In late November, Procreate released their new animation app called Procreate Dreams. It currently (as of 12/9/23) lists for $19.95 US and is a one time purchase. (Hooray for no subscription or inapp fees!) I've been watching a few online tutorials and am having fun playing around with it. I find it is an app with many deep features and gestures that take time to navigate and learn, but once you get start to get the hang of it, parts of it are quite intuitive! Here is what I like so far:
The drawing interface is almost identical to the drawing and layer tools in Procreate. (However, the some features like alpha lock and other adjustments in layers are lacking. Also you can not draw smart shapes.)
You can easy import a drawing from Procreate; then you can open the layers on your timeline and add animated features to individual layers.
The Key Frame features are very intuitive. Once you know the tricks, it is easy to move, rotate, and warp a drawing, which makes it very easy to quickly create simple animations. (Some of this is very similar to creating path animations and using Magic Move in Keynote.)
It has a simple flip book feature to create frame by frame animations. This is fairly easy to use, but I have found it to be a bit fussy when trying to combine this with other animated tracks.
You can easily import photos and videos into the timeline, and then can draw and animate over top of them. You can also add music clips from your files.
Here is a simple example of a snowman animation that I created using Procreate Dream. (Yes, these 10 seconds took several hours to figure out, but hopefully I should get faster every time I do it.)
Here are a few of the video tutorials that I found helpful:
I'm excited to continue working in Procreate Dreams to discover new ways to create animations. Let me know if you have tried using it and what you think of it in the comments - would love to hear your insights.
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Pat, if you already use Procreate and are interested in animation, it definitely is worth the purchase, especially since it is a one time purchase and will continue to have features added. In comparison to Keynote - some things are easier in Dreams, but I still like the move animation in Keynote as being more intuitive and it is missing a line draw animation like in Keynote. Dreams does have a flip book feature that is great for frame by frame animation and you also have so many more brushes for drawing! So I'd suggest Procreate Dreams for anyone who has done some animating in Keynote, but is looking for ways to take it a step further.
Posted on December 10, 2023
Thanks for sharing this new tool. Is it more intuitive and powerful that what Keynote can do? Is it worth the 20$ in your opinion?