While some may raise an eyebrow at posting Toon Boom work in an Anime Studio forum, I think it may be interesting to at least one person to see the differences between AS and TB.
Much of the work posted in the examples in my signature are made using AS. However I made this ad super quickly, drawing directly into Toon Boom Animate 2 with a Cintiq tablet. If I wanted to do this in AS it would probably mean drawing the images in Photoshop first and then importing into AS.
Anyways, here's how it looks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oRNjTNjBn0
My brother did the audio. I did the voice.
Animation was done @ 6 fps to make it quick, and took like, a few hours. I storyboarded it with Toon Boom Storyboard Pro. Before I sound like I'm working for TB, I'm not. I really had kind of hoped in the back of my mind that the drawing tools would have been better in V.6. Haven't used AS in a while now.
Ad done in Toon Boom Animate 2
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Since you have posted ToonBoom work on the Anime Studio forum I feel I am permitted to give a "strong" critique.
No offense but it LOOKS like it was done "super quickly with a tablet". Doesn't matter what program was used in my mind. Actually this could have been done using photoshop and exporting to animated GIFs. Everyone has a preferred style of working. If you want the simplistic 6fps look and that is all the budget or schedule supports then that is what you do. If you can't do it in one program use another. You certainly wouldn't use Maya to do this type of animation. It doesn't make Maya a "bad" application.
I congratulate you on your completed project and any success you gain from it. However it doesn't represent any limitations in AS that I can see. I know for fact how fast work can be produced in Anime Studio.
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I did ALL of the feature promotional videos for Anime Studio 7 pro and Debut 7 for Smith Micro in about 10 days. I admit towards the end I was working around the clock because of the tight deadline but this included EVERYTHING, screen recording, creating new files, exporting animations at 720p HD, editing.exporting in premiere creating the (not so great) music, optimizing for download, uploading the files, etc, etc. All done with a new version of AS which worked (nearly) perfectly considering the beta testing was still going on during my production.
Draw directly into AS? I did that in several of the videos including the "green alien dude" which was drawn in AS using a tablet and then finished up, rigged and animated all from scratch just for the video.
I will admit I a get just a tad annoyed at all the whining about AS and how much better ToonBoom is. If that's true then just use freaking Toonboom for goodness sake and post on their forum about it. I am sick of reading about Toonboom on this forum. Despite all of the rumors and legends I won't stop or remove the posts but I will voice my own opinion about it. Never used Toonboom and I never will.
The Anime Studio "bashers" will get all PO'd and self righteous about my "fanboy" defense of AS but you do the same HERE for TOONBOOM. At least I post my opinions in the right place.
Usually if you don't like something you just stop using it and move on. But for some on this forum it isn't enough that YOU feel AS has limitations some of you act as if you must convince EVERYONE who uses AS that it's bad and they should switch to Toonboom or Flash. It makes no sense to me. It goes way beyond "passing on helpful information". Might as well go on a Mac forum and try to convince people to switch to Windows or visa versa.
-vern
No offense but it LOOKS like it was done "super quickly with a tablet". Doesn't matter what program was used in my mind. Actually this could have been done using photoshop and exporting to animated GIFs. Everyone has a preferred style of working. If you want the simplistic 6fps look and that is all the budget or schedule supports then that is what you do. If you can't do it in one program use another. You certainly wouldn't use Maya to do this type of animation. It doesn't make Maya a "bad" application.
I congratulate you on your completed project and any success you gain from it. However it doesn't represent any limitations in AS that I can see. I know for fact how fast work can be produced in Anime Studio.
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I did ALL of the feature promotional videos for Anime Studio 7 pro and Debut 7 for Smith Micro in about 10 days. I admit towards the end I was working around the clock because of the tight deadline but this included EVERYTHING, screen recording, creating new files, exporting animations at 720p HD, editing.exporting in premiere creating the (not so great) music, optimizing for download, uploading the files, etc, etc. All done with a new version of AS which worked (nearly) perfectly considering the beta testing was still going on during my production.
