obvious that most users will be dying for more than 3 each month. So if Nintendo offered the ability to purchase a pack of 5 or so Star Coins for $0.99, it's obvious that people would be interested, both Creators and Collectors.

3. Premium Subscription: $4.99 per month

Even with a subscription, you are pretty limited with what you can do on Flipnote Gallery: World. Almost every action requires a coin: commenting on, posting, downloading, and of course, rating Flipnotes. And you only have 100 per month. For a lot of people, that will be enough. But not for dedicated Flipnote Fans.

Nintendo should offer a Premium subscription service for those who are more serious about their Flipnote. With a premium subscription, you would be able to post, comment, and download Flipnotes for free. No coin required. That way, all 100 of your coins could go toward rating Flipnotes.* If Nintendo offered a premium subscription, all types of Flipnote fans would be willing to pay the extra price. People there for the social experience could chat without worrying about conserving Coins. Hardcore Flipnote collectors could download unlimited Flipnotes to their SD cards for their own personal enjoyment.

A Premium subscription service, even one that's not exactly like the one I described here, would greatly increase Nintendo's profit from Flipnote Studio 3D.

*I considered the idea that the Premium subscription would give unlimited Coins--but that would utterly neglect the purpose of limiting the Coins in the first place. A limited number of Coins (for adding to Flipnotes) GREATLY increases the value of coins when compared to Stars. Stars were unlimited and thus literally worthless. One person could add a million Stars if he (or she) had enough patience. Stars were so worthless that Hatena calculated popularity based on the number of people who added stars, not the number of stars added. So all that time adding stars was wasted. One star = 1,000,000 stars from the same person to Hatena's popularity algorithm. With a limited number of Coins, Nintendo can (more) reliably use the number of coins per person as an indicator of quality.

In Conclusion

If Nintendo were to offer premium services such as Star Coin packs, or a Premium subscription, they could gain a lot more income from Flipnote Studio 3D. And people who are not interested in such features could easily ignore them. It's a win-win situation. So why is Nintendo not doing this?

For one thing, it would take some time and resources to incorporate such ideas into the software. But the main reason is that Nintendo Co., Ltd. doesn't think it's necessary! Apparently, the $0.99 a month subscription (or 100 yen) is enough to justify running Flipnote Gallery: World in Japan. In other words, it would also be enough if Flipnote Studio 3D were to be released in the West.

Since Nintendo is not desperate to make more money from Flipnote Studio 3D (not to mention that they have released Miiverse on 3DS (completely free) since FS3D was delayed), we can assume that the application is not being delayed because of financial reasons. The real reason remains an elusive and frustrating mystery.

New Logo!!

Thanks to Stephen Patitucci for creating our new logo. This site is looking better every day!

Restitution

Restitution. To be honest, most Flipnote fans would just be happy if Nintendo just released the dang thing. It has been a year now, after all. But some fans want a little something extra as restitution for the long wait. We asked our fans what they would have Nintendo do to make things fair.

Most of the responses were something like this:

Extra coins and/or free months would be appreciated for sure, and it's probably the most likely thing (if Nintendo does decide to offer restitution). But they aren't the most creative answers.

Austin Burk, known for creating Sudomemo, wants Nintendo to purchase his homemade Flipnote Hatena server. Sorry Sudofox: I don't think that will happen.

Several people gave this suggestion. What if Nintendo gave some eShop credit or a free game to people who download Flipnote Studio 3D in the first week or so? This is a plausible reward for "Flipnote Ambassadors," but not one I would recommend hoping too much for. Especially not $100.

Silver Jolteon suggests a more personal touch: a handwritten letter from the president! (...of Nintendo.) Toss in a Flipnote Frog plushie (how would they make it look pixellated?) and you've got more or less the perfect apology. I don't think anyone would hold hard feelings against Nintendo.

This response from Tom Skeys is quite hilarious. Since WE had to wait for a year, I guess it's only fair that the Japanese Flipnote fans who have been enjoying it for so long should have a turn to be locked out of using the application.

Japanese users are probably not "laughing at us." Whenever you eat a sandwich, are you "laughing" at starving orphans? No, you're just enjoying your food and that doesn't make you a bad person. Regardless, funny comment, Tom.

Yeah, Angelique! I know what you're saying. It's also easy to create a physical flip book with a stack of sticky notes.

