The Manga Studio Q&A Thread!

johnnystress · 26 January, 2013, 11:25:45 AM

I figured it out in the end-- the lesson here is 'always read the instructions'

Jim_Campbell · 23 July, 2013, 08:57:49 AM

Haven't upgraded to Manga Studio 5EX yet, but have had time for a little play with regular v5 and it's very nice. The EX version pretty much only adds multi-page document support (and some binding options that might be useful if you're outputting final print files) — all the other stuff that you used to have to upgrade to EX for, perspective rulers, the ability to save your own custom brushes, all now comes with the standard version.

A little 'yay' from me was the appearance of a new ruler that has Illustrator-style bezier handles, rather than than the incomprehensible 'Path' option in the v4 rulers.

Text handling is better. Nowhere near what a professional letterer would need, but I think probably good enough for the occasional bit of lettering.

There's an absolute wealth of really useful tutorial videos by Doug (Manga Studio for Dummies) Hills on the Smith Micro site. It's worth following Doug on Twitter, too — @DNHills

I've only experimented with the inking tools, and not the painting brushes, but Ray Frenden's Manga Studio 5 brush set looks like $4.99 well-spent. It's also worth following Ray on Twitter — @FRENDEN

More updates as events warrant...

Cheers!

Jim

pauljholden · 23 July, 2013, 10:10:43 AM

I've found that any text seems to be fixed inside a bounding box and clipped - so you sometimes lose the tops or sides of letters, especially if those letters are graphic (ie fancy fonts) and maybe a little larger than average (for example, I'm always losing the top of an exclamation point...)

I've an article coming up in an ImagineFX special about using digital greywash in Manga Studio, and I'm writing a six part core-skills article for ImagineFX too (I'm really excited about being in ImagineFX...!)

-pj

Jim_Campbell · 23 July, 2013, 10:26:12 AM

Quote from: pauljholden on 23 July, 2013, 10:10:43 AM
I've found that any text seems to be fixed inside a bounding box and clipped - so you sometimes lose the tops or sides of letters, especially if those letters are graphic (ie fancy fonts) and maybe a little larger than average (for example, I'm always losing the top of an exclamation point...)

Yeah. That's top of the list of things I want to talk to them about. I'd also dearly love for you to be able render the text to a vector layer the way you can to a raster layer. And ligature support. And manual kerning. And proper horizontal scale control. And...

QuoteI've an article coming up in an ImagineFX special about using digital greywash in Manga Studio, and I'm writing a six part core-skills article for ImagineFX too (I'm really excited about being in ImagineFX...!)

Fantastic stuff! I'll keep an eye open for those.

Cheers!

Jim

pauljholden · 23 July, 2013, 10:32:00 AM

oh, I forgot to mention: I've seen the future - or, at least, the original japanese software that manga studio is the english translation of - and it brings back a couple of things we're missing in MS5, specifically symmetry and dividing a panel into equal amounts and the ability to directly scan from the app.

It also adds a new ruler - a parallel wavy line feature and a bunch of other things. (Oh, and a convert Raster to Vector)

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clip-studio.com%2Fclip_site%2Fmypage%2Fnewsdetail%3Fpublish%3D201307%26f%3D2013071203&act=url

Jim_Campbell · 03 August, 2013, 10:05:51 AM

Manga Studio 5's dialogues for setting up pages with Bleed, Trim and Live guidelines are a little different-looking to v4, so the inimitable Mr Holden has blogged a very handy guide to deciphering the options.

Cheers

Jim

pauljholden · 03 August, 2013, 11:05:25 AM

Have JUST discovered that one of my fav manga studio 4 tools - the filter to clean dirt from scans (it's really smart, only removing black grit from scans and leaving white alone) is there in MS5 - it's just not a filter anymore.

Genuinely thought I'd have to scan art in MS4 to clean up and then transfer to MS5.

The tool you use is the "Garbage Cleanup Tool" - it's a sub tool of the 'line correct tool' - which allows you to modify vector lines. I just assumed the garbage cleanup tool had something to do with vectors, which is why I never thought to use it before.

-pj

Acid for Blood · 04 August, 2013, 05:05:18 AM

I got a question about the drawing tools.

Are they anything like Paint Tool Sai that they're really smooth when you do linework? I'm considering getting MS but I wanna know how good it is as far as inking because Sai is really great but lacks the features that MS has as far as making comics and stuff are concerned.

Jim_Campbell · 04 August, 2013, 10:00:39 AM

Quote from: Acid for Blood on 04 August, 2013, 05:05:18 AM
I got a question about the drawing tools.

Are they anything like Paint Tool Sai that they're really smooth when you do linework?

I've never used Sai, so I'm not 100% sure what you mean by 'smooth'... I assume you either mean that the lines are anti-aliased (slightly blurred at the edges so that they don't appear 'jaggy') or that there is an element of stroke correction to smooth out slight wobbles when drawing. The answer in either case is: "Yes". MS5 has adjustable control over both. You can also draw on a vector layer, which allows you to go back and edit your strokes at any time.

Cheers

Jim

Jim_Campbell · 11 August, 2013, 04:02:54 PM

Mr Holden is at it again! Head over to his blog for the lowdown on colour holds in MS5.

Cheers!

Jim

Professor Bear · 14 August, 2013, 02:41:50 PM

Does anyone know if there's a way to import layers from one page in a "story" file to another? I know I can just copy a selected area and paste it, but I mean moving linked layers like lines, colours and dots in one go, or is it possible to move pages around the story, like swap the entirety of page 1 with page 27?

pauljholden · 14 August, 2013, 05:51:16 PM

You can select multiple layers and copy and paste those into a new document, easy enough.

DoomBot · 23 May, 2014, 10:59:53 PM

No updates to the manga studio thread for 120 days but I ain't starting a new one.

So...

I upgraded to MS5 EX and I've been messing about with it. I was initially quite excited about the new colouring brushes, but the more I play the more realize that they're really laggy compared to PS5. Especially large brushes with texture on a zoomed out canvas. It's painful.

Does anyone else find this to be the case? Any tips for speeding things up? My PC is no slouch and PS5 is blisteringly fast so it's a software not a hardware issue I think....

Professor Bear · 23 May, 2014, 11:39:19 PM

I downgraded to MS4 after a month of MS5, and funnily enough, that was over concerns about a slowdown in my workflow, too. Mind you, that wasn't so much about lagging as it was having to google every fucking thing I wanted to do with MS5 that I could do easily enough with MS4 but which was tweaked or changed in some way in the newer software.

Jim_Campbell · 14 August, 2014, 08:53:16 AM

Via this parish's very own Dylan Teague on Twitter: the latest version of MS5 — 5.04 — adds a couple of potentially very useful tweaks. Both the line and ellipse tool will now snap to perspective rulers.

You can add jitter to the line drawn by line tool, giving it a more organic quality and potentially speeding up inking of complex perspective drawings.

Cheers

Jim