Moho Forum

@heyvern

The idiot trolls trashing Anime Studio in this topic are getting the exact response they wanted. They don't care about anything other than getting people all fired up and angry and pissed off. It's their heroin and cocaine.

How was I trashing it or trolling anyone? Syn said himself over at another forum:

AS just isn't designed to optimize a frame-by-frame workflow, but can do it.
http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... IC_ID=2423

Yet I get berated. If anyone got trolled it was me for calling me a TB shill when outside the context of this thread I wouldn't recommend it. I know I jumped in during a slightly heated debate but I'm willing to shake hands and start again.

@dkwroot

I will give Blender a try, I keep hearing about it and that they also made a CGI film with it and other open-source software but I keep getting distracted. If it could replace Maya that would save me a lot of money.

I've actually started re-writing some of the animation tools myself. My goal is to make anime studio at the very least, comparable to flash in terms of drawing in FBF.

That would be killer if you manage that. In that case bitmap drawing wouldn't really be a necessity I shouldn't think since people have used Flash to draw with since the MX days. Bahi JD who worked on Ping Pong and Space Dandy (and others) still uses Flash:

Before I go, I'd like to point out that Anime Studio has a pretty good onion skinning system. You just have to enable it above the timeline. You then have a choice to have your onion skinning set to outlines or not. If you uncheck outlines, you'll see your onion skins as overlays with low opacity.

Snap, serves me right for not checking update logs I guess (I upgraded to 9 on impulse on Amazon) that would have helped me a lot a few months back, amazed I didn't see it, really amazed, literally right in front of me, also really happy it's a thing, thanks.

JetT wrote:

At the place where I'm teaching now they had TB Animate installed - 800.- €, and it didn't even started up (was a permissions thing, it only works in admin mode). I convinced them to buy an AS licence and a TVPAint licence, that's 150.- and 250.- € - and guess what the students like better now.

You quoted the full retail price for TB Animate but quoted the educational discount price for TVPaint, that's a bit unfair slowtiger. Not sure where the school you teach at is located, but the one I went to used TB Harmony because they considered it the industry standard, they also at least knew how to use a computer.

First, perhaps you should not start your first post in a new community with a thinly-veiled insult of one of its moderators and respected animators. He never claimed to be comparing pricing, only what happened to be paid for the respective software in that case.

JetT wrote:It is for cutout animation only and it does that very well.

You specifically pigeonholed AS, and I simply called you on it. As for seeming like a shill, do you also go on the TB or Flipbook forums and tout TVPaint? If you have, you would likely come across as a shill there as well. I gave you two examples of non cutout style animation (anime and Disney styles without any indication of the specific software used to produce them), and instead of you having the grace to simply admit to unfairly pigeonholing AS, you seem to get more argumentative. That is typical of trolls, but perhaps you are a teenager or new to online forums. If so, take all this as advice for the future.

Here's another example of work done with AS (at least this one probably had an animation team comparable to the FBF examples you've posted (you know, comparing apples to apples):


And yes, it is trivial that most professional animators do post-production compositing and effects in software like AE, or utilize 3D in 2D animations, which AS is designed to incorporate. No one here is saying that AS is the only software you need, only that AS goes a very long way with only a single piece of software, including some FBF support (plus custom scripting, which makes up the difference).

I haven't got the patience to do FBF with ASP, life is far too short for that. I don't think I said ASP couldn't do it anyway...

You did say "It is for cutout animation only".


And if you really think a specific tool can limit your expressiveness, then you simply are not an artist.

JetT wrote:Snap, serves me right for not checking update logs I guess (I upgraded to 9 on impulse on Amazon) that would have helped me a lot a few months back, amazed I didn't see it, really amazed, literally right in front of me, also really happy it's a thing, thanks.

If you don't use AS enough to notice new onionskin options (without having to read the change log), then you don't know the software well enough to be making half the pronouncements you've made here.

If you don't use AS enough to notice new onionskin options (without having to read the change log), then you don't know the software well enough to be making half the pronouncements you've made here.

A checkbox hidden inside a context menu for a feature I rarely use, if you want to use that oversight as a weapon to debase my earlier opinions go ahead, but like I said I was amazed myself that I didn't see it.

And if you really think a specific tool can limit your expressiveness, then you simply are not an artist.