Draw directly into AS? I did that in several of the videos including the "green alien dude" which was drawn in AS using a tablet and then finished up, rigged and animated all from scratch just for the video.
I will admit I a get just a tad annoyed at all the whining about AS and how much better ToonBoom is. If that's true then just use freaking Toonboom for goodness sake and post on their forum about it. I am sick of reading about Toonboom on this forum. Despite all of the rumors and legends I won't stop or remove the posts but I will voice my own opinion about it. Never used Toonboom and I never will.
The Anime Studio "bashers" will get all PO'd and self righteous about my "fanboy" defense of AS but you do the same HERE for TOONBOOM. At least I post my opinions in the right place.
Usually if you don't like something you just stop using it and move on. But for some on this forum it isn't enough that YOU feel AS has limitations some of you act as if you must convince EVERYONE who uses AS that it's bad and they should switch to Toonboom or Flash. It makes no sense to me. It goes way beyond "passing on helpful information". Might as well go on a Mac forum and try to convince people to switch to Windows or visa versa.
-vern
Hmm, I'm going to have to agree with heyvern. While I do enjoy Mikdog's work, this wasn't the animation that blew away Anime Studio. Not even close. Sorry Mikdog. 
On the other hand, I do agree with Mikdog, somewhat. As I'm not totally happy with Anime Studio's drawing tools but after some extra time tweaking, I get what I want. Now for Toon Boom, I didn't like it at all. And I have tried it from time to time since 2002, I think. Some where around that time. Anyway, each time I try it, when they have an update, I remember why I still don't use it.
But I do like seeing your work, no matter which program you use. But I don't think we need to bash Anime Studio on it's own forum. Lets keep it friendly.
On the other hand, I do agree with Mikdog, somewhat. As I'm not totally happy with Anime Studio's drawing tools but after some extra time tweaking, I get what I want. Now for Toon Boom, I didn't like it at all. And I have tried it from time to time since 2002, I think. Some where around that time. Anyway, each time I try it, when they have an update, I remember why I still don't use it.
But I do like seeing your work, no matter which program you use. But I don't think we need to bash Anime Studio on it's own forum. Lets keep it friendly.
I'd have to agree with you that it looks bashed together in a few hours...which it was.
Still though, it was incredibly easy to do. I hope I'm not coming across with the wrong intent here. I really like AS. I really do. If it had drawing tools that were akin to Photoshop or Toon Boom or something - what a joy! I find Toon Boom a little clunky and I don't like the animation tools at all, but I really like the drawing tools.
So with AS I get awesome animation tools - not so great drawing tools.
With TB I get awesome drawing tools - not so great animation tools (or at least I haven't got used to their animation tools)
How awesome would it be if there was an option to draw with a raster pen in AS, or if there was a more intuitive and precise way of drawing with vectors as opposed to the 'legacy' version? Then I may never need to use Toon Boom again if I can help it.
For me its the Achilles heel of Anime Studio. I've done workarounds before with Photoshop and AS, after a while it gets a bit loathsome. Perhaps my video wasn't the best example of what can be done with Toon Boom, but super-quick onion-skinning and drawing lines and fills with a tablet was pretty easy. Hey, when I delete a line it doesn't kill the fill. Its like Photoshop.
I'm not saying AS sucks, Vern. I dig it. How hard would it be to implement a raster drawing option in AS? I'm not saying AS or Toon Boom is better. I'm saying TB can do something AS can't, and there's a lot of discussion that can take place like this is a different beast, like it or lump it, stop complaining, like it for what it is, etc...but I say AS is so close to becoming an all-in-one solution - LIKE ITS ADVERTISED ON THE BOX!
Still though, it was incredibly easy to do. I hope I'm not coming across with the wrong intent here. I really like AS. I really do. If it had drawing tools that were akin to Photoshop or Toon Boom or something - what a joy! I find Toon Boom a little clunky and I don't like the animation tools at all, but I really like the drawing tools.
So with AS I get awesome animation tools - not so great drawing tools.
