Saturday, June 09, 2007

New animation program, better than flash???

So i came across this new (at least to me) animation program called "Anime Studio" i think it used to be called "Moho" but recently changed names. it features a built in 3d camera, particle effects, boiling line option, motion blur and texture mapping, and "bones" for bending arms and such. It's fairly simple to use once you get a handle on how it works.. which didn't take me long, thanks to its informative tutorials. The only studio i've seen using this program so far is Greykid Pictures they have several examples of how they've used this interesting program. Some of which is quite impressive. You can really see the potential.. as long as the animator can avoid the "puppet" look. The system is essentially "flat Maya" so anyone with Maya 3d experience could easily switch. Flash animators may have more trouble getting used to it.. but it didn't take me very long to figure most of it out. Here is a quick little test i did to show a bit of it off.

i don't know what kind of bugs it has yet.. but the drawing tools are weird and i would recommend drawing in flash and import an .AI file. Watch out for the colours too as the porting may change them.. i was able to re-colour correctly but had to import a palette since there isn't really an eyedropper... nor any hotkeys for that matter.. and you can only select one layer at a time. In the timeline i had trouble with the graph editor a bit.. there are no handles for line points anywhere. All of these i was able to get around with a bit of different thinking.. but coming from flash i thought those issues were a step down. Perhaps the makers of this program will improve upon these things in a new version.. provided they are aware.
How much would you pay for a program such as this??????? well take a look at this comparison ....

Adobe Flash CS3------$699 US
Toon Boom Solo-------$2499 US
Anime Studio Pro-----$199 US (CHEAP!!!)

2 comments:

Piotr said...

oh nice, flash may have to change their program soon if they want me to stick with them:P looks like it has great potential, but it takes a talented artist to make the animation , tools will stay tools...but it sure looks easier!

goldenrusset said...

agreed, having played with it so far.. i feel it allows animators to do more elaborate stuff with less effort.. and we can move away from the graphic puzzle piece look that flash is so known for