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NEWS: ComiPo! Manga-Making Program to Get English Release




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firedragon54738



Joined: 24 Sep 2007
Posts: 3113
Location: wisconsin
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 12:24 pm Reply with quote
Sweet now I just have to find it
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Big Hed



Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 1607
Location: Melbourne, Australia
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 12:25 pm Reply with quote
I predict a great flood of these on sites like Myspace and 4chan by late summer next year.
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FireChick
Subscriber



Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2475
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 3:12 pm Reply with quote
I wonder if this program lets you create your own characters and settings?
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14886
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:39 pm Reply with quote
I wonder if ya can create H-doujin out of this? Laughing
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 4:54 pm Reply with quote

In effect, there already exist software tools to provide such a feature. Their appeal becomes limited in due time, however.
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littlegreenwolf



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 4796
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 6:10 pm Reply with quote
Lame. Anyone can learn how to draw, this will just give them a reason not to keep at it and improve. Only thing I can see this being any good for is angling the 3D character for poses and perspectives, but plenty of programs already are around like that as artist aids.
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ZipZapZopTitania



Joined: 18 Sep 2010
Posts: 132
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 7:44 pm Reply with quote
Aha! I get it! It's like MikuMikuDance, but you can pay for it!

...I like drawing better. And 3D with random bulbous sweat drops doesn't sit right with me.
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momogoldfish



Joined: 01 May 2009
Posts: 135
Location: New Zealand
PostPosted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 9:24 pm Reply with quote
I downloaded the free trial version to try.

http://www.comipo.com/evaluate/index.html (For those who can't understand Japanese just click the hot pink button)

The interface is a combination of google sketch and adobe photoshop/illustrator but much simpler and user friendly. IMHO, it's really good if all you want to do is simple school-theme mangas but if you want to do something really original draw it yourself instead.
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Ringking



Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Posts: 338
PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 2:54 am Reply with quote
^ i know this is fairly obvious but for anyone who's downloading this, you need your PC in Japanese locale to install it.

Its funny, when your in the character design screen there's a drop down box which lets you change the camera angle. The one right at the bottom is the upskirt view (no manga making program would be complete without one i guess Razz)

But ill defiantly be getting this. At best i can use it to storyboard the short stories i write, at worst i can make silly 4-koma and send them to people.
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overlordrae



Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 92
PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 12:52 pm Reply with quote
...Lazy and uninteresting. If your story is good, you shouldn't have a problem finding an interested artist(especially if you have the money to pay them). This will be for hobbists that aren't serious or interested about telling a good story with good art.
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Olivine



Joined: 01 May 2010
Posts: 197
Location: Sol 3
PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 1:48 pm Reply with quote
ZipZapZopTitania wrote:
Aha! I get it! It's like MikuMikuDance, but you can pay for it!

That, and the models are not custom posable like MikuMikuDance...nor does it have something like the PMD editor for MikuMikuDance. MMD is awesome! I just wish I was good at 3d modeling, since you can basically make anything with the PMD editor. But that hasn't stopped me from screwing around with the models in MMD. Anime smallmouth

...
Note: The following link may be slightly indecent. Shocked
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2028/twinmikurin51000.jpg
*flees thread*
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Ringking



Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Posts: 338
PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 4:14 pm Reply with quote
overlordrae wrote:
...Lazy and uninteresting. If your story is good, you shouldn't have a problem finding an interested artist(especially if you have the money to pay them). This will be for hobbists that aren't serious or interested about telling a good story with good art.


Mabye thats the case for people drawing manga, but its enough for me to represent whats going on in a novel in a visual way, makes it easier to figure out whats going to happen next. Sides, you seen some of the rates those artists charge.

But anyways, i think your not giving it as much credit as it probally should get. There was this game a few years back called "the movies", where you ran a movie studio and had looked after your stars and whatnot. The best part of that was the custom movie editor. It used a lot of precripted stuff like this, but you could create some pretty amazing stuff with it. I think it will be worth seeing just how much flexibility the full version has before passing any judgements.

On the 3D modelling forn t that some people have mentioned, didn't one of the ealier news posts about the program mention that they were planning to put in a 3d modelling part later, but that wouldnt be included in the initial release?
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overlordrae



Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 92
PostPosted: Thu Dec 16, 2010 10:33 pm Reply with quote
Ringking wrote:
overlordrae wrote:
...Lazy and uninteresting. If your story is good, you shouldn't have a problem finding an interested artist(especially if you have the money to pay them). This will be for hobbists that aren't serious or interested about telling a good story with good art.


Mabye thats the case for people drawing manga, but its enough for me to represent whats going on in a novel in a visual way, makes it easier to figure out whats going to happen next. Sides, you seen some of the rates those artists charge.

But anyways, i think your not giving it as much credit as it probally should get. There was this game a few years back called "the movies", where you ran a movie studio and had looked after your stars and whatnot. The best part of that was the custom movie editor. It used a lot of precripted stuff like this, but you could create some pretty amazing stuff with it. I think it will be worth seeing just how much flexibility the full version has before passing any judgements.

On the 3D modelling forn t that some people have mentioned, didn't one of the ealier news posts about the program mention that they were planning to put in a 3d modelling part later, but that wouldnt be included in the initial release?
I AM an artist. Rates are usually calculated into an hourly rate and even then a lot of them are working under minimum wage. Even so, were a story interesting enough, I (and many other comic artists I know) would work with a writer for less or even for free. Good comic writers are hard to come by.