Tom has probably the most interesting idea. And certainly a vivid imagination. I will try to get that image out of my mind now.

Well, that's all of the selected fan responses. You can see them all here.

What's that? You want to know what I would want?

No?

Oh well, I'm telling you anyway.

That's right. Flipnote StUdiio HD Plus for Wii U.

Make it happen, Iwata.

What Does Flipnote Mean To You?

We asked some fans on the Flipnote Studio 3D Facebook page why they liked Flipnote Studio so much. The answers surprised me: Flipnote Studio obviously means more to people than Nintendo realizes.

For many, Flipnote Studio and Hatena were a way to escape from bullying and hard times. Many people found friendship and acceptance among this community of animators.

Flipnotes are great entertainment to just watch. But when watching them, it is obvious that the creators are working with the same tools that you have available to you. This realization inspired many to work even harder on their own creations.

Flipnote Hatena was a melting pot of different people with different backgrounds, ideas, and personalities. A mishmash of fandoms, from Invader Zim, to Warrior Cats, to Doctor Who, to My Little Pony, to Sonic, to anime, each with their own groups and fans. There were adults, teenagers, and even kids.

With so many thousands of users, it's certain that many animators and artists got their start on Flipnote. The community and motivation it provided are unmatched by anything else.

The simplicity of Flipnote's tools are certainly part of its appeal. Even the "advanced tools" are pretty basic compared to more advanced software such as Toon Boom Studio and Flash. But limitation often sparks innovation, and there was a lot of that on Flipnote Hatena. One of the most amazing things to me was that people managed to create a 3D effect in their Flipnotes. You had to cross your eyes to see it, but by placing two slightly different images adjacent to each other on the screen, creators managed to engineer a basic 3D effect. Incredible. Add that to the list of unintended purposes of Flipnote Studio such as RPs and sprite animation/fonts, and you've got clear evidence of an incredibly creative community.

Everybody enjoyed drawing and animating in Flipnote Studio. Even today, when I see a DSi, I can't resist opening it and creating a silly looping animation.

And of course, like all good things, Flipnote Hatena had to end. There was hope on the horizon with the release of Flipnote Studio 3D, or so we thought. It's been almost a year since the software was delayed, with no further word regarding a release outside of Japan. It's been a pretty tough time, waiting for something that means so much to us.

Friendship. Creativity. Working to become the best.

It's no wonder Flipnotes make people feel so happy. The pure silliness and joy of seeing people's creations come to life can brighten anyone's face. The intense action of stick fights. The awesomeness of a smoothly animated original comedy. Even an entire Flipnote series with an epic story, that takes around 90 minutes to watch the whole thing. Oh, and there was always the Flipnote Frog!

Thanks, Philip Acosta. We can't forget the frog.

ALL HAIL THE FROG

Inchworm Animation Review for Flipnote Fans

As many of you likely know, and many likely do not know, Flipnote Studio is not the only DSiWare animation app out there. And since Flipnote can't be transferred to the Nintendo 3DS, and Flipnote Studio has been delayed for almost a year, this great little tool called Inchworm Animation is the only animation tool you can use on a 3DS. Is this good news, or bad news for Flipnote fans? Well, it's ultimately up to you to decide, as the application has its positives and negatives, but personally, I love Inchworm!

First off: based on drawing tools alone, Inchworm is far more powerful than the bare-bones Flipnote Studio. Sure, Flipnotes have their charm with their low resolution and limited color scheme. But in Inchworm, you can use basically unlimited colors. You can choose between a "fuzzy" (smooth) and "hard" (pixellated) brush, and set the size of the brush. You can paint with solid colors or patterns. Many patterns are included but you can create your own patterns as well. You can copy and paste selections, set your brush's transparency, and even set the size of your canvas to something much larger or smaller than the DSi screen. (Unfortunately, you can't zoom out to see the entire canvas if it is bigger than the screen.) My favorite feature is the Over-Under tool, which allows you to choose if your marks will appear above or below existing lines. This is perfect for filling in shapes, although there is also a fill bucket tool that even works decently when using fuzzy lines.

The animation tools are of equally high quality. You can hand-draw each frame, or copy and paste sections between frames. You can also have several layers animating independent of each other. For example, if you add a background to your drawing, you don't have to copy and paste it onto every frame. Instead, you can put it on its own layer with one frame. Since the new layer only has one frame, it will show that image for the entire animation.

