In this interview, we speak with Jérémie Rousseau, a programmer from France who developed 2D animation software for e-readers.

Gulbrandr: Hello Jérémie! Can you introduce yourself?

Jérémie: I am a programmer. I am 35 years old, I live in France, and I am making 2d animation software.

G: Okay, so why exactly a 2d animation software?

J: 7 years ago, I wanted to make a game with a graphic interface in black and white, something like a Gameboy, and run my game on an e-reader. The number of frames per second on this type of device increases every 6 months. There was a new e-reader every 6 months when I began to use one. It was the Kindle of Amazon for me. And it showed 1 frame per second, at that moment the refresh rate was nearly 15 frames per second. And now, in 2023, it's closer to an LCD, you can watch a film in grayscale.

The white color is gray and the black color is black on this type of device. But in fact, you can use different gray hues and some devices allow some colors. I draw in black and white and I created a render engine to fill with colors.

In 2017-2018, I began making a game and software to make the sprites. I stopped working on the game and continued with the animation software.

G: What is the size of the market for e-readers?

J: I think the market is big, because there are many brands such as Amazon, of course, Dasung, too, and Onyx Boox, Kobo, Bigme – I don't know them all. From devices at 7 inches to 25.3 inches as external monitors to do secretary tasks.

I think there is a market for 7-10 inch devices that have a wifi internet connection to run a game.

G: What are the features of your animation software for the pixel art world?

J: Firstly, the software is perfect for sprites that are 32x32 or smaller, or slightly larger, in black and white. Secondly, the main idea was to paint on a 13.3-inch device and export the result to an LCD monitor with colors automatically filled in, with black pixels given color and white pixels given other colors. Finally, you can create pixel fonts and export the results in JSON format.

Apart from a classical set, you have multiple brushes (rectangle, circle, personalized from plotting), undo, redo, copy, paste, layers, golden ratio rulers (if you want to draw a landscape), timeline, and light table. So it’s an entire system to make animation and export them in mp4.

G: Okay I see the list is long! Does it work already? Is it ready to use?

J: To make png, jpeg, and static gif files – yes, it works perfectly well; to make an animation gif – nobody has asked me yet for this feature, but that can be implemented. To make a full animation like Miyazaki, there are again some bugs to fix, but all features are there, and it's one of my goals to make a short film to prove that.

One of the biggest problems was when I was an animator before becoming a programmer: I couldn't stay behind a computer all day and night. And large e-readers allow that. But the problem is to communicate with other classical systems on the market.

G: Thank you, Jérémie, for sharing your insights and experiences with us regarding your 2D animation software for e-readers. Your passion is truly inspiring. To learn more about Jérémie's 2D animation software for e-readers or if you would like to try it out for yourself, you can visit his website animation-software.com.

Thank you again, Jérémie, for sharing your work with us!

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