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Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
- fairpx 9y agoThis is genius! As a designer & storyteller I love this and I’d like to support you guys with my team’s UI design power (we occasionally help open source or charity projects for free). Reach out if you guys could need some UI design help. Details in my bio.
- warent 9y agoIt's a nice gesture but why not email them directly with the contact info on the website? Maybe I'm being a prig but this post seems like an ad, free or not
- dragontamer 9y agoYou're not alone in your sentiment. There are a few posts around here that do not "feel" like a typical Hacker News post. So my astro-turfing alarms are going off. Granted, this looks like a good tool (at minimum: a very good marketing page), and the practice of astroturfing is unfortunately utilitarian (aka: it works ) in many contexts. But there's something offputting about some of the comments on this story right now. With that being said: I'm not entirely sure if this tool is best suited for the hacker news audience? Its definitely more of an art tool, while the audience around here is more programmer / technical.
- setpixel 9y agoyou can email me: charles@wonderunit.com
- educar 9y agoWhy not just help with some tips here?
- ohmichel 9y agoWOW! So cool what Wonderunit just did; a really cool, useful, FREE creative software.
- pcurve 9y agoThe shot generator feature looks unbelievable. Scroll down and check out this text. Would love to get inside scoop on this. "Storyboard Pro - Shitty software that costs $1000? Boords and other online software that just allows you to order images and costs a monthly fee? Fuck those guys. And fuck Sony Pictures. They make the worst fucking movies. What does that have to do with free software? Not much. Maybe use free software to make great movies and don't waste money going to a Sony movie? Fuck. And fuck Dave Morin. And Gary Vaynerchuk. Ugh."
- avtar 9y agoThat blurb is so bizarre. I wonder why they felt the need to include it. Still going to try this out for new projects though.
- setpixel 9y agoI just wrote that because it's how I feel, and it's free software. I answer to no god but myself.
- opensourcenews 9y agoBut again, to be clear, it's not free software according to the commonly accepted definition of free software. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
- keithnz 9y agowell, to be clear, the dictionary says free means "without charge". You can use this software "without charge"
- opensourcenews 9y agoGreat. Sounds like freeware to me. Not free software.
- lima 9y ago
- sramam 9y agoThis looks really wonderful! Interesting that there is a CLA, but no embedded license file? Rather curious for such a well executed application and launch page.
- setpixel 9y agoThanks! I haven't made up my mind on the LIC yet. As for the launch page, it's a thing that comes easy to me.
- dharness 9y agoI found the drawing tools limiting -- I just need 1 brush that has the option to change: - size - opacity - color Also there are a finite set a pre-defined artboard sizes for some reason.
- setpixel 9y agoWe have a totally new drawing system we are working on: https://s3.amazonaws.com/test.wonderunit.com/index.html https://s3.amazonaws.com/test.wonderunit.com/index.html
- maroonblazer 9y agoNice! FWIW I think Procreate does a really great job of striking the right balance between options/flexibility and simplicity.
- setpixel 9y agoYes! I'm modelling after their brush system.
- gitgud 9y agoWow Generating the initial wire-frame scenes with the shot-generator feature looks amazing!
- ixtli 9y agoBuried deep in the marketing page is a dynamic shot generator powered by typing in keywords?! I don't know much about video production but this seems insanely cool.
- setpixel 9y agoOnce you play with it, you'll see it's really early. There's so much I want to do with it. It's very much v.0.1 of shot generator.
- ixtli 9y agoI'm not surprised. I'm not really in that biz, so it's just really cool to me that such a thing exists. I love coming across applications of tech that, to us engineers, are pretty simple but to the user are game changing.
- askvictor 9y agoThis looks awesome; a quick look at the source shows it uses Electron. How feasible would it be to package as a Chrome app? I would be awesome in education, but a lot of our students use Chromebooks.
- setpixel 9y agoI'd love to try to figure that out!!! Do chromebooks have pens?
- epc 9y agoMany do but not all (I have a Samsung which does and an Acer which doesn't).
- askvictor 9y agoSome do, some don't. Increasing numbers of them have touchscreens though. Also, some of them have access to the Android Play store, so if it can be packaged as an Android app, that might also work. I don't know what sort of API's chromebooks have for pens though.
