AnimSoup Manual

1 · Getting started

AnimSoup runs in a browser. There is nothing to install. It works on iPad with a pencil.

1. Open the app and create an account.
2. File ▸ New project for a blank canvas, or File ▸ Load clip / image sequence to draw over existing footage.
3. Double-click the project name, resolution, frame count or fps in the top bar to change any of them.

Saving. Your work saves automatically in this browser and stays on your own device. Ctrl+S pins a restore point; File ▸ Revert to restore point returns to it if you dislike where a drawing went. File ▸ Save project (.anim) downloads the whole project as a file you own — do that before switching machines or clearing browser data.

2 · The drawing tools

Tap a tool to select it. Tap the active tool a second time to open its options. Each tool stores its own size, opacity and stabilizer settings, which are restored when you switch back to it.

Pencil P

Textured graphite line for roughs and construction. Pressure controls both thickness and darkness. A light, fast stroke leaves gaps in the texture, similar to a pencil skipping across paper grain.

Ink K

Solid line for final art. Pressure differences are amplified, producing sharper thick-to-thin transitions than the pencil. Fast strokes thin out slightly. Use it on a layer above your roughs for cleanup.

Brush B

Soft stamped dabs for shading. Softness sets the edge falloff. Flow sets how much colour each dab deposits. Low flow with repeated passes builds tone gradually.

Eraser E

Erases on the active layer only. Layers underneath are not affected.

Paint bucket G

Tap inside a closed shape to flood it. Tolerance decides how far the fill spreads across soft or broken edges; raise it if the fill stops short, lower it if it leaks. You can also drag a colour swatch straight onto the canvas to fill where you drop it.

Colour art mode puts fills on a separate surface underneath your lines, so repainting colour never erases lineart.

Lasso fill L

Draw a loop around an area. The shape closes and fills with the current colour. Useful where the lines are not fully enclosed and the bucket would leak.

Shapes — Line D, Rectangle M, Ellipse C

Drag to draw. Hold Shift to constrain: 45° angles, perfect squares, perfect circles. Rectangle and ellipse have a Fill toggle in their options.

Gradient W

Drag to fade the current colour to transparent. Useful for skies, light falloff and soft shadow beds.

Select / move V

Box a region, then drag inside to move it, the corners to scale, the top handle to rotate. Cut, copy and paste work normally. Press Enter to drop a floating or pasted selection into the drawing.

Eyedropper I

Picks a colour from anywhere on the canvas.

Pan H and zoom

Drag to move the canvas. You can pan at any time by holding Space and dragging, or with the middle mouse button. The mouse wheel zooms. On iPad, two fingers pan, pinch and rotate the canvas at any time.

Laser T

A temporary stroke that fades after a moment. Nothing is added to the drawing. Intended for pointing during a class.

3 · Tool options explained

Tap the active tool a second time to reveal these. Only the options that apply to that tool appear.

4 · Pressure and line quality

With a pen, pressure controls both width and darkness. Light pressure produces a faint hairline suitable for construction lines; firm pressure produces a dark, thick accent. With a mouse there is no pressure data, so stroke speed is used instead and fast strokes come out thinner.

5 · Layers

Layers stack bottom to top in the timeline. Each has visibility 👁, a lock, an opacity slider and a blend mode. Double-click a layer's name to rename it. Drag the edge of the layer-name column to widen it when names get long.

• Hold (H) — when on, a drawing stays on screen across the following frames until another drawing replaces it. This is what allows animation on twos and threes. Turn it off if a layer should appear only on its own frames.
• Merge down combines a layer into the one below; Flatten visible combines everything visible into one.
• Drawing is always confined to the active layer, so erasing never damages layers underneath.

6 · The timeline

Frames run left to right and layers stack top to bottom. Click or drag on the frame row to scrub.

