Moho Forum

Just a quickie, do most anime studio users on this forum use anime studio for making
backgrounds, or do most users like to draw their backgrounds in a paint program?

Just like to know what's better, or quicker?

There is no "better". There's only what fits your style and what not.

I'll go along with slowtigers comment.

if you want something vectored you can get some varied styles by using or omitting outlines but if you want something with texture I just find it too hard and default to a decent bitmap software. I have my favourite (shhh artrage)

I'm no artist, but this is a couple of my doodles.

ASP (low quality hence the gradient on sky)


BITMAP

Very nice backgrounds there, yeah, like you both say, its what fits your style and what
Works for you.
I'm still learning anime studio, SLOWLY... and experimenting with character designs, but
What made me ask this question is does making and using backgrounds made in anime studio affect Your computers speed when animating your characters, you know, more layers mean more slowdown?

Is it easier with a simple image, one layer?

ditto on artrage - for the price its outstanding value.

Artpen wrote:Very nice backgrounds there, yeah, like you both say, its what fits your style and what
Works for you.
I'm still learning anime studio, SLOWLY... and experimenting with character designs, but
What made me ask this question is does making and using backgrounds made in anime studio affect Your computers speed when animating your characters, you know, more layers mean more slowdown?

Is it easier with a simple image, one layer?

I would just do it how it seems natural.. I would guess that points rather than layers would have a greater impact on performance..
You could always 'bake' your background if the detail became painful but rendering it out and saving the background as an image and then load that into a scene instead of the vector version.

you'll see that anime studio gives you many options and there is usually a way round most things.. thats part of its charm and down fall

stick at it... I'm still learning.


@Rhoel man I had a trial of 3 recently and went on holiday for a bit and unfortunately didnt get much use but they looked like they had improved it again... Thats a piece of software that is much better than its price suggests...in many ways like ASP
EDIT: I've just upgraded to 3 :d for £26 got to be worth it just for the inking pen.

Cheers Sven

That advice is spot on with baking or just making your vector background done in anime studio a single image, nice one.

Artrage looks pretty decent, how much? , is Gimp any good, its free, don't know what the
Paint tools are like ?

Thanks again, Art

Artpen wrote:Cheers Sven

That advice is spot on with baking or just making your vector background done in anime studio a single image, nice one.

Artrage looks pretty decent, how much? , is Gimp any good, its free, don't know what the
Paint tools are like ?

Thanks again, Art

A full 'pro' version (with photshop friendly layers and copy/paste stuff) is around $49 (USD).
If you want more of a photoshop thing then GIMP will do.. if you want 'natural media' ie brushes, mixing colors.. very intuitive... artrage cannot be beaten... download the demo for 30day free.. no CCard needed.

slowtiger wrote:There is no "better". There's only what fits your style and what not.

Thanks for that Slow Tiger, Sometimes it seems others forget it.

In regards to backgrounds and other imported elements one can walk characters around { .png type elements } Do you know of any tutorials I can follow, showing just how to a] import and use them and b] i notice that you have quite a presence around here as well, I see a lot of actual Working knowledge, and wonder~ If I am right in my understanding of the fact that one can in fact use imported images and video upon which to work your characters.

Yes, you can build your character from imported bitmaps of body parts. This will be called cutout animation. Search for "cutout" to get some tips about the workflow.

slowtiger wrote:Yes, you can build your character from imported bitmaps of body parts. This will be called cutout animation. Search for "cutout" to get some tips about the workflow.

Thanks I've seen that proposed . But i was thinking of images like a tree or rock for example, something that's not body part . I am also wondering about working over video. As that ~is~ what i want to use a/s for.

SvenFoster wrote:

Artpen wrote:Cheers Sven

That advice is spot on with baking or just making your vector background done in anime studio a single image, nice one.

Artrage looks pretty decent, how much? , is Gimp any good, its free, don't know what the
Paint tools are like ?

Thanks again, Art

A full 'pro' version (with photshop friendly layers and copy/paste stuff) is around $49 (USD).
If you want more of a photoshop thing then GIMP will do.. if you want 'natural media' ie brushes, mixing colors.. very intuitive... artrage cannot be beaten... download the demo for 30day free.. no CCard needed.

Can I suggest ArtWeaver?
It's free, supports PSD files, ABR brushes and LUA plugins...
I make all my backgrounds in it and I'm always satisified of the results.

Artweaver ?, I'll have to try that one, sounds promising, thanks

Art

May I also suggest another natural media program called MyPaint. Its interface is clean and is a joy to use. It also open source:
MyPaint

I use Xara and I am more than happy with the speed and results!