I didn't, what I said was "it's drawing tools are not expressive enough for this kind of animation" you're confusing me with that other guy, I'm a traditionally trained animator and artist, I'm talking about doing this, which at the moment is highly impractical and I don't think we differ on that opinion:

I gave you two examples of non cutout style animation (anime and Disney styles without any indication of the specific software used to produce them), and instead of you having the grace to simply admit to unfairly pigeonholing AS, you seem to get more argumentative

How did you show anything remotely Disney? Sorry but that is just ridiculous, I studied Disney animation for 6 years and you got nowhere close, what are you comparing it to exactly? Tarzan & Jane? What you showed was web quality animation that tries to mimic hand drawn animation with the use of tweening. I'm not saying it's crap, I'm saying there is a benchmark and a better, production proven use for it.

The only thing that comes close to successfully auto tweening hand-drawn animation that isn't a studio proprietary that I have seen is from CACAni:

That is typical of trolls, but perhaps you are a teenager or new to online forums. If so, take all this as advice for the future.

Why all the judgements? I didn't know that joining Lost Marble I had to praise ASP in the only forum section not about ASP. The problems with forums is there is poor execution of tone. By now we'd have had a beer, spoken about our wives, shook hands and got passed all this. I'm not your enemy.

JetT wrote:

If you don't use AS enough to notice new onionskin options (without having to read the change log), then you don't know the software well enough to be making half the pronouncements you've made here.

A checkbox hidden inside a context menu for a feature I rarely use, if you want to use that oversight as a weapon to debase my earlier opinions go ahead, but like I said I was amazed myself that I didn't see it.

Hidden? If you mean hidden inside the dialog you use to enable it, sure. If you are a traditional animator, onionskin should be indispensable...unless you long ago decided that AS was only good "for rigged animation and FX" (which I'm guessing wouldn't include character animation, otherwise I'd like to see how professional your walk cycles end up without onionskin). You've at least used smartbones, right?

And if you really think a specific tool can limit your expressiveness, then you simply are not an artist.

I didn't, what I said was "it's drawing tools are not expressive enough for this kind of animation" you're confusing me with that other guy, I'm a traditionally trained animator and artist, I'm talking about doing this, which at the moment is highly impractical and I don't think we differ on that opinion:

I was referring to that very comment. Personally, I have no problem sketching in AS, even like your example. You seem determined to keep making pronouncements, and even when people tell you you are wrong, you never once ask them for any pointers. Again, you seem to have already decided what you think AS is all about (even to the point of giving up on features you decided were no good many versions ago).

Again, some of us have written our own custom tools that make this sort of thing very practical in AS.

I gave you two examples of non cutout style animation (anime and Disney styles without any indication of the specific software used to produce them), and instead of you having the grace to simply admit to unfairly pigeonholing AS, you seem to get more argumentative

How did you show anything remotely Disney? Sorry but that is just ridiculous, I studied Disney animation for 6 years and you got nowhere close, what are you comparing it to exactly? Tarzan & Jane? What you showed was web quality animation that tries to mimic hand drawn animation with the use of tweening. I'm not saying it's crap, I'm saying there is a benchmark and a better, production proven use for it.

Again, why not try comparing apples to apples? My example of Disney style was done by a single animator, not a whole studio of animators like Disney uses.

That is typical of trolls, but perhaps you are a teenager or new to online forums. If so, take all this as advice for the future.

Why all the judgements? I didn't know that joining Lost Marble I had to praise ASP in the only forum section not about ASP. The problems with forums is there is poor execution of tone. By now we'd have had a beer, spoken about our wives, shook hands and got passed all this. I'm not your enemy.

No, it was your actual words...like "they also at least knew how to use a computer", "Calm down and take off the rose tinted glasses", and "Get your panties untwisted or go wake up on the right side of the bed". If you honestly think these comments are anything but abrasive, you are deluded.


No comment on Technotise?

Completely off topic, however, that Technotise is amazing, I strive to learn anime studio and animation enough to be able to make something that looks half as good. I've been watching it (although I don't understand a thing), I'm enthralled and trying to learn as much as I can from it. Simply beautiful! Thank you for bringing that one to my attention!

Soon you won't even be able to choose Animate Pro, because it is being discontinued.

JaMike wrote:Soon you won't even be able to choose Animate Pro, because it is being discontinued.

