How to Frame by Frame Animate in Procreate Dreams?

While Procreate Dreams excels at animation through keyframes and tweening, it does not offer a traditional, purely manual frame-by-frame animation workflow in the way you might expect from older animation software. It focuses primarily on keyframe animation. However, there are methods to simulate and achieve a similar effect within its structure.

Here's how you can approach achieving frame-by-frame-like animation in Procreate Dreams:

1. Using Keyframes for Minimal Movement:

• Concept: The core idea is to create keyframes with very small adjustments, essentially mimicking the small changes you'd make in a traditional frame-by-frame workflow.
• Steps:
  1. Import or Create Your First Frame: Begin with your starting image.
  2. Set a Keyframe: Place a keyframe at the beginning of your timeline for your object/character.
  3. Advance a Small Amount of Time: Move the playhead forward a very short duration (e.g., 1-2 frames).
  4. Create a Second Keyframe: Add a new keyframe at this point in time.
  5. Make a Subtle Adjustment: In this new keyframe, make a tiny change to your object's position, rotation, scale, or drawing (if redrawing/modifying).
  6. Repeat: Continue advancing in short increments, adding a new keyframe each time, and making minor changes in each keyframe.

2. Drawing on Every Frame (Simulating Frame-by-Frame):

• Concept: While not true frame-by-frame, you can redraw your subject on almost every frame to create the illusion of it.
• Steps:
  1. Create Your First Drawing: Make your initial drawing on the timeline.
  2. Add a New Frame: Move the timeline indicator slightly and create a new drawing.
  3. Redraw/Modify: Carefully redraw your subject with slight changes on the new frame. Use onion skinning if available for guidance.
  4. Repeat: Continue this process for each "frame" of your animation.

Limitations and Considerations:

• Tweening: Procreate Dreams is designed to automatically create smooth transitions (tweening) between keyframes. With tiny movements, this can sometimes be desirable, but in other cases, you might want to disable tweening between specific keyframes for a more "stepped" animation style.
• Onion Skinning: Use onion skinning (if implemented in Procreate Dreams) to help guide your drawing in each frame, showing you the previous and subsequent frames faintly. This will aid in creating consistent and believable movement.
• Time Consumption: Simulating frame-by-frame animation this way in Procreate Dreams can be time-consuming, requiring a large number of keyframes and meticulous adjustments.

In Summary:

Procreate Dreams does not support direct frame-by-frame animation in the classic sense. However, you can achieve a similar look by either using keyframes with minimal movement orredrawing your subject on nearly every frame. Keep in mind, this can be a more tedious workflow, and you will need to control the tweening between keyframes to achieve the desired result.