This is pretty much on the level of a sprite comic for me, honestly...and if enough people buy the program, I can bet the webcomic community will soon consider it on the same level as well.

Can people do amazing stuff with it? Maybe. Probably, even. But all the time they spent learning how to make amazing stuff with it could have been spent actually working on making something visually less cookie-cutter. Even if you could model a bit more, I highly doubt you'd ever be able to get something on the par of Dreamland Chronicles, which is the only 3D comic I've ever seen worth mentioning.

This isn't even taking into account limitations of the models(they should have done a sliding scale and ability to combine the six main emotions for more subtlety of expressions for instance), or the pacing issues that are always apparent by people that rely on template pages for panelling.
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Ringking



Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Posts: 338
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 1:02 am Reply with quote
overlordrae wrote:
Ringking wrote:
overlordrae wrote:
...Lazy and uninteresting. If your story is good, you shouldn't have a problem finding an interested artist(especially if you have the money to pay them). This will be for hobbists that aren't serious or interested about telling a good story with good art.


Mabye thats the case for people drawing manga, but its enough for me to represent whats going on in a novel in a visual way, makes it easier to figure out whats going to happen next. Sides, you seen some of the rates those artists charge.

But anyways, i think your not giving it as much credit as it probally should get. There was this game a few years back called "the movies", where you ran a movie studio and had looked after your stars and whatnot. The best part of that was the custom movie editor. It used a lot of precripted stuff like this, but you could create some pretty amazing stuff with it. I think it will be worth seeing just how much flexibility the full version has before passing any judgements.

On the 3D modelling forn t that some people have mentioned, didn't one of the ealier news posts about the program mention that they were planning to put in a 3d modelling part later, but that wouldnt be included in the initial release?
I AM an artist. Rates are usually calculated into an hourly rate and even then a lot of them are working under minimum wage. Even so, were a story interesting enough, I (and many other comic artists I know) would work with a writer for less or even for free. Good comic writers are hard to come by.

This is pretty much on the level of a sprite comic for me, honestly...and if enough people buy the program, I can bet the webcomic community will soon consider it on the same level as well.

Can people do amazing stuff with it? Maybe. Probably, even. But all the time they spent learning how to make amazing stuff with it could have been spent actually working on making something visually less cookie-cutter. Even if you could model a bit more, I highly doubt you'd ever be able to get something on the par of Dreamland Chronicles, which is the only 3D comic I've ever seen worth mentioning.

This isn't even taking into account limitations of the models(they should have done a sliding scale and ability to combine the six main emotions for more subtlety of expressions for instance), or the pacing issues that are always apparent by people that rely on template pages for panelling.



I wouldn't have even bothered to use it like that, i dont know about other people but i can already tell that this wont be able to compete with hand drawn works. This is really for people who dont plan on using the work produced for mass consumption the way printed and online comics are used.

I mean sure, there's probably going to be at least one person who will try to get into the web comic game with it, and unless they possess a good deal of writing ability they generally aren't going to be terribly successful.

And yes, this isn't exactly the perfect program. Its hard to say because I've only tested it by clicking experimentally on a limited trial version in a language i cant read, but there where many potential improvements that jumped out at me as well.

I guess what im trying to say is, dont discredit its potential just because you can already draw better or with more flexibility than what the program allows. To an accomplished illustrator it probably wont look like much, but to those on the other side of the fence, or those who are looking at it for a different purpose, it looks incredibly useful.

As for:

Quote:
But all the time they spent learning how to make amazing stuff with it could have been spent actually working on making something visually less cookie-cutter


Thats true, but there's a hole in that reasoning. Time. Someone who is competent with a computer could likley master this program in the space of a day, where as the same person learning to draw by hand would be at it for a lot longer. If they where dedicated to getting into the comic buissness, fair enough. If they dont need that level of ability for what they are trying to do however, learning to that level would be a waste of their time.
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will2power



Joined: 22 Dec 2010
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 1:57 pm Reply with quote
I think there's an audience that you guys might be missing when you talk about this. I know artists may be worried that something like this might take away from their efforts, but I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Think about it this way. I have a daughter who likes manga, but she cant draw. There's no sense in trying to gloss that over. She's not a good artist --but does that mean she should never consider making a manga? A tool like this comes along and now she has the opportunity to be able to make a manga of her own. By the way, she's 11.

She makes youtube videos all the time and she likes to take the characters from her favorite anime and make music videos of her own. I help her with it when I can, but she's getting good enough to the point where she can do it mostly on her own. I give her a pointer or two now and then, but she's become quite adept at Windows Live Movie maker.

A program like this allows a child to indulge their creativity. I think what you're going to see here is maybe a bunch of girls and boys using a program like this to get in touch with their own sense of creativity. Hell, it may even inspire a few to learn how to draw.

This program isn't going to spell the end for Manga. Just like the digital camera didn't spell the end for serious photographers, and 3d modeling programs like DAZ and Sketchup and Poser didn't spell the end for Pixar.

When the English version comes out, I'm going to make sure to get it for her and I'm looking forward to see what her imagination comes up with. It won't stop me from drawing because its something I love very much. I don't think you artists types should let a program like this keep you from doing everything you can to excel at what makes you happy either.
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