With TB I get awesome drawing tools - not so great animation tools (or at least I haven't got used to their animation tools)
How awesome would it be if there was an option to draw with a raster pen in AS, or if there was a more intuitive and precise way of drawing with vectors as opposed to the 'legacy' version? Then I may never need to use Toon Boom again if I can help it.
For me its the Achilles heel of Anime Studio. I've done workarounds before with Photoshop and AS, after a while it gets a bit loathsome. Perhaps my video wasn't the best example of what can be done with Toon Boom, but super-quick onion-skinning and drawing lines and fills with a tablet was pretty easy. Hey, when I delete a line it doesn't kill the fill. Its like Photoshop.
I'm not saying AS sucks, Vern. I dig it. How hard would it be to implement a raster drawing option in AS? I'm not saying AS or Toon Boom is better. I'm saying TB can do something AS can't, and there's a lot of discussion that can take place like this is a different beast, like it or lump it, stop complaining, like it for what it is, etc...but I say AS is so close to becoming an all-in-one solution - LIKE ITS ADVERTISED ON THE BOX!
Vern dont get so defensive mate. People should be encouraged to discuss issues with AS here, and if that involves talking about features and workflow in other apps, so be it.
Mikdog's concerns are valid ones. He is not some newbie who doesnt know what he's talking about, or someone being aggresive about putting across a negative viewpoint just for the sake of it. He's raising real and valid concerns about an app. Frankly I too would have expected AS to have come along somewhat in the 2d stakes over the course of 2 releases.
I think you doth protest too much.
Mikdog's concerns are valid ones. He is not some newbie who doesnt know what he's talking about, or someone being aggresive about putting across a negative viewpoint just for the sake of it. He's raising real and valid concerns about an app. Frankly I too would have expected AS to have come along somewhat in the 2d stakes over the course of 2 releases.
I think you doth protest too much.
Hmm. I don't think we should knock Vern either for defending AS. Sure, AS is great, and you CAN do cool stuff with it.
While I haven't seen the green alien dude, I'm assuming this is a rigged character? Meaning you draw it once then rig it with bones. Sure, AS is awesome at that. What its NOT awesome at is drawing frame-by-frame animation where you're rigging nothing, and just having a sequence of different drawings appearing one after another. You can hack it, but its not geared towards drawing like that.
Here's a pic comparison I've made. I'm not going to colour them because to create shapes from these lines in AS would take me a while (meanwhile to colour in Photoshop or TB is a breeze):
So yes, puppet rigging in AS - so good that I haven't even looked at figuring out how to do it in Toon Boom.
Drawing frame by frame stuff, and colouring it, in AS - no good. I can't even think of any examples because I haven't seen anything done with fbf in AS. Greykid's stuff is like a hybrid of puppet rigging and moving vector points, made to look at times similar to fbf, correct me if I'm wrong.
While I haven't seen the green alien dude, I'm assuming this is a rigged character? Meaning you draw it once then rig it with bones. Sure, AS is awesome at that. What its NOT awesome at is drawing frame-by-frame animation where you're rigging nothing, and just having a sequence of different drawings appearing one after another. You can hack it, but its not geared towards drawing like that.
Here's a pic comparison I've made. I'm not going to colour them because to create shapes from these lines in AS would take me a while (meanwhile to colour in Photoshop or TB is a breeze):
So yes, puppet rigging in AS - so good that I haven't even looked at figuring out how to do it in Toon Boom.
Drawing frame by frame stuff, and colouring it, in AS - no good. I can't even think of any examples because I haven't seen anything done with fbf in AS. Greykid's stuff is like a hybrid of puppet rigging and moving vector points, made to look at times similar to fbf, correct me if I'm wrong.
Haha I think it looks great personally. I love the style. It works for this type of thing somehow. I could not see it as fully animated.
I'm experimenting with hand-drawn animation as well using a program called TVPaint:
http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/article/home/
It works amazingly well imo.
I'm experimenting with hand-drawn animation as well using a program called TVPaint:
http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/article/home/
It works amazingly well imo.