Future Directions for ASP - philosophy and features

[Paul Mesken]

WOW! Quickly slam together?!?

Im speechless.....

Yeah, quickly slam together. I'm well aware of the efforts it takes to make such shows (even though they are prime examples of limited animation) but the end result only needs to superficially look like such shows. Enough to satisfy the customer and to make them believe they have made something that is close to animation that can be seen on the telly.

And all with minimal effort, of course.

We're talking business here. Not art. It's clear to me that there's a demand of people who want to make cartoons but are not willing to develop drawing skills (some of them cant even be bothered to read a 200 page manual). They want to make something that only takes them 2 days and looks good enough to impress their friends.

Of course, my advice, as always, is to make a 100 drawings each day from live action movies. To pay special attention to hands, to characterization, exaggeration, lines of action, etc. And after a couple of years (and some good advice based on those drawings), one will be good enough to do some real animation.

But this is not what the majority of people want to hear or do. They just want to slam together a cartoon which looks (superficially) professional and they want to do it with minimal effort. The demand is clear. And there isn't a program yet that satisfy that demand (AFAIK) so it might as well be ASP.

[chucky]

Paul Mesken

WTF? Kim Possible Slammed together?
I'm not a huge fan but when I was a kid we didn't get toons quality like that , some people thought they were lucky to get he man and droopy dog.
Limited mean t LIMITed

I've heard some ignorant @#$% spray out of people but hat's right up there Pauly.
You seem to have insulted just about everybody with those suggestions, thanks for making them though, it good to know the spectrum of thinking out there.
Wow.

My advice Paul is.........You don't need advice, counselling might be in order though.

[knunk]

Just posting to agree with Chucky. I couldn't come up with an acceptable insult free response myself.

But the "And all with minimal effort, of course." comment gave me a nosebleed.

[Paul Mesken]

My advice Paul is.........You don't need advice, counselling might be in order though.

Hmm, I get the idea that I'm spending more time on this forum than I should.

But let me make one thing clear. I never said that shows like Kim Possible, Dexter's Lab and Fairly Odd Parents are crap. They are not. I like to watch such shows myself.

What I *did* mean is that people look at such shows and want to make something that *looks* like that (to show off to their friends). Of course, in majority they don't have the skill nor the inclination to develop such skills.

This is where ASP could step in by giving the people a tool in which they have ready drawn characters they could customize (like making a character in World of Warcraft, there are lots of WoW movies made BTW). And which have animation already baked in like a whole bunch of standard walks, gestures, emotions, etc. A bit like those ready drawn talking mouths ASP has.

Just look at a lot of amateur animation out there. It's just a character standing still who talks (with those prefab mouth movements).

The question was which direction ASP should follow. I believe that's the direction : giving prefab characters, motions, etc. so that people can slam an animation together which looks like the cartoon shows we see nowadays. Just add voice and tweak with a couple of buttons and menus.

Of course, I myself believe in the pencil. Far more fun, more freedom, etc. Even though I have a Cintiq, I still draw on paper. That's why I would love to see a good vectorizer in ASP.

[Mikdog]

Well I think AS is fine. I don't like the pre-fab stuff at all, I'd rather have the program as a +/- 10MB zip instead of all the bloatware that pushes it to 3 or 400-odd megs. Bleh.

[AmigaMan]

I agree that AS is just fine. There are plenty of "ready drawn characters for people to customise" on Content Paradise and a lot with the software itself. Yet most people appear to prefer to create their own characters.

Most, myself included' probably started out our animation careers by wanting to emulate animated shows they saw as kids. I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't see anything wrong with wanting to speed up the animation process either. I've been there with a pencil drawing on animation paper (and I still enjoy drawing btw) painting cels and haviing them strewn all over the house drying. Painting panning backgrounds on the back of rolls of walpaper Anything that speeds up the process and makes it easier is fine by me. As long as I still love doing it I will. I for one am so glad there's software like Anime Studio that allows you to be as creative as you want. For those that want a fast cut-out style solution then it's ideal. For those that want a full cel animation look then you can achieve that too.

Btw, I'd love to see some of your drawn animation. I'm really interested. Maybe you could link to some please?

[chucky]

You know where SM can stick those pre-drawn characters?
You guessed it.
That'a exactly the opposite direction ASPRO should take.
Debut ok maybe, but a separation has to be made between the kids product debut and the pro's product ..... no really. Note the word PRO?
That way people could draw fine art copied of the tv all day then sit down in the evening and slam something pre-made out with Debut.
Sorry for the hints of sarcasm BTW.


Last night I downloaded the new V7 ASPRO , , those lumpy, clunky, hefty and untasty samples made for a fat download , with no value.
Only to find out it was the same as I downloaded last time a pro demo with the pro features disabled.
Those examples if they are driving up the price can go away right now and I don't care who here stand to make money from that (you know who you are and the propaganda you echo).

I am more and more horrified, as for the in product advertising for stuffit and poser - that's really in very poor taste and show little respect towards their already heavily spammed customers.
I actually think SM are leading the way in this cross promotional cynicism and I will probably have to boycott entirely if it carries on this way, I haven't the patience or willingness to throw money at a lot cause that insults it's customers..... this is where ASPRO is headed.