Do you mean because the product's name was changed to 'Harmony Advanced' about a month ago? Not sure why that's a reason to resurrect this year-old thread but ok.

Anyway, since it has been brought up, I'll update my position on the topic, which probably hasn't changed much since last year but I have a few things to add.

I've been using Anime Studio Pro for both personal and freelance work for a couple of years now in my private studio and, in the year since my last post to this thread, I've been using Harmony at my 'day job'. What I've learned is that there's a lot to like about both programs but I also found the two are quite different from each other, with unique strengths and weaknesses.

Harmony's strength is mainly its drawing tools, and Anime Studio Pro strength is definitely its character rigging tools. I guess that was basically what I said last year and the statement is still true. However, now that I have much more experience with both programs, I think that distinction is getting a fuzzier.

Harmony has a powerful nodal network system which we use at my 'day job' for setting up fairly complex masking techniques that would be difficult to replicate in Anime Studio Pro's layers based system. But I prefer ASP's Photoshop-style Layer Comp system for outputting passes for compositing. Sure, in Harmony you can set up a bunch of Write nodes at various points in the network to get equivalent output results, but that can become a lot more work to do on a scene by scene basis.

Harmony's FBF tools and workflow has been the industry standard for many years. I started using the FBF tools at my workplace a few months ago and so far I'm really liking them. But a few weeks ago, ASP stepped up its own drawing and FBF tools in version 11, and there are still certain path editing tools in ASP for which Harmony has no equivalent. (The ever useful Magnet for example.)

Anyway, to answer the OP's question, "Why would anyone choose Animate Pro?", IMO, the choice between the two really comes down to the type of production you're involved in.

If your thing is mainly traditional FBF drawing, Harmony is still the stronger candidate. ASP recently implemented its own FBF system but I think it still has a way to go to catch up. It'll get there eventually though.

But if it's cut-out style animation you want, Anime Studio Pro wins hands down for its rigging system, advanced IK with goals, and Smart Bones. That said, Harmony has this really cool Curve deformer for which ASP doesn't really have an equivalent. At my workplace, we use the Curve deformer for just about everything...it's that good. But then again, none of Harmony's deformers can use IK like ASP, which makes Harmony a bit slower to animate cut-out characters in. (To be clear, Harmony does have IK for its basic bones system (which is separate from its deformer system) but the IK is somewhat primitive and it doesn't support goals or dynamics like ASP.)

For editing keyframes/exposures on the timeline, I think ASP is a bit more intuitive to work with. The marker system in ASP is certainly more direct to use and edit, and Harmony has no way to stretch and compress a selected range of keyframes like you can in ASP and After Effects. However, Harmony does have a very intelligent system for directly dropping re-useable animation keyframes from the Library onto the timeline. I also think there's a bit more consistency in how the timeline and layers are edited in ASP--in Harmony, there are different graph editors for animating different aspects of a scene, and some of them are a bit clunky to edit accurately.

The X-sheet in Harmony is a love/hate thing for me. At times, it's very convenient and at other times it can be a huge pain in the butt. I'm really glad it's there when I need it though.

Sigh, I could go around in circles all day like this. Like I said, both are good programs but if the differences between the two were clear at one time, they are beginning to get a little fuzzy.

The bottom line:

I really can't speak in detail about software I use at my workplace, but for my own personal projects I still generally prefer Anime Studio Pro for most of my 2D animation work. IMO, it's a lot faster to set up complex character rigs in ASP. And I can't ignore the cost difference--it's still much easier for me and Alisa to afford multiple licenses of ASP than Harmony.

If you can afford it, there's no reason you can't use both on the same project, leveraging the unique strengths of each program, and then composting the results where appropriate (i.e., ASP, AP, Fusion, After Effects, etc.) This is exactly what Alisa and I have started doing for our personal projects--we currently have two licenses of ASP and a single license of Animate Pro to use for FBF animation as we need it, and we composite the results in the program where it makes the most sense to us. But if the Anime Studio Pro devs continue to improve their drawing and FBF tools (which I expect they will,) I can see us saving a little money by going back to doing all of our 2D character animation in ASP again.

That's just my personal opinion of course, for whatever that's worth.

G.

