Procreate Dreams 4+

Great Potential, Though Currently Underbaked

If you’re looking to buy this app expecting a plethora of features from the original to carry over, please don’t. This app more or less feels like a fresh start, possibly needing years before catching up to the full utility of the original. While this was not totally unexpected and I understand the difficulty of making this kind of app alongside high expectations, it still feels a bit too far behind from what it could’ve been. While I’m sure they’re working on some updates to flesh it out a little more for the time being, I doubt it will be enough to suddenly make up for all the caveats with using this app. I would only suggest buying this if you want to support the developers and start learning how to use it early, it is also admittedly a comparatively low cost of entry for what it may offer in the future. I want to rate it 5 stars and I look forward to what the devs make of it, I don’t want to sway people from giving it a shot. I just can’t ignore the occasional freezes/crashes, lack of core features from the original app (can’t customize brushes, no automatic shapes or line assist from what I can find, limited to no select/transform tools, and the list goes on).

TLDR; buy it if you want to support the devs and try it early, don’t buy it if you feel unwilling to put up with it in its beta-like state.

They got rid of several essential features and I want them back

I love the idea of making a separate procreate app just for animation. Typically I would make several small animations and then edit them all together with another platform which is why I had no hesitation getting this app. I figured it was the same thing but with farther animation capabilities, I was wrong. My first issue was when you go into the drawing part, the animating board shrinks. Its pretty big and at first I thought you could just swipe it to the side. You can’t. Next thing is there is no redo button as far as I’m concerned. In procreate there are two buttons on the side: the undo and the redo, although you can also undo by tapping on the screen with two fingers. In procreate dreams you can only undo by tapping the screen with two fingers and either I don’t know how to do the redo or it just doesn’t exist. This seems harmless in a way, but I can’t draw with resting my hand on the screen which is commonly mistaken for the undoing action. Another thing about the redo button is that a lot of times I don’t like how I drew things so I rapidly spam undo although when you do that it goes back way farther than it should and once again, no redo button. They also got rid of the feature to move and adjust stuff. Very annoying. You also can’t liquify or merge down. Another thing is that I can’t add music as it has to be a file and saving a file on an ipad is beyond my knowledge.

Developer Response ,

Hey addinton - thank you for the review of Procreate Dreams. We have some good news. You can Redo by tapping *three* fingers on the Stage at the same time. We are also planning to build out Undo and Redo buttons, and also the ability to select and move items independently on the Stage area. Thank you for the feedback! Also, if you notice that you are accidentally Undoing too much, try tapping on the title of a Movie on the left, after loading into it. In here, tap Preferences, then reduce your Stored Undo Steps, or drag your Rapid Undo Delay slider all the way to the left to disable it. 🙏

REALLY good, but has some bugs and needs more.

Ok, so I absolutely ADORE this app. It’s fantastic for animating, and it’s just what I’ve been needing to animate my ideas. However, it is missing some key features as well and has some bugs. The main bug I’ve come across is that whenever you undo your previous stroke, it does this thing where your drawing kinda flashes to white for a second before coming back. It also will sometimes undo more lines than the previous stroke. Like, it’ll undo my many of my recent lines instead of just the most recent. As for features it needs, It really needs a transform tool like in procreate. Because right now all I can do is adjust the position of everything on the frame, and it’s really hindering my ability to animate quickly. It also needs a brush studio so I can edit the brushes, and I haven’t been able to import my own brushes. (That might be a me problem but idk.) it also needs a way to adjust things. (Think the preferences settings in procreate.) It needs some more things and some fixes, but this really has a lot of fantastic potential and I’m excited to see it be developed further!

Edit: I have also noticed that it speeds up audio that I add in. (Whether it’s a video or a file) by quite a bit. This has been frustrating for me and I feel as though it needs to be fixed.