The Tutorials are for AS Pro, the demo software is AS Lite?

kamel · Post by **kamel** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:15 am

I've DL'ed the demo version of Anime Studio and have been working through the tutorials. Generally they are good -- very easy to see the power of AS and encourage me to keep on reading and experimenting.

The bad part of the tuts is that they are for the PRO version, so i'm finding myself spending a frustrating few minutes trying to find out just where the hell something is that doesn't actually exist. "Is the brushes option here?? Is it here?? How do I turn the styles on? File -> Render? Where the hell is that??"

To be blunt, it seems stupid to have tutorials for the PRO version. I mean, if you're a Pro, do you really need a tutorial? If you're just starting out with AS, want to see if it does what you want, if you want to buy it -- shouldn't the tutorials be aimed at the beginner?

I doubt people are going to say to themselves, "oh, here is a new piece of software that i've never used. Ok, i'll drop $200 on the PRO version and then work through some tutorials to see if I like it."

It also seems silly to have a crippled version (lite), and the a crippled version of the cripped version! (demo+lite)

sorry if i'm ranting, but you guys have a cool product, you just need to work on the out-of-the-box experience, you know?

cheers,

-k

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 1:26 am

I totally agree with you. If a manufacturer includes documentation, it should at least help and certainly not confuse the user.

However, there are reasons why the documentation is a bit off:

The documentation is from when the program was called Moho (in fact, Anime Studio is Moho 5.5). Back then, there were no Pro and Lite versions, just one version for all.
e frontier is busy with a new version of Poser, their flagship product, and Anime Studio is a bit left in the cold with support

That is certainly no excuse, and e frontier should fix this ASAP.

kamel · Post by **kamel** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:21 am

I figured it was something to do with the new owners/name/management.

But even adding a few sentences to the top of the tutorial explaining that "File -> Render" doesn't exist, "we're working on some new tuts", etc. would cause a lot less frustration.

i couldn't even find anything in the FAQ on this!

Tamerlin · Post by **Tamerlin** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 6:50 am

In reality, the intelligent thing to do would be to provide demos of both versions, so that people who are interested can try out the version that they are considering purchasing.

Rhoel · Post by **Rhoel** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:50 am

The reality is that much of the help and support for Moho and AS are here in the forum - probably why EFrontier are being a little slack with the Tutorials.

I think too that Lite should have had some heatures greyed out, (like the File/Render) instead of missing. That way, it would be more apparent which features were disabled.

Kamel, you are doing the right thing - if you find a dicrepancy, post it here (or better in the How Do I section) ... those of us whio have both versions can quickly check to see if it's a missing feature in Lite or a bug.

The forum is one of AS's biggest plus'es. Its a vast resource and full intereactive - if the infoprmation isn't online, someone will provide it, often within minutes of a question being posted.

regards

Rhoel

Post by **Lost Marble** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:52 am

You're right, there are some confusing parts in the tutorials, particularly the use of the Render command. We tried to marks all the places that referred to Pro-only features as such, but obviously we missed some of them.

For what it's worth, we're planning to put the Render function back in the standard version when we do an update.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:19 am

Lost Marble wrote:For what it's worth, we're planning to put the Render function back in the standard version when we do an update.

Hurray for that!

I know that will be very much appreciated by many users of the standard version.