Edit :spelling mistake and addition of playful, sticky outie tongue smilie.

[AmigaMan]

Chucky you always speak the truth
Smith Micro don't appear to be happy with just selling the software. They want to turn all of their software into another 'Poser' where users can't be bothered to create their own characters but just buy premade ones, animate them and pass them off as their own work.

I must admit I was totally dumbfounded by the Poser integration in ASPro 7. However, it's not difficult to understand the SM execs, realising that they aren't getting enough revenue from AS content deciding they must make Poser content available too.

I think they've mede a huge mistake. Their Poser customers and ASPro customers, I think, are very different people. The kind of person that chooses Anime Studio, in the main, is one that wants to create their own characters and make their own animations. They had a chance to add some great new features to ASPro 7, and they have with the Physics engine (which I can see will be useful) and refinements in other area's but mostly, I have to say, I think they've blown it I'm now wishing I hadn't purchased the upgrade and stuck with version 6 and that's not a good feeling.

[amanandink]

So I'm not going to go on about as I would just be reiterating the same point as everyone else, but "slammed together", I wish, it would so make my life and our 12 staff we have working slamming the latest production together lives so much easier..

The way I see it is basically it comes down to weather SM wants to have the professional market, compete against Flash or the Amateur / hobbyists market which they seem to be stepping towards now.

Anime Studio is a good piece of animation software, but we dont composite in the programme, we dont do animatics in the programme, we dont edit in the programme, and if SM want the professional market they need to concentrate on improving is their core use for the software. Stop trying to be everything to everybody.

We have used Anime Studio on different length projects, different styles and different levels of quality and the 2 things I so dearly wish would be improved in the drawing and library / asset management function.

Although we will only be using the anime studio til the Animatron 2000 comes out, it's rumoured it will do all the animation work for you in what ever style you like. They will be great days

J

[Rhoel]

My personal view for future development is to concentrate on some of the pro tools requested for this release which never happened. The request for selectable directories never happened, either for the exporter or the project libraries. The user defined layer within the .anme file was missed, preventing 3rd party development such as production management tools.

Bugs continue from a long time back, the easy-in/ease-out being the most talked about.

I would like to see the Text tool revisited - currently its a mess with the character vectors simply being ignored. Maybe we need a new titling text tool, one which doesn't require the same type of points to animate. A proper credit roller would appeal to may of the users who do not have access to Pro credit roller software. Having that center justified gully look would be a nice tool.

I know I have mentioned 3DTV a lot over the last year but a full colour output would be welcomed. Even the guys doing stop-motion now have 3D assist for their rigs. ToonBoom has 3D, so does CelAction. ASP is being left behind. And that is crazy since Mike build in the 3D camera right back in the Moho days. ASP is no longer a leader here, it's playing catch up.

But for me (and those who have retired to the renegades forum), the request is to fix the bugs, and add procedures which enable/encourage project collaborations. That will be the future strength of ASP, the ability of animators in Australia to work with those in Germany and New York. That ease of sending a 15k .anme file by email to another team member is invaluable: Packing up all the backgrounds and other scene material into a zip and sending 15M is utterly pointless. Teamwork and collaboration will unlock what ASP is capable of in expert hands.

And that would be very good news for SM balance sheet.

Unfortunately, I suspect the priority at SM will be to add more toys, and less productivity.

Rhoel

[Mikdog]

Ha ha. You're right about the small file sizes. Many of my HappyLand Series episodes come in at under 1 MB, that's awesome, like, 600 kb.

Toys! More toys! Jokes. I haven't even installed AS7 yet, mainly because the drawing tools in Toon Boom Animate 2 are way nicer than the drawing tools in Anime Studio. So, I'm pretty much using Toon Boom Animate 2 now. Even with the physics feature, for a big project I don't have much use for physics atm. Drawing tools - yes. But not for physics. I think its pretty awesome and I may try it out a bit. Hey, maybe I'll really like it and incorporate it. Also quite interested in the 3D extrude thing.

[Mikdog]

Ha cha cha. Used AS7 a bit. Very nice! The physics really works well, and I like the 3D extrude. May use it for summin' summin'.

[chucky]

Yes Amiga Man,
I think there are many minds here, well I know a efw who think exactly as you are.
Maybe SM if they are clever and fast on their feet , which I think they might well be , they can turn this situation into an advantage.

For a start the sample pack could be a separate download to the program, that would be easy.

By Selling the Début product with more ado regarding the content and PRO with more on the features, SM could better define the PRO product for its advanced features.
Let the DEBUT kids play with the poser stuff, but the pro customers I bet would want tools tols improvements and let's see this thing as the elegant animation machine that was so promising.

Mikes done some great stuff over the last couple of years, I'm excited about the physics could be REAL good (not on the trial though ?).
I do think full upgrade of the pro version could have done with a big look at the line caps and freehand tools.

In some ways the wordt thing about the poser intrusion is perhaps in redirecting the potential of Mikes bones system, I would much rather have seen mikes bones in 3d with vector shapes on an entirely flat layer pointed at camera, much like a normal bone and vector layer scenario.

Apologies to all for that outrageous outburst before .... phew. I'll have to calm down with another coffee, yes more coffee.