Inchworm offers an impressive variety of animation methods. Hand-drawn not your style? Inchworm offers options to use the system's cameras to record stop-motion animation, video, and time lapse video. If you so desire, you can trace each frame to create a rotoscoped animation from your video, leading to some cool results.

Inchworm is not without its shortcomings, however. Inchworm doesn't allow audio, so your exports will be silent, unless you use another program to add music or audio. Also, you can't control the framerate your animation will play at. The software simply flips through the pages as fast as it can. This will make simple drawings move too fast, and complex projects appear far too slow. When you export to an SD card, you can set it to play at any frame rate you want, and that's how it will appear when you upload it to the gallery--but until then, you really don't know how it will look once finished.

Speaking of exporting and uploading, these are two of the weakest areas of the software. Because of Nintendo's requirements, you can only save to the SD card, and not read from it. Since the save space is so limited, you may end up deleting unfinished projects to make room for new ones. Once saved to the SD card, you can upload your art to the online Inchworm gallery, to be admired by the world, or so the theory goes. Inchworm's gallery avoids all the problems Hatena had by simply not including the ability to add stars, follow artists, write comments, like animations, or basically interact with anyone at all. It's nice that they included the ability to upload, but a little more functionality would be appreciated as well.

My "studio": http://www.inchwormanimation.com/studio/sfz95/#3111
An amazing animator's studio: http://www.inchwormanimation.com/studio/wayne/#3045

Of course, all of these shortcomings can be excused when you realize that you can create pretty amazing animations with Inchworm Animation. If you're looking for the fun social experience Flipnote Hatena offered, you're better off using Colors! 3D or waiting for FS3D to finally leave Japan. But if you're looking for a solid, affordable animation app that you can take on the go to hone your animation skills, look no further than Inchworm Animation. Download it now!

And hey, I emailed the developer, and he expressed interest in bringing a new version of Inchworm to the 3DS--this time with sound! If you want it too, let him know!

Note: This is not a problem with Inchworm itself, but it still bears mentioning. Since it is a DSiWare game, Inchworm Animation will be "stretched" to fit the higher-resolution screen if you run it on a 3DS or 3DS XL, making images appear more blurry and crappy in general. The same happens with all DS games. You can hold "start" or "select" when you open the application (or any DS game) to make it run at its original resolution, but unless you have a 3DS XL, this makes it appear extremely small.

Why You Should Unlock Your Flipnotes.

The Lock of Doom

Every time you post a Flipnote, be it on Flipnote Hatena, Sudomemo, or Flipnote Gallery: World, you are asked if you want to lock your Flipnote.

As you all know, a "locked" Flipnote cannot be modified or "spun off" by other users. A lot of people consider this to be a good thing, and     it does kind of make sense. If you lock your Flipnote, nobody can steal or take credit for your work. But how often does this really happen?

In theory, another user could download your Flipnote, make some tiny edit to it (such as a tiny dot on one frame), and repost it to their own Creator Room. And then, because your Flipnote is so good, this user gets Flipnote Famous through no work of their own, while you are left in the dust.

I submit that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, without realizing it, you might have encouraged people to do this very thing on another social network. On Twitter, Vine, Instagram, Tumblr, and even Facebook, having other people "retweet," "revine," "regram," "reblog," and "share" your posts is considered a good thing.

When you post a spinoff, the purple icon in the bottom of the Flipnote shows the world that the Flipnote isn't 100% original. Many users, after watching the spinoff, will use the Details button to view the original as well. And even if they don't see the original, that's one more person who saw and hopefully enjoyed your work, the thing you created, whether or not you got views and coins/stars for it. And isn't that the important thing?

Now, it is possible that, upon downloading your Flipnote, the thief goes to all the excruciating work of copying and pasting every single frame of your Flipnote into a brand new Flipnote to avoid having their theft appearing as a spinoff. This is the only case where I'd consider a Flipnote to be "Stolen." In a case like this, I'd do two things. 1) Be flattered that they went through all that work to steal your work. 2) Report the Flipnote. Cases like this are extremely rare due to the amount of work required.

In this post I have been defending Flipnote "theft." But even if you want a monopoly on posting your content (don't use Twitter, then), is the risk of having your Flipnote "stolen" so bad that you want to stifle all legitimate spinoffs as well? I feel like the Spinoff feature was underused and oft abused.