- askvictor 9y agoAlternately as a web-app, but again, not sure what APIs you have access to - I recall there being a stylus web-api about 10 years ago, created by wacom, but it died.
- ksec 9y agoThis comment right after the announcement of new Apple iPad.
- westondeboer 9y agothe download link https://wonderunit.com/storyboarder/download/ https://wonderunit.com/storyboarder/download/
- ausjke 9y agosite is down, DDOSed by HN visitors I assume
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- setpixel 9y agoYou can download from here: https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/releases https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/releases Feel free to star too :D
- dbranes 9y agoFor people wondering about the type of thing that the generator supports, there's this config file https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/blob/f0a7cc75beb1247a6317411a133fb1345b6395ad/src/js/shot-template-system/shot-properties.js https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/blob/f0a7cc75beb1...
- senectus1 9y agoDammit I wanted to see this... hope the site comes back up soon!
- setpixel 9y agoHmmm - is DNS not responding? I was switching to cloudflare earlier, maybe I screwed something up. Had no idea I was going to be on HN
- askvictor 9y agoI'm getting this problem from my work network, but works fine from my 4G connection.
- setpixel 9y agoYou can download from here: https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/releases https://github.com/wonderunit/storyboarder/releases Feel free to star too :D
- keithnz 9y agofree to star is controlled by freestar.org, unless that star has broken away from a central blackhole controlling its motion and can navigate through space at will then you can't use free star. It's just not the definition....perhaps you mean "if one so desires one can click the star button when one visits the repository on github"
- opensourcenews 9y agoNote: This licensing is really unclear and problematic. https://twitter.com/charlesforman/status/909863346127671296 https://twitter.com/charlesforman/status/909863346127671296 https://wonderunit.com/thoughts-on-free-and-open-source/ https://wonderunit.com/thoughts-on-free-and-open-source/
- setpixel 9y agoWhy is it problematic? I think I lay my thoughts out pretty clearly.
- opensourcenews 9y agoBecause open source has a very specific definition which the licensing on this application does not conform to. The ability to produce derived works is a key attribute of open source. And I understand that these are your thoughts, but what I'm looking for is a clear and legally enforceable license, which seems to still be missing.
- setpixel 9y agoWhy would you downvote my comment?
- aviflombaum 9y agoI would love to know the very specific definition of open source you are referring too. I believe there are multiple very specific definitions that are drastically different, from Stallman's "Free Software" to "Open Source" to "Creative Commons" and the flavors in-between. The proliferation of Open Source Licenses seems to suggest that it's not as clear as your myopic viewpoint suggests. "The ability to produce derived works is a key attribute of open source." Where did you get that gem from? "but what I'm looking for is a clear and legally enforceable license, which seems to still be missing." As far as I know the only OS License that has been deemed enforceable is GNU General Public License. It's free software and the code is viewable, what's so hard to understand?
- setpixel 9y agoHi, this is Charles. I made Storyboarder. I used to be in YC in 2006. We are a super small team, making Storyboarder without any funding. We're just trying to make a tool to use on our own movie project. 150k people use Storyboarder and we are struggling to keep up with the response.
- setpixel 9y agoAlso, look how old my HN account is! LOLZ. I'm old :(
- atarian 9y agoI'm interested in seeing the movie. Where can I find more info about it?
- setpixel 9y agojust email me: charles@setpixel.com - its not even close to done yet tho
- master-litty 9y agoAre you making an animated film? 2D or 3D?
- siruncledrew 9y agoAwesome website! It's nice to laugh while reading it, most product websites aren't like that
- deltaprotocol 9y agoIt's breaks really bad on mobile though. Seems to be a very well thought out product from the little I could see.
- bluetwo 9y agoBased on the marketing site only, this looks like a nicely thought out tool. Hope to see it develop even more. Congrats.
- jjeaff 9y agoInteresting that pains were taken to require an email before downloading, even an extensive blacklist to block throwaway email services like mailinator. Yet, the release is freely available on the linked github page.
- setpixel 9y agoYou know how it is dawg. Gotta get them email addresses. How can I turn them into fat stacks?
- jessaustin 9y ago'jjeaff didn't downvote your comment, because as the author of the parent 'jjeaff couldn't downvote your comment. Do note that lots of HNers downvote every comment that complains about downvoting.
- askvictor 9y agoYou should be clearer in the email that the user is subscribing to something, and what they are subscribing too...
