At last! The DSi application you've all been waiting for will be available for download this Friday. Yes, Nintendo has announced that Flipnote Studio will be launched on 14 August and it's free!
Flipnote Studio is like those old-fashioned flip-pads on which you draw a sequence of images on different pages before quickly flicking through them to create the illusion of movement. Now you'll be able to create these animations on your DSi!
You can create short animated sketches called Flipnotes which can then be shared online via a special service called Flipnote Hatena.
With Flipnote Hatena you can trade, grade and save animations from all Flipnote Studio users. It is even possible to continue a Flipnote created by another user. You can watch and comment on other users creations via flipnote.hatena.com.
As for creating your own Flipnote, it is very simple. You have a pen, an eraser and a paint brush with three colours: black, red and blue. You can adjust the speed of the Flipnote, copy and paste pages or 'frames' and even import photos as black and white images from the DSi's Camera Album. You can create hundreds of frames for each animation.
Once an image is imported, its contrast and saturation can be adjusted using a slider system for different visual effects and an outline effect can be applied to make an image made up of outlines.
You can even use the DSi's microphone to record sounds for your Flipnote, such as music, speech or sound effects. There are also some additional tools for expert users such as layering, shrinking, enlarging and advanced recording.
When you're done, you can share your animation with friends and family online or you could save your animation to an SD card to play on a friend's DSi.
Two users of Flipnote Studio may share Flipnotes using the DSi's Wireless Communication feature and when Flipnotes have been shared between users, they can save each other as friends on the Nintendo DSi system and on Flipbook Hatena.
We'll be downloading Flipnote Studio on Friday. Will you?
