Psmith wrote:Toonz Premium must be aiming at these same (few and far between) studios too - they don't even publish a price online.
One minute on Google -
http://www.toonz.com/premiumbuy/bp.htm - hardly professional studio pricing.
Psmith wrote:It is my opinion that the largest market for 2D animation software - with the most enthusiasm and potential for the future - is the amateur and student market. The signs of contraction of the professional studio market are everywhere. Jobs working for studios as an animator are incredibly hard to get, in western countries - and becoming fewer by the day.
So you're saying that the people who can least afford the software are the biggest market? Even though they can't even get work afterwards? 2D animation is just a hobby now? They said the same thing about stop-motion when Toy Story came out. Aardman and Laika might have something to say about assumptions like that.
Under your logic, there's no reason for anyone to develop 2D animation software at all. If nobody pays for it, what's the point? That's not potential, that's a death sentence.
Psmith wrote:Animation software which focuses mainly on paper based techniques is not going to flourish.
It hasn't flourished for years. The world has been paperless for quite some time.
Psmith wrote:One main cause might be that most animation work is being outsourced to areas of the world which, traditionally, don't purchase software licenses for every seat that their animators occupy. Check into the readily available information regarding where Studios like Disney, ILM, Dreamworks and Cartoon Network are sending their work (and jobs, too):
Canada, for the most part. Your information is again years out of date.
Psmith wrote:As far as developing more video training for OpenToonz - I have been forced to use emulation software to obtain a usable version (Windows 7) of OpenToonz on my Mac. The Mac version is almost entirely unusable. I see little evidence that a Mac version of OpenToonz is a primary focus of the main developers. The Windows version is buggy, inconsistent and has many unusable and primitively functioning tools (Magnet Tool, Pinch Tool, Bezier-based vector tools) - forcing me to find workarounds to produce animation which is far more straightforward and intuitive to produce using several other animation platforms. I don't like to waste my time or the time of my viewers.
Okay, so now we're getting to some valid reasons for you to not continue - and I can totally respect that.
Sorry to give you a hard time, but you're doing Toonz a disservice by implying things about the software (that it doesn't do paperless) and about the developers (that they don't give a price, they are only developing non-paperless features), and you seem very out of touch with the industry (or rather, you're trying to make old facts support your argument). Just because making tutorials for OpenToonz has gotten harder than the amount of effort you were prepared to put in, you're pooh-poohing a whole technique. That's not fair.
If you want to give up 2D animation and do 3D instead, fine. But there's a lot of us still making a good living doing 2D animation. And remember what forum you're on. There's obviously a market for 2D animation at ASP's price point, which isn't so different from Toonz Premium.
I'm seriously tempted with Toonz Premium - if it's a working version of OpenToonz. The price is so cheap, compared to other studio-level software (Toon Boom, I'm looking at you).
Psmith wrote:I can confidently say that the entire industry of graphic software manufacture and sales is based, almost entirely, on rumor and hearsay.
Can you name one feature promised by Smith Micro, Toon Boom or TV Paint that has been announced ahead of time that failed to materialise? None of those companies promise things in advance, and haven't done it for years (if they ever did, I can't even remember it happening with them). Maybe that kind of rubbish happened in 1984, but it's 2016 now.
Psmith wrote:To put things in perspective, just look at the history of the most successful OpenSource computer graphics software ever attempted - Blender.
Which was originally a failed commercial product, just like Toonz. If people had reacted to Blender at the start in the same way you have given up on OpenToonz, there would not be a Blender today.
As Herbert says, OpenToonz is a great thing, it's early days but it's amazing that people are getting professional-grade animation software so cheaply. Toon Boom has been ripping people off for too long, it's time they were taken down a peg or two.
Again, sorry for being argumentative, but your view of the industry is so out of date, I had to speak out.