[Squeakland] Animation, Onion-Skinning and Antialiased Graphics

[Greg Smith]

I just discovered EToys the other day and am thoroughly fascinated by  
its potential to possibly teach an old graphics guy, like me, how to  
program and express myself graphically/interactively/experimentally.   
I'm hoping the EToys environment will allow me to do this.

In messing around inside the EToys environment I could not readily  
see any evidence of antialiasing being present on the results of any  
of the painting tools.  I also discovered there didn't seem to be any  
support for the .png format with alpha channel for use as "sprites"  
for lack of a better term.  From an animator's viewpoint,  
professional quality computer graphics require them to be antialiased  
and clean, so, whether they are created internally, within EToys, or  
externally and imported, they need to act like a .png file or  
sequence of images that are masked against the other objects in the  
scene, (alpha channel).  So, I'm stuck, graphically speaking.

Also, if really good animations are to be produced within the EToys  
environment, it will be necessary to have an untouchable set of  
layers that represent, at least, previous drawings in the animation,  
(onion skin).  I couldn't readily discover any such functionality.   
Is it possible within EToys?

Thanks,

Greg Smith