JS library for decoding, converting, and in-browser playback of animations created with Nintendo's Flipnote Studio and Flipnote Studio 3D apps
A JavaScript library for parsing, converting, and in-browser playback of the proprietary animation formats used by Nintendo’s Flipnote Studio and Flipnote Studio 3D apps. | flipnote.js.org
Features | Background | Get Started | Web Components | API | Special Thanks
Looking for an online Flipnote player and converter? Check out Flipnote Player!
🔆 I consider this library to be feature complete - notwithstanding a new Flipnote Studio release, of course!
It’s been a fun pet project so I may return to do some tweaks, implement support for interesting web features as they come, etc, etc. Please also understand that I consider Flipnote encoding to be beyond the scope of what I set out to accomplish (making Flipnote content viewable outside of the original apps) and as such I will not be implementing it here.
Released in 2009, Flipnote Studio is an application for the Nintendo DSi console which allows users to create flipbook-style animations with the console’s touch screen, cameras and microphone. In 2013 it received a sequel on the Nintendo 3DS called Flipnote Studio 3D, which expanded upon the original’s feature set and added the ability to use 3D depth.
Flipnote Studio has had quite a legacy. The British animation studio Aardman created several original shorts for it, it’s been used to create multiple music videos, and a user even spent 4 years creating a full 30-minute anime primarily animated in Flipnote Studio 3D.
Even though it has been several years since the last Flipnote Studio installment was released (and the online services for both apps have since been retired) there is still a notable community of people actively creating Flipnotes, thanks mostly to fan-built services such as Sudomemo and Kaeru Gallery. There’s even several high-profile artists such as Kéké who are rocking their Flipnote Studio creations on social media!
While user-created Flipnote animations can be easily saved to the SD card from within the apps, Nintendo created proprietary file formats for this purpose; Flipnote Studio uses .ppm (not to be confused with the Netpbm format of the same extension) and Flipnote Studio 3D uses .kwz respectively. While they may seem superficially similar, the two formats are quite different internally.
At the time of writing, the only official software that can load and play these animations are the original Flipnote Studio apps themselves, which are now rather hard to obtain due to the Nintendo DSi Shop closing down in 2017, and the Nintendo 3DS eShop closing down in 2023. For various reasons we also think it’s unlikely that Nintendo is going to produce a new entry in the series.
This library hopes to aid in the long-term preservation and enjoyment of these animations by enabling them to be played in any modern web browser with JavaScript enabled. In addition, it provides a consistent API and various utilities for dealing with both animation formats so that other developers can create their own tools and applications around them!
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