- setpixel 9y agoYou downvoted my comment? That's cold blooded. What's your deal? Did your father not love you enough? OR TOO MUCH? Get over yourself dawg. I'm just responding to your comment. Maybe I'm new to the community here. My account is only 12 years old.
- dEnigma 9y agoSeems like setpixel now wants more than just your email: https://twitter.com/charlesforman/status/978808181425082368 https://twitter.com/charlesforman/status/978808181425082368
- theyinwhy 9y ago@setpixel, your behaviour is very unpleasing and clearly violates the most important principle of hackernews: civility. "Since long before the web, the anonymity of online conversation has lured people into being much ruder than they'd be in person. So the principle here is: don't say anything you wouldn't say face to face. This doesn't mean you can't disagree. But disagree without calling names. If you're right, your argument will be more convincing without them." You can find the rest of the site guidelines here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- antidaily 9y agoDooooooope.
- hippich 9y agoI am no story designer and just checked it out out of interest. For whatever reason drawing (using touchpad on my laptop) is super slow (running it in Ubuntu 16.04) - is it expected and I should be using tablet to draw, or this is some issue with my video drivers or something along these lines?
- askvictor 9y agoJust had a play; stylus input works a treat, as does mouse/trackpad, but using a touchscreen (finger, or 'dumb stylus') doesn't seem to let me draw continuous lines at all. A _lot_ of laptops have touchscreens nowadays, much fewer have 'real' styluses.
- needcaffeine 9y agoI cannot get the site to load in Chrome 65, by the way. I'm getting: >This site can’t provide a secure connection >wonderunit.com uses an unsupported protocol. >ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH
- danso 9y agoSame here. Works fine on Chrome iOS from my iPhone.
- pmontra 9y agoIf the author reads this, I can't view the site with the latest Firefox on Android (can't check the desktop one yet). The error is SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP which means that the site and Firefox don't share any cipher so it's really the end of the story. The ciphers supported by Firefox are TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (0xc02b) TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (0xc02f) TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256 (0xcca9) TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256 (0xcca8) TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (0xc02c) TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (0xc030) TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0xc00a) TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA (0xc009) TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA (0xc013) TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0xc014) TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA (0x33) TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0x39) TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA (0x2f) TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0x35) TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA (0xa) The last three ones are reported as weak by https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html The author should add at least one of the others to the web site SSL configuration.
- executesorder66 9y agoSame error for desktop Firefox v59.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pmontra 9y agoI add something more. Opera tells me This site can’t provide a secure connection wonderunit.com uses an unsupported protocol. Unsupported protocol The client and server don't support a common SSL protocol version or cipher suite. Chrome says wonderunit.com uses an unsupported protocol. ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH All of them on Ubuntu. Maybe browsers on other OSes are more relaxed because it seems that most people can access that site.
- undecisive 9y agoSame on Vivaldi and Google Chrome on Mac (Sierra, 10.12.6)
- hellofunk 9y agoApparently, the author of the software thinks all "good" artists steal the software they use: > "Let's be completely real – I've never known anyone working on dope ass shit to be paying for the software they use anyways." If I had known this, I wouldn't be giving up several hundred dollars a year for Adobe Creative Cloud. No wonder I'm not a good artist.
- bauerd 9y agoThe whole paragraph makes me wonder what went through the author's head … >And fuck Sony Pictures. They make the worst fucking movies. What does that have to do with free software? Not much. Maybe use free software to make great movies and don't waste money going to a Sony movie? Fuck. >And fuck Dave Morin. And Gary Vaynerchuk. Ugh.
- baldfat 9y agoI think that if you look into Music creation on computers you will see that most artist steal plugins and instruments all the time. When someone comes over to have me listen to something that are making I love making fun of how they purchased maybe two things. Then I have them look at my setup and their eyes get big when they see all my stuff is actually paid for. Heck most of the time I see sublime text it isn't even licensed.
- paulie_a 9y agoI used to chat with a lot of animators that ran warez channels on IRC. People at ILM and other studios literally traded cracked copies of software
- spookyuser 9y agoThis is amazing, the frame-generator is so futuristic I feel like it could almost replace Frameforge as is. I can't wait to see how this matures.
- erikb 9y agohttps errror and it's not just that the certificate is unknown.
