Simplify Annotations
I am a Blender teacher, so I use annotations A LOT. And they're pain in the ass.
Exclusively when I want to use annotations is to draw something like arrows, quick demonstrations, texts around object. And to differentiate between things I need to use different colors.
And to change the color in annotations you'd think you need to just change color from tool settings, right?
Nope, that changes color of everything you've ever drawn. To have something in different color you need to go into View panel, and create new layer for annotations, and assign it a color. Every time you have to do this when you need a new color.
You changed frame and drew again? Well everything is gone now, because annotations are still animateble, and have onion skin too, no less.
Its just not necessary since GP 2.0, and especially today. If I want all those functionality - materials, layers, onion skin, animations, I'll simply add Grease Pencil and draw inside that, its 3 more clicks, but 99% of the time when you need annotations you need to simply draw in different colors, and you need 300 clicks for that.
Please, people who can make this happen, just simplify annotations. It should just draw in whatever color you choose, nothing more.
6 Comments
I strongly resonate with your post What bothers me is that when I annotate in green, and later decide to change the color, all annotations are affected. I think implementing a layer system for annotations would be nice. It could be beneficial, allowing users to assign different colors to each layer. This feature would be particularly useful when working with rendered images, as being able to disable layers and assess the composition of the shot which is crucial.
Also, why control+z don't work with annotations? I know it's a simple tool, but It would be nice to have that also.
If you spend any time in the Blender Discord forum, you'll also find a lot of people who try out the Annotation tool and then can't figure out how to get rid of their annotations.
I don't use annotations, so get your grains of salt out.
I agree with everything except removing annotation animation. Seems like it would be useful to have some annotations at some times in the animation and then get replaced later.
Seems like the real issue here is that annotations don't have the auto keying functionality that Grease Pencil has. With GP, if you start drawing with auto keying enabled, it will make a new frame with that drawing. If you have auto keying disabled, it will add the new stroke to the last frame instead of making a new one.
I don't know though, if you're teaching animation with auto keying then it might get annoying having to constantly toggle the auto keying when you go between animating and annotating. That's what hotkeys are for I guess.
If I wanted to animate annotations, it would be much simpler to just add grease pencil object and use it, or add new layer to existing one. It has that auto keying functionality you talk about, as well as much more. But the main point is that difference is when you want to animate its much easier to add grease pencil, then when you don't want to animate, when you have to change layer after layer of annotations. And most of the time you dont want to animate them
Animators disagree on that. But personally, I do use GP as an annotation tool precisely because GP allows you to toggle new frame generation on/off. Which I wish Annotation tool also had because t's annoying having to set up GP just for a few annotations.
But perhaps a better solution would be to simplify GP so that it can be used "out of the box" and efficiently, like the Annotation allows to.
Annotations can have Still/Animated mode which you switch if you need to. But I'm sure even for animators having to go to the View panel and change layer is as annoying as it is for me. There's just no need for this. Just pick a color an draw. It shouldn't be more difficult than that. Its not easier than setting a GP currently, so whats the point?