• Zoom — the 🔍− and 🔍＋ buttons, or hold Ctrl and scroll over the timeline.
• Add / duplicate / delete frame from the transport row or the Frame menu.
• Exposure — drag the right edge of a drawn cell to hold that drawing longer or shorter; later keys shift along.
• Extend — drag the ⇥ handle at the end of the frames to lengthen or shorten the whole animation.
• Move a drawing — middle-mouse drag a drawn cell onto another frame on the same layer. If that frame already has a drawing, the two swap. Undo reverses it.
• Loop range — { and } set loop in and out; the band on the timeline can be dragged by its ends.
• Onion skin O — see the frames before and after as coloured ghosts. Hold the Onion button for settings: how many frames each way, opacity, and tinting.
• Preview — a floating mini player that loops while you keep drawing.

7 · X-sheet, timing charts and notes

The X-sheet tab on the right edge opens a vertical exposure sheet, the traditional layout where time runs downward. Panels hold action, camera and dialogue notes per shot.

The timing chart lets you mark keys and breakdowns on a layer and space the inbetweens between them — the chart marks then drive which frames get rendered or interpolated later.

The dopesheet lanes below the frames hold markers: accents ◆, dialogue, sound and notes. Click a lane to add one at that frame; drag markers to retime them. Frame-bound comments can be added as notes and jumped to with ↑ and ↓.

8 · Puppet — cutout animation U

Moves an entire layer instead of drawing on it. Used for cutout animation.

• Drag to move, Shift-drag to rotate, Alt-drag to scale.
• Double-click to set the pivot point the layer rotates around.
• Releasing sets a key ◆ on that frame. Two keys tween automatically between them.
• Drag the ◆ diamonds on the timeline to retime a move; Del removes one.
• A layer can be parented to another, so an arm follows a body.

You can draw on a layer after moving it. New strokes land where you see them on screen.

9 · Vector pen N and node editing A

The vector pen draws an editable line on a vector layer, created automatically the first time you use it. In Freehand mode you draw normally and the stroke becomes an editable curve; in Pen mode you click to place corner points and drag to pull curves, double-click or Enter to finish.

With Edit nodes you can drag points and their tangent handles, click on the path to insert a point, drag empty space to marquee-select several, Alt-click to make a corner, and Del to remove. Points: Low / Med / High controls how many anchors a freehand stroke is fitted to — fewer points give smoother, more editable curves.

10 · The camera (Full)

Press 🎥 cam in the timeline row. The view switches to stage view: you see the artwork as it really is, plus a gold frame showing what the camera captures.

• Drag inside the gold frame to pan the shot, drag a corner to zoom, drag the ⟳ stalk to tilt.
• Releasing sets a camera key ◆ on the current frame. Set another key on a later frame and the move tweens between them.
• The button panel above the canvas does the same thing in precise steps, with a live readout of position, zoom and angle.
• Select any other layer to look through the camera again. The camera applies to playback, the preview player and every export.

For a slow push-in, set one key on the first frame with the frame wide, and one on the last frame slightly tighter.

11 · Storyboard mode (Full)

Press 🎬 board to plan a whole film in one project, then split it into shots.

1. Load your audio track so you can time against it.
2. Move the playhead and press ✂ cut to split the timeline into shots. ⇤ in and ⇥ out retime the current shot; ✏ renames it; 🗑 merges it into the previous one.
3. Rough in each shot, place backgrounds with 🖼 BG, and key the camera per shot.
4. Press ⬇ export shots (also in the File menu) and choose a folder. Each shot is written as its own project file containing its drawings, its held backgrounds, its camera move and its slice of the audio.

12 · Audio

File ▸ Load audio brings in a track; the timeline extends to fit it. Scrubbing the timeline plays the audio under your cursor so you can find beats and sync dialogue. The waveform is drawn in the audio panel, and an offset field shifts the track against the frames. Audio is saved inside the project.

13 · Export

Exports on the free tier carry a small AnimSoup mark. Full exports have no mark.

14 · Working on iPad

• Draw with the pencil; your palm is ignored while the pencil is on the glass.
• Two fingers pan, pinch to zoom, and twist to rotate the canvas.
• Two-finger tap undoes, three-finger tap redoes.
• Add AnimSoup to your home screen for a full-screen, app-like window.

15 · Keyboard shortcuts