Something like 90% of spinoffs  were of MVs or unoriginal comedy Flips, with the audio being the only thing that wasn't changed. In this case, the original poster often got credit that they didn't deserve, simply for recording the music into a Flipnote. The only reason the spinoff was a spinoff is because the spinner-offer (not an actual word) was too lazy to record the music or ASDF Movie audio themselves. (Of course, for original comedy Flipnotes, this type of spinoff is great as it highlights the original creator's creativity, and the editor's animation skills. But even the best animation can't make asdfmovie funny again after hearing it and seeing it hundreds of times.)

What are some other uses of the spinoff function?

RPs - Doing Roleplays in comic form was one of the unexpected and awesome uses of Flipnote Studio. Unfortunately, most RPs consisted of wolves or Pokemon doing completely unfunny things. It seemed like users would either try to create quality content, or just have fun with RPs. I would have liked to see RPs used to create amazing worlds and stories as an experiment in collaborative storytelling. But I never saw any RPs reach that potential. Maybe on Flipnote Gallery: World.

Ooh, a leaf!!! Guess what? I looked at a tree! I found literally HUNDREDS of leaves! You lose, Star Pup!

Chains - Oh, there were a ton of these. Most of them were filled with OCs doing random things, but there were some pretty cool ones. My favorites were animated chains, with characters catching and passing a ball, or stickmen running along, each new animator adding their own style to the Flipnote. The downside the chains was that by the time they were done, you would be so sick of seeing the beginning that you didn't feel like sitting through until the end.

Audio Spinoffs - Most people chose to change the actual animation when they spun off. Very occasionally, people would change the audio instead. This idea is all over Youtube, with things like Abridged Series and Bad Lip Readings. We didn't see many of these parodies on Hatena.

Bad Flip Reading

Mashups - Copying frames from several different Flipnotes can make for some interesting mashups. On Hatena, I did this with my own Flipnotes, creating a "Mashup MV" of many of my Flipnotes. I would love to see mashups like this on Flipnote Gallery: World. Just imagine, random animations from top creators edited together into a bizarre music video. The Spinoff feature can't track down the original Flipnote each frame was copied from, but responsible mashers would doubtless provide credit where credit was due. Of course, if you lock your Flipnotes, you're not just blocking "thieves" but you're also blocking the potential for creative mashups.

As you can see, there are a ton of creative ways that people can use the spinoff function. You might see a certain part of your animation become a funny new meme that everybody wants to use, but if it can't be copied, it can't be shared. Talented voice actors might re-dub your comedy Flips, making them even funnier. And of course, if you post an MV, many people will spin your Flipnote off just to use the audio. But none of this is possible if you're so afraid of people "stealing" your work that you choose to lock all your Flipnotes.

And if somebody does repost your Flipnote with little or no change, remember that they didn't really steal it.

They just "refrogged" it to their followers.

Animation Software: Anime Studio

It even has "Studio" in the name!

The video above gives you a quick look at what Anime Studio can do: that is, what YOU can do with Anime Studio. I created this whole character and 2-second long animation in one day, in fact. Here's a quick rundown of pros and cons.

Pros

• Powerful. There's not much this can't do as far as 2D animation goes.
• Time-Saving. Animation in Anime Studio is as simple as posing a character, and the software creates the in-betweens. You don't have to draw every frame!
• Fun. If you like to animate, you'll enjoy using Anime Studio. Figuring out how it all works is like discovering all the possibilities of what you can make.

Cons

• It's not free: The Debut version (which limits you to 2-minute videos and SD output) will set you back $50, with the Pro version (which is far more powerful) costs $300.
• Takes some time: Figuring out Anime Studio will require a decent amount of time reading manuals and tutorials. Fortunately, there are plenty of forums and resources for you out there, but it's not as simple and intuitive as, say, Flipnote Studio.

Fortunately, there is a free trial available. So give it a go, and if you like Anime Studio, you might not ever go back to Flipnotes.

Hello, World!

This is the first post on the Frog Blog, a fan blog dedicated to animation, gaming, and that sweet spot where they overlap: Flipnote Studio (and Flipnote Studio 3D). We'll be covering news related to Flipnote Studio 3D's release, Sudomemo, and Flipnote Gallery: World. Hey, we might even have contests.

We are partnered with Flipnote Forum, as well as the FS3D Facebook Page, so check out those links if you haven't!

-Sforzando