JaMike wrote:Soon you won't even be able to choose Animate Pro, because it is being discontinued.
Do you mean because the product's name was changed to 'Harmony Advanced' about a month ago? Not sure why that's a reason to resurrect this year-old thread but ok.
Anyway, since it has been brought up, I'll update my position on the topic, which probably hasn't changed much since last year but I have a few things to add.
I've been using Anime Studio Pro for both personal and freelance work for a couple of years now in my private studio and, in the year since my last post to this thread, I've been using Harmony at my 'day job'. What I've learned is that there's a lot to like about both programs but I also found the two are quite different from each other, with unique strengths and weaknesses.
Harmony's strength is mainly its drawing tools, and Anime Studio Pro strength is definitely its character rigging tools. I guess that was basically what I said last year and the statement is still true. However, now that I have much more experience with both programs, I think that distinction is getting a fuzzier.
Harmony has a powerful nodal network system which we use at my 'day job' for setting up fairly complex masking techniques that would be difficult to replicate in Anime Studio Pro's layers based system. But I prefer ASP's Photoshop-style Layer Comp system for outputting passes for compositing. Sure, in Harmony you can set up a bunch of Write nodes at various points in the network to get equivalent output results, but that can become a lot more work to do on a scene by scene basis.
Harmony's FBF tools and workflow has been the industry standard for many years. I started using the FBF tools at my workplace a few months ago and so far I'm really liking them. But a few weeks ago, ASP stepped up its own drawing and FBF tools in version 11, and there are still certain path editing tools in ASP for which Harmony has no equivalent. (The ever useful Magnet for example.)
Anyway, to answer the OP's question, "Why would anyone choose Animate Pro?", IMO, the choice between the two really comes down to the type of production you're involved in.
If your thing is
mainly traditional FBF drawing, Harmony is still the stronger candidate. ASP recently implemented its own FBF system but I think it still has a way to go to catch up. It'll get there eventually though.
But if it's cut-out style animation you want, Anime Studio Pro wins hands down for its rigging system, advanced IK with goals, and Smart Bones. That said, Harmony has this really cool Curve deformer for which ASP doesn't really have an equivalent. At my workplace, we use the Curve deformer for just about everything...it's that good. But then again, none of Harmony's deformers can use IK like ASP, which makes Harmony a bit slower to animate cut-out characters in. (To be clear, Harmony does have IK for its basic bones system (which is separate from its deformer system) but the IK is somewhat primitive and it doesn't support goals or dynamics like ASP.)
For editing keyframes/exposures on the timeline, I think ASP is a bit more intuitive to work with. The marker system in ASP is certainly more direct to use and edit, and Harmony has no way to stretch and compress a selected range of keyframes like you can in ASP and After Effects. However, Harmony does have a very intelligent system for directly dropping re-useable animation keyframes from the Library onto the timeline. I also think there's a bit more consistency in how the timeline and layers are edited in ASP--in Harmony, there are different graph editors for animating different aspects of a scene, and some of them are a bit clunky to edit accurately.
The X-sheet in Harmony is a love/hate thing for me. At times, it's very convenient and at other times it can be a huge pain in the butt. I'm really glad it's there when I need it though.
Sigh, I could go around in circles all day like this. Like I said, both are good programs but if the differences between the two were clear at one time, they are beginning to get a little fuzzy.
The bottom line:
I really can't speak in detail about software I use at my workplace, but for my own
personal projects I still
generally prefer Anime Studio Pro for most of my 2D animation work. IMO, it's a lot faster to set up complex character rigs in ASP. And I can't ignore the cost difference--it's still much easier for me and Alisa to afford multiple licenses of ASP than Harmony.
If you can afford it, there's no reason you can't use both on the same project, leveraging the unique strengths of each program, and then composting the results where appropriate (i.e., ASP, AP, Fusion, After Effects, etc.) This is exactly what Alisa and I have started doing for our personal projects--we currently have two licenses of ASP and a single license of Animate Pro to use for FBF animation as we need it, and we composite the results in the program where it makes the most sense to us. But if the Anime Studio Pro devs continue to improve their drawing and FBF tools (which I expect they will,) I can see us saving a little money by going back to doing all of our 2D character animation in ASP again.
That's just my personal opinion of course, for whatever that's worth.
G.
Edit: I should have mentioned that Harmony's cool Curve deformer mentioned above is only available in the most expensive edition, Harmony Premium, and not Harmony Advanced, which is the Animate Pro equivalent and the version closest to ASP in price and features, so its probably a moot point for this discussion. You can kinda do something similar in ASP using path animation--well, it's really not the same thing as Harmony Premium's Curve deformer but at least ASP has that option.