Edit: I should have mentioned that Harmony's cool Curve deformer mentioned above is only available in the most expensive edition, Harmony Premium, and not Harmony Advanced, which is the Animate Pro equivalent and the version closest to ASP in price and features, so its probably a moot point for this discussion. You can kinda do something similar in ASP using path animation--well, it's really not the same thing as Harmony Premium's Curve deformer but at least ASP has that option.

Greenlaw wrote:

JaMike wrote:Soon you won't even be able to choose Animate Pro, because it is being discontinued.

Do you mean because the product's name was changed to 'Harmony Advanced' about a month ago? Not sure why that's a reason to resurrect this year-old thread but ok.

So if I'd just said "Animate Pro is now Harmony Advanced" I'd have saved you all that typing?

But I don't think Animate Pro had been updated for years, and it wasn't compatible with Harmony, so it's not just a simple renaming. And a lot of people still talk about Animate and don't know about Harmony, at least in the circles I hang around in.

And while I agree Harmony's FBF is better than Anime Studio (even with what I've seen of ASP11), you can't beat TV Paint for FBF, and if ASP12 was a bit more copying TV Paint than copying Harmony for FBF, I'd be very happy.

Speaking of resurrecting a year-old thread, check out the Anime Studio vs Toon Boom thread, that was SEVEN years old and a Smith Micro employee brought that back to life, just to stir things up a little.

JaMike wrote:So if I'd just said "Animate Pro is now Harmony Advanced" I'd have saved you all that typing?

Nah, probably not. When I'm waiting on renders, it really doesn't take much to get me typing a bunch of stuff.

Anyway, I agree, it's not just a name change but Harmony Advanced is still a direct upgrade from Animate Pro.

I use the most recent Animate Pro (version 3, which came out only two years ago) at my home studio and we use Harmony 11 at my day job, and as far as I can tell the two are basically the same program. Both more or less share the same UI, same nodal network, paint tools and workflow. The one big difference I see is that Harmony has the Curve deformer mentioned earlier, which really is pretty significant. Other differences however probably won't matter much to most 'indie' artists since they generally have to do with managing files in a workgroup environment and network rendering.

While I haven't used Harmony Advanced (or Harmony Premium either) yet, I can't imagine there's a huge difference between Animate Pro and Harmony Advanced since I really don't see a huge difference between Animate Pro and the higher end Harmony 11. (I'm told we do have Harmony Premium here but we're not using it yet because we've been in mid-production.)

Not trying to stir things up. Just saying Toon Boom's mid-range product is still available--the newest version is just called something else now.

G.

The thing with TV Paint though is that it's a bit map animation program. At least, it was the last time I used it, which was version 8 I think. Not that there's anything wrong with that but, IMO, for a lot of commercial animation work, vector based (like Anime Studio Pro or Toon Boom Harmony,) is the way to go. Editing long bitmap sequences is much harder to do than editing vectors and fills.

I think where TVP really shines is in creating FBF with a natural media look. It's a cool look but it's also not typical of most commercial 2D productions. To say that it's 'better' isn't really accurate--it's really just 'different'.

That's just my opinion though. Obviously, people should use what they feel most comfortable working with.

G.

Greenlaw wrote:I think where TVP really shines is in creating FBF with a natural media look. It's a cool look but it's also not typical of most commercial 2D productions. To say that it's 'better' isn't really accurate--it's really just 'different'.

Sorry, I forget other people have a different definition of FBF than I do. I see FBF as pure drawing every frame, as if on paper, not using morphing or deformers or any of the cool stuff that ASP has. I know drawing everything is not so fashionable nowadays.

BTW, you should check out the new version 11 of TV Paint, it's so much better than previous versions. And you'll see what I mean about how much nicer it is to draw in than Harmony. It's not something that can be described in a forum post.

Years ago, about 15 now I started animating. Started with Bryce, move to Poser then Poser, Vue. At some point I came to the harsh conclusion that 3d take is just too much work for one person to do, unless your using other people models, and what's the point if someone can copy what you do?

So my search for the perfect animation program took me from Alice to ZenCub 3D(change it name a while ago) and I ended up with Moho. Why, because I could get a two minute animation working part time, all by myself in about a month.

If your going to do FBF and have no money, Pencil is one of the best free software out there. I recommend it to the beginner over another animation software. Why? because it has No tweeing. You learn the craft.

