Complete overhaul

[drekka]

I've just recently bought Anime Studio Debut for Mac in order to do some character animations for an iOS game. So far it seems to be the best options round for producing cartoon like animations.

After a few days of reading the manual, producing a simple starting animation and trying to figure out how to use it, I've come to this conclusion - It's woefully out of date!

Yes it has some great tools for animation. But it's interface and base drawing tools are years, dare I say it - decades out of date. Even basic raster drawing programs these days have better tools. And it's UI paradigm is like a 1990's rendering engine.

Please, please do something about this. I'm finding I'm spending too much time struggling to figure out how to draw with this tool, finding it can't handle basic things, and not enough time actually doing it. It's becoming more and more hard to believe that the animations claimed to be done with it, are in fact actually done with Anime Studio.

[jahnocli]

There's a grain of truth in what you are saying. I have complained about the drawing tools in AS, and the interface *is* extremely old-fashioned. But it's not like you can't import drawings, or change the interface colours, or use scripts to achieve time-saving things. And the feature list is still much better - and cheaper - than any comparable software.

So you can walk away, stuff it in a virtual drawer, or make the most of it. No animation program can do it all...

[funksmaname]

as often discussed, the drawing tools are the way they are to keep shapes light on points for easy animation - you need only import an illustrator file to see what 'better' tools would give you - more drawing control but significantly less animation control.

New users always struggle with the drawing tools but seriously, they are unique in a fresh way once you get to grips with them. I've done several still illustration projects in AS instead of illustrator for things like point specific line weight and multiple lines connected to a single point - features lacking in illustrator (not tried CS5, but prior to that for sure)

you only need to see the work of some of the more experienced users like Selgin to see what can really be achieved with the seemingly cumbersome tools.

[GCharb]

I was able to draw some decent stuff only a few days after i first got it.



These are some of the first images I made and here is one of my first animation.



As far as the interface, it is no worst then some of the software i used over time, ever had a look at 3DSMax, a 3D software that had nearly no interface change in 10 years, but still one and if not the most used.

The interface is not that bad, gimp gives me goosebumps as far as the interface goes, its still is a pretty good paint package.

I dunno what changes are coming in v9, but I hope that very little time will be spent on the interface and that time will be spent in fixing what needs fixing and in adding what needs to be added!

[chucky]

Hi drekka,
looks like you're having the same experience that I did in my first week of trying anime/moho.
I was throwing monkey crap around and making an idiot of myself ( not saying you are- that was just me) then a few things clicked and I felt foolish for not getting it.
In comparison , Blender had an interface that many found too non standard, so they implemented a Maya emulation toggle at start-up for those of us who just could get off the ground, now it's like aaahhhh .... thank you, I don't feel completely nobbled at the get go.
Yo are right about bringing the old girl up to date though ( yes the manual often relies on the user opening up files buried in the program folders which isn't handy for a quick check), I think especially in the preview, graphics cards are so hot these days, we shouldn't be sitting and wondering what a image really looks like.
Keep at it and you will discover hidden abilities in ASPRO like I do all the time- I had a great Eureka yesterday, (so cool I'm tempted to keep it secret), good luck.

Oh yeah I too have whined about the drawing tools many times.