Toonboom Studio or Animate?

frozentoons · Post by **frozentoons** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 5:58 am

Should purchase Studio or animate? If anyone has experience (COUGH Slegin COUGH) with the software, is studio and animate like ASD and ASP?

dm · Post by dm » Sun Nov 21, 2010 3:00 pm

What do you want to do with it?

crsP · Post by **crsP** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 5:33 pm

Hhahha! That's it, ask Selgin and HeyVern for their opinions on Toon Boom's software!!!

Firstly, whatever you decide, do it quick - tomorrow [Monday 22nd November] Toon Boom is having an up to 60% off sale for one day only!

Here's what I know:

1) Studio only has forward kinematics, Animate has forward and inverse kinematics [like Anime Studio].

2) Studio can do stop motion within the app [through the camera you have plugged in to your computer], Animate doesn't do stop motion.

3) Animate has a 3d camera view of your scene, as far as I know, Studio represents orthographic views [and of course the camera view] only.

There's obviously many other less major differences, but my advice would be, if you want to do many different types of animation [stop motion, cut-out, drawn frame by frame] or rotoscoping, choose Studio. If your main focus is squarely on frame by frame drawn animation with 'puppet' cut-out style, then go for animate. If you don't care much for frame by frame and are just interested in the 'bones' style cut-out or skinned animation, er, then choose Anime Studio Pro.

Finally, if you're in a real bind - choose PIKACHU

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 9:10 pm

I've got Studio, and I can say that 3) is incorrect -- Studio has a (quasi) 3D space; it just doesn't have that Animate visualisation tool where you can slalom around with a 3D camera. You have to run the project file to see the 3D effect. No biggie. TBS and ASPro are very complementary -- it's good to have both. If there's a good offer tomorrow, I'd recommend getting it. Take a look at some of the tutorials at Tall Grass Radio Studios -- they definitely help.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 1:09 am

Sorry, I have almost nothing of experience on Toon Boom. My advice is to take in count the previous advices

Skids · Post by **Skids** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 3:31 pm

As someone new to animation I have downloaded the trial versions of both AnimeDebut and ToonBoom Studio. I found both applications hard to get to grips with as experience with drawing packages has to be un-learnt.

Toonboom Studio is a lot more expensive and in my opinion has a nicer looking user interface. However, the tutorial (once you have located it and downloaded it) shows what a complex piece of software Toonboom is. It looks like the designer set out to replicate the paper/film animation process inside a computer application. This is why it uses terminology that is probably industry standard such as "pegs" ( a means of keeping a number of transparent drawing sheets in registration on a board - I think) . I attempted the tutorial but did not find it very rewarding as it seems that Toonboom wants me to draw every frame (?cell). I searched the web site for more teaching material and discovered that its only available at a price.

Switching to Anime Debut I started its tutorial. I am not as keen on the user interface but by page 3 of the tutorial I had a running animation of a deforming circle. I went back to ToonBoom to try to replicate the same and failed. Soon I had a tree, a bouncing ball and a rigged jumping character all moving on my screen. Given that Anime is a third of the price of Toonboom studio the answer to which to buy is obvious for a non-animator like me.

Simon

dm · Post by dm » Mon Mar 28, 2011 1:31 am

Skids wrote: it seems that Toonboom wants me to draw every frame (?cell).

Correct. Different way of animating.

Rather than trying software and looking at price, it might be advantageous to describe what you want to do, and why. There are other bits of software out there that do animation as well. Something else might work even better for you.

(see, someone said that early on in the thread, didn't they?) And now, again. Yet no one does this. Tsk tsk.

madrobot · Post by **madrobot** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 2:22 am

dm wrote:(see, someone said that early on in the thread, didn't they?) And now, again. Yet no one does this. Tsk tsk.

That was you who said that! ....
Oh. Ok. I see what you did there.

crsP · Post by **crsP** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 1:02 pm

Skids wrote: Switching to Anime Debut I started its tutorial. I am not as keen on the user interface but by page 3 of the tutorial I had a running animation of a deforming circle. I went back to ToonBoom to try to replicate the same and failed. Soon I had a tree, a bouncing ball and a rigged jumping character all moving on my screen. Given that Anime is a third of the price of Toonboom studio the answer to which to buy is obvious for a non-animator like me.

Simon

So you followed the tutorial which is specific to Anime Studio, then tried to follow that using a different software and failed? That is just idiotic. What you describe doing in ASD is perfectly and easily possible in TBS or TBA. To make a fairer comparison, why did you not follow the the tutorials in the TBS\TBA manuals? Geezus

You hit the nail on the head when you said that TBS and TBA were designed to replicate the traditional process, and maybe that' where some people have difficulty in wrapping their heads around it. I suppose if your only experience of 'drawing' would be in Adobe Illustrator, then you would probably find it frustrating that when you came to use paper and a pencil, that your attempts to hit Control and Z or Command and Z failed to undo your last drawn line.