I have CACANi and it has so many issues that I wouldn't use it for anything then an auto tweener. It's OK, but it need a ton of work before I could recommend it for production.

I have work with TV paint. One of the best programs for animation if you have a very large team of animators and a big paint dept.

I gave up on Toonboon when the peg system would crash, constantly years ago.

I just started using After Effects, great effects program, mediocre 2d animation program.

I'm going from a Hobbyist this year to someone who will be getting paid. I know more things about AS than most. One is how to do 2.5D. The only other program that can pull it off is After Effects and it not that easy with After Effects.

So the next person who thinks AS is a joke, here is a challenge. Pick any other 2D software and show me 2.5D head turn.
Post the original 2d image and I will show you how it is done.

So that's my 2 cents.

Dale

dueyftw wrote:I just started using After Effects, great effects program, mediocre 2d animation program.

Actually After Effects is quite capable of doing commercial quality character animation. I've worked on a couple of shows using AE for CA, and I also use it in support of Harmony and Anime Studio where those applications may come up short.

The big advantage with AE for me is Puppet and Liquify. Puppet is a pinning system that works very precisely and it can give you certain organically defined deformations that would be difficult or even impossible to do with bones. If you add the free DuIK plugin to Puppet, you also get a functional bones system with IK, goals, a 'set-driven key' system like ASP's Smart Bones, and even basic dynamics.

To be fair, if I had to choose between AE and ASP for character animation, I would still choose ASP for most situations because, compared to ASP, AE's layers/precomp system can quickly becomes unwieldy and unmanageable when you have several characters with many dozens of animateable parts. However, if I'm already working in AE on a project and I need to rig a character, I will rely on these tools in a pinch; its much quicker and more convenient to rig and animate directly in AE when you need to, than it is to jump out of AE into a separate program just to do something similar and then jump back into AE to finish.

Liquify is something else altogether--there's simply nothing like it in any other animation program. There have been a number of times where I'll bring animation from ASP or Harmony into AE just so I can refine the animation and make it look more organic by using this tool. It's especially useful for tweaking facial expressions or improving key poses. Sometimes I'll even throw Puppet on the ASP or Harmony footage to tweak and improve the deformations.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that no one animation package is perfect by itself. All of these tools have their own unique strengths, and there is no reason they shouldn't be used together to enhance the final output. For me, it's all about delivering the best work I can within a given budget and schedule, and enjoy a decent quality of life standard while I'm at it. TBH, I don't think I could do that by limiting myself to a single software program.

G.

Much if not all has been said about each program's abilities and deficits, but I think one aspect has been overlooked in this discussion so far: which workflow do you need? This is not a question of style or just technical needs.

In a bigger studio with comfortable budgets and reasonable timelines, like feature film production, you might do a scene in a dozen different programs, testing, re-doing and refining, until the result sparkles. You only deal with the director, who is an artist able to judge from a crude line test whether a scene will work or not. Since there's no need to colour a character for animation, this step will be the last before compositing. There's a clear line between finalising some stuff for testing purposes and finalising everything for release.

In a studio with restricted budget and tight deadlines there's not much leeway for experimenting, and the choice of software will be limited. Jobs will be accepted under the premise that they can be done with the existing "codebase", which will limit style choices. Still there will be file exchange between programs, if a certain result can be achieved safely that way.

A subset of these are studios which just produce animation without actually "creating" much, since design, story, and everything else were done elsewhere. Many of them are One Trick Ponies, using some bigger assembly line software package known in the industry.

A studio concentrating on advertising needs to deal with clients and their change requests constantly. They need to deliver something close to the final look very fast, because most clients lack the ability to visualise, and they need to change whatever aspect late in production because clients are like that. A software solution with rigged characters and a reliable style system is essential here, as well as tools which work out of the box, reliable and fast.

And then there's the hobbyist or the beginning artist with a tight budget. Rarely they have the money for lots of different software, so they use whatever they can get hold of, no matter how impractical it might be.

There seems to be a natural urge to not leave your software environment, which explains why people rather jump through loops multiple times instead of changing to some program which would be better suited for a certain task. Only experience can cure this.

Two other important questions are: how much do you plan ahead (storyboard, designs, etc), and how many people will work on that project? Some software try to assist with documentation and planning, but I doubt any of those are as good as a good production manager, so I don't think these functions are essential.