AS vs Solo discussion kicks off

The400th · Post by **The400th** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:47 pm

Interesting thread in Toonboom forum about the differences between ASP and Solo...

http://www.toonboom.com/support/forums/ ... readid=307

cribble · Post by **cribble** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 5:15 pm

solo is overpriced. users who brought it are sour about it, but will defend it to their graves. end of.

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:57 pm

What I notice about the user who called AS a "toy" only suitable for cutout animation is that he's basing his opinion on the startup file, Windsor, which is a cutout style puppet. Since Windsor is a collection of raster files, first-time users are presented with a heavily-restricted puppet which cannot be distorted by point animation. No wonder they think of it as a toy. I think E-frontier would do well to provide a vector-based puppet for the startup file.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:47 pm

I think they should rethink their whole strategy. Anime Studio seem to be the first professional grade software in their suite of products, nevertheless, they treat it like their other software, dumb it down for the mass market, so anyone can have a go with it with cutting and pasting pre-made models. Anime Studio is created for people who have experience in vector character animation, and character animation in general. If you have no animation skills, you will have a hard time creating an animated movie with Anime Studio.

my 2 cents.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:15 pm

A friend of mine downloaded the demo of Anime Studio the other day and played around with it as I looked on. It was rather painful to watch. Turns out that the demo is really the cheap version, not the pro version. So you can't test out the 3D camera, you can't test out the onion skinning, there's no display settings... to make it even worst, you can't do any test renders, even with watermarking like in the Moho days.

jhbmw007 · Post by **jhbmw007** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:37 pm

What gets me is that EVERYTHING shown in the "video demos" for Solo on Toonboom's website shows features that Anime Studio is already capable of (with the exception of their different line types). And AS does them better.

cribble · Post by **cribble** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:10 am

i bet solo's swf output isn't that great either!

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:46 am

I see the response to AS in that thread the same as any other "holier than thou" elitist professionals attitude.

They feel that just because they are "experts" that their over generalized comments are justified.

If a "professional" says AS is "a toy" then it must be so because they don't use it professionally themselves.

Plus they are comparing apples to oranges. AS is NOT a traditional "drawn" animation application. The disconnect in my mind occurs when an implication is made that there is only one true, pure way to animate.

And another thing, who the heck decided that "cut out" animation "for the web" is ANY LESS LEGITIMATE as an artistic expression than the same work applied to a more "traditional" animation style for a cinematic release in a theater or film festival????

The web is all we will have when the last movie theater closes.

If we followed this line of reasoning we wouldn't have digitally filmed and processed movies of any kind because it isn't "pure" and true "cinema". All the movies would still be black and white and silent.

The person using Solo isn't any more "professional". He should still be doing pencil tests on paper and painting on acetate cells.

I recently did a painting... a real painting. No undo. No saving backups. If the painting was destroyed I can't pull a copy off of a CD.

This goes against the very nature of years and years of computer training... it was absolute AGONY!! I couldn't make a backup at night before going to bed!!! There was... only one copy! Only one copy <gasp>.

And yet... these are the roots of everything I do on the computer. This is where it all came from. Have to adapt to new tools every day. My goodness!! They have water soluble OIL PAINTS now! Rembrandt must be rolling in his grave.

-vern

The400th · Post by **The400th** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:23 am

Turns out that the demo is really the cheap version

That's the Toon Boom Studio demo. They used to have the Solo demo on the website, but it was so buggy/bad/easily crackable (take your pick) they took it down - now you can only get it if you e-mail them directly (presumably so they can bombard you with salesmen).

Anyway, it looks like the AS "fan" in that thread was only trying to blackmail them into getting a discount.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:37 am

The400th wrote:That's the Toon Boom Studio demo. They used to have the Solo demo on the website, but it was so buggy/bad/easily crackable (take your pick) they took it down - now you can only get it if you e-mail them directly (presumably so they can bombard you with salesmen).

Actually, I was talking about Anime Studio. The demo version they're giving out is the non-pro version, which is very counter-productive IMO.

The400th · Post by **The400th** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:01 pm

Sorry, Manu, I misunderstood you from your initial comment.

And you DID edit your post to make it clearer didn't you? I'm not going mad, am I?

efflux · Post by **efflux** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:17 am

This is my first post here.

I have to agree with what batzilla says on the Toon Boom Solo forum.

I've been weighing up what to use for a while. I come from a drawing background so the cell by cell nature of Toon Boom kind of appealed to me for getting the animations to look more drawing like but after using Anime Studio I find my drawing skills are more useful there. By starting in Anime Studio I feel like I'm on a level way above what I can do in Toon Boom because I'm bypassing a lot of the skills needed for cell by cell. I can concentrate on a faster more creative approach in Anime Studio. It is fun - this is very important.

Then I find that Anime Studio is really a kind of 3D/2D app with bones. I do 3D stuff so great I'm into this straight away.

And to top it off it works on Linux which is an OS I love using.

"Anime Studio is a no brainer" says batzilli. I don't think a truer statement could be made.

I do agree that there is a danger of dumbing down Anime Studio. Moho was a cooler name for a start but the work will ultimately speak for itself. I think it's e-frontiers best app.

Anime Studio Pro is on my shopping list. Toon Boom is not.

moorsel · Post by **moorsel** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 8:38 am

I read through the thread on the toonboom forum. The most remarkable quote I read was: "Have you seen Sport Wagen 2? It looks like it was made with toy software to me." Being the author of this Sport Wagen 2, for me as a hobby user it is too much honour to get my work referred to in a user of forum of such an high end package

Nevertheless, although not pretending my work is professional or high end, after all I my circus project is only a hobby(viewtopic.php?t=5679) , I really like the sports car drawing myself

Gr,
Frank

Postality · Post by **Postality** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:13 pm

LOL

"ASP- Cut-out animation for the web... not much else
SOLO- Cut-out - traditional (paperless) animation for film, television, and the web."

Someone should show this boy GreyKids Productions...

ASP at a pricetag at $200 is absolutely fair. TB just thinks that if you can make a professional quality animation with it, you should pay "royalties" up front. It's a money hungry arguement. Forget Solo Pfft.

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:13 pm

I think eFrontier have screwed the MOHO thing up a bit. I still dislike the name Anime Studio wholeheartedly. It's like they took the product and put as many bottlenecks in as possible. That's what happens when the suits mess with ponytails. You end up with Anime Studio.