- hellofunk 9y agoThis snippet: > When I look at people like Richard Stallman, I just don’t know what they want out of life, but it’s certainly not to cultivate great taste, or to make great art. He seems to want to politicize some open source agenda as a religion to the detriment of taking a shower or exercising. I fail to see what he is trying to achieve. He seems to connect with only certain types of people - definitely not me.
- fapjacks 9y agoDo you even lift?
- fredguth 9y agoReminds me of an old tool called Animator.
- wodenokoto 9y agoThe software looks very impressive, and the marketing page really sells it well. I know next to nothing about storyboarding, and I can see easily see the value-proposition of it. The author himself seems like quite the character too, judging both from the comments in this thread and on some of the off-hand remarks in the marketing material.
- the-dude 9y agoDo you mean he seems to be his own worst enemy?
- dec0dedab0de 9y agoI would rather pay for Free Software than use zero cost Non-Free Software. Edit: To elaborate, if you take the time to learn how to use this, and incorporate it into your workflow, you're at the mercy of the developer. If they decide to stop distributing it, and you get a new computer, then you're not even legally allowed to install it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- IAmEveryone 9y agoNOTE: You may want to stay far away from this project. The author is trying to do an end-run around Open Source licensing, as can be seen in the last section of this weird and rambling rant: https://web.archive.org/web/20180130105751/https://wonderunit.com/thoughts-on-free-and-open-source/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180130105751/https://wonderuni... There have been several issues and PRs raised trying to add a license to the project. These were never acknowledged by the author, and silently closed after a while.
- danso 9y agoIt's a strange position that the author takes. It seems that a good part of his reluctance/cautiousness comes from a run-in with some educator who forked the repo and made some aesthetic changes ("removed all the swears") and then scrubbed the fork of any mention of "Wonder Unit": > The readme, the software, and even the images. Because of the way GitHub works, it now looks like we are contributors on his project. IANAL, but if Storyboarder was MIT License, this forker couldn't just scrub the license of all mention of Wonder Unit (or whoever was listed as copyright holders), right? But as far as making a fork look like his own project...Sure, that's the risk with any open source venture, but by and large, forks (especially by individual people) don't seem to go anywhere. This forker isn't likely to end up with anything but an outdated buggy copy of a ostensibly popular and evolving product. It does seems like the creator and his collaborators have put in a non-trivial amount of thought and desire into going OSS, but are also wary of running into any unseen pitfalls. It just seems strange that they've come this far developing the product and putting it in the open; why be hung up about some educator doofus who wants to clean up cuss words in the code/docs, as if he and his ilk present a real threat to what Wonder Unit have made? edit: grammer, wording
- IAmEveryone 9y agoI admire your optimism, but I just can't share it. That licensing rant ends with the line "And it will only cost $30 per seat." (for and education-specific version) while also specifying a plan that would prohibit distribution either by or to education institutions. I really don't have a problem with commercial software. But schemes like this, trying to get the best of both worlds and in the process undermining the meaning of Free Software always strike me as both destructive and pathetic. It's not even that hard to properly execute a dual-licensing scheme: they could license the code under GPL, which would make it hard to impossible for others to commercialise. Then, they could offer a commercial license to educational institutions, and would be the only ones allowed to charge for such a version. But the tone of that blog post makes me think there's more that's wrong with this project than just their licensing.
- thedaemon 9y agoWow, I feel really bad for the authors of this wonderful free software.(Even though I liked the previous Storyboard Foundation build better...) Everyone hating on the project because it doesn't have a normal license is a weird thing to complain about. This software is for artists; we just use software and we don't really care about the license. We use paid and free software. That is the only different to the end user. Is it paid or free? Software that is open-source has little to no effect on me directly as an artist. I don't edit the code, I use the software.
- monkmartinez 9y agoThat is not smart. "Artist" or not does not preclude one from the enforcement of law. Its like saying; "I'am just going to build a sculpture right here.... I don't really care about the codes or who owns the land, I am an artist so rules don't apply to me!"
- mindcrash 9y ago"An error occurred during a connection to wonderunit.com. Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s). Error code: SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP" What the hell?
- erichdongubler 9y agoThis is odd because the "download link" that gets mailed seems to be a MailChimp email subscribe link too. What the heck? I wanted a download link, not a subscription to whatever marketing you want to send my way later...