How long have you been using AS?

[Lumpy]

Just as a point of curiosity; how long has everyone been using Anime Studio?

[Tradley]

My first version of Anime Studio was Debut 8. It was for my birthday, on July 2012. And I remember not too long after that, version 9 was being released. Its promotional sale got me to purchase Pro 8 with a free upgrade to 9. Currently I use 9.5 to this day. I'll be upgrading to 10 this summer.
So, I've been using this software for a little over a year and a half.

[Danimal]

I bought it in 2007 when it had just changed names from Moho to Anime Studio 5. For a few years I got caught up in 3D animation and wasn't using Anime Studio as much. I had upgraded to version 7 and eventually 9.5. I'll get 10 at some point, I haven't determined when yet though.

[wizaerd]

I've had a copy of it, and tinkered with it a few years before Smith Micro got a hold of it and changed it to Anime Studio. It was Moho, but I don't remember the version. It was pretty early on though... I just did a search, and my first posting on here was August 25, 2006... And prior to that posting, I was a lurker for a while.

[Greenlaw]

I didn't start using Anime Studio until last October (2013). Although, like the guys above, I purchased a license of Moho a zillion years ago but I never really used it. At the time, I thought Moho had a lot of potential but it also needed a lot of work to be practical for production work. When 9.0 came out, I took another look and saw that it had indeed come a long way since Moho.

Then last fall I upgraded to 9.5 and got a second license for my partner Alisa, and we seriously crammed learning Anime Studio to use on a short film called 'Scareplane'. We finished that film a few weeks ago.

Very pleased with how ASP worked out for us on that production and we're looking forward to using version 10 on our next gig.

G.

[heyvern]

Wow... I checked and it appears I've been using "Moho" since 2005.... yikes. I should have much more stuff done in all those years <sigh>.

I downloaded the trial version of Moho... played with it for a few hours... then immediately bought it. Back then there was just one version for $99. I really wish I had kept the installer for that version. I still have several computers that could run it.

I purchased it based mainly on three things:
1. Bones (Very similar to Animation Master bones. No learning curve at all. I jumped right in.)
2. Vectors (Similar to Animation Master vectors in how they "moved", unlike Flash and traditional bezier.)
3. Scripting

I liked the vectors once I got the hang of it. I had used Animation Master for many years so the bones in Moho were a no brainer. I understood them instantly. But it was the freaking awesome cool, simple to learn built in scripting that really got my juices flowing. Once I saw that... saw how easy and powerful it was to do sooooo much stuff.

Animation Master had an "open" SDK for "scripting" features, but it had to be compiled as a plugin. It just was not easy to do. I was getting tired of 3D animation. It was so much work creating characters. Seeing the "plain text" lua scripting in Moho blew my socks off.

[slowtiger]

Started with Moho in 2003.

[jahnocli]

Long-haul user, short-haul finisher (I'm ashamed to say).

[AmigaMan]

I've been using it about the same length of time as Danimal. About 7 years or so. I was looking at Moho for quite a while after seeing it reviewed, with other 2D software, in a UK magazine. Of course, as soon as I went to buy it I couldn't find it! Then it re appeared as Anime Studio via Smith Micro and I bought it immediately I just about managed to convince the company I worked for to use it (as all the animator's loved it) for a 2D TV series we were to do but, unfortunately, the new US parent company decided to close us down at that point I still use it and a friend who I introduced to AS at the aforementioned company purchased the software and has used it for commercials.

[sbtamu]

I bought AS6 the day it was released. A friend of mine had Moho and I messed around with it on his computer prier to buying AS6. I lurked around the forum for a good while before registering Dec 2009.

[Danimal]

a few years before Smith Micro got a hold of it and changed it to Anime Studio.

Then it re appeared as Anime Studio via Smith Micro

I wouldn't be the petty, nit-picky person I am if I didn't point out that it came out first through E Frontier then went to Smith Micro.

[AmigaMan]

Haha, you're right and I'd completely forgotten about that! My memory is nothing like it used to be

[stealingfeathers]

Just last Fall 2013. I had to find a substitute for Adobe Flash because we were moving my college classes from being on-site, to online. We didn't want the online students to be stuck paying for Flash. It is a rural community college in a very low-income area. I looked online for the whole summer and tried a few very strange 2D animation programs. I was so relieved and happy that I found Anime Studio.

[Telemacus]

Been using it since around August 2013.
Had only done basic gif animations before and always thought animation was just too hard for me.

[Greenlaw]

Seems like a lot of use started using it last fall. I guess 9.5 was the push we needed.

G.