Anime Studio Debut 5 [OLD VERSION]
by Smith Micro Software Inc.

List Price: $49.99
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Category: Software
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Software Summary

• Create your characters and objects by drawing or scanning directly into Anime Studio 5
• With bone-rigging, vector-based graphics, and layer-based workflow you can create animated shorts up to two minutes in length
• Add a soundtrack or other special effects, such as lip-synching, line effects, camera angle, glows, particle effects and more, to your animation
• Output your finished animations to popular movie formats, including AVI, MOV, and Flash
• Anime Studio 5 is compatible with Windows and Macintosh operating systems

Software Reviews of Anime Studio Debut 5 [OLD VERSION]

Customer Review: Not really for professionals
Summary: 3 Stars

Description of Anime Studio Debut 5 [OLD VERSION]

It's easy to quickly create simple camera movements and characters.

Easily create characters and objects.	Use layering behaviors that are similar to other design programs.
A wealth of tools at your fingertips.	Using keyframes and a timeline, test your animations as you design.
Bone-rigging uses spring-like simulation to calculate dynamic character movement.	Vector-based tools make quick designs easy.
Give your characters a voice with Papagayo lip-synching software.	Create sophisticated special effects.

Anime Studio 5 allows digital enthusiasts at home to bring their imaginations to life. The program is fun to use, quick to learn, and easy on your pocketbook. It is an ideal solution for first time animators, hobbyists and digital enthusiasts. Draw original art, import your digital pictures, dub and add subtitles to existing videos, or choose from many built-in characters to grease your animation wheels and get a feel for the software's capabilities.

This program includes everything aspiring artists need to create top quality animations from start to finish -- it simplifies the animation process and empowers artists to create their projects faster and easier than ever before. You'll be surprised by how quickly you can get started. Packed with ready-to-use anime style characters you can create your own animations right out of the box. Tutorials and sample files show you how to maximize Anime Studio's powerful features giving you the jump start you'll need to begin your first project.

Once you feel at home with the mechanics of the software, you'll be ready to move on to your own art. Sketch your original characters and backdrops, scan in and import graphics, or if you use a pen tablet you can recreate the sensation of drawing on paper. Built with vector graphics, Anime Studio 5 provides power and flexibility with multiple layering and the capacity to resize images without sacrificing quality. Another powerful element of Anime Studio 5 is the use of "bones." Using the software's bone rigging system you can add a skeleton to any image to bring it to life. With Anime Studio 5 there is no need to create new art for each individual frame as you animate -- just adjust the bones to your desired position and the program will generate the movement for you.

You can also count on Anime Studio 5 to help direct your animated action with an intuitive timeline. Setting your movements to a timeline makes scene changes feel seamless and natural, so the plot of your animated short is easier to follow. No animation is complete without an audio soundtrack. Anime Studio 5 helps you add emotion and style to your animations by adding sound in WAV and AIFF formats. And once you've completed a project, you can publish your results for a variety of media, including video, TV, and web formats.

Design and Layout
Anime Studio 5 gives you total control over your canvas and makes it easy for you to organize and complete your project using layers. With this intuitive software under your belt you can set up your 2D canvas to the exact dimensions you want. Using Anime Studio's vector-based graphics you can freely adjust canvas resolution and size without losing image quality.

If you're already accustomed to other graphics and design programs, such as Photoshop or Quark, you'll be pleased with Anime Studio's familiar layer-based workflow. It is an easy and efficient way to organize your assets and create your animation, and you'll save time by reusing your art. Simply create an asset once and place it on a layer, then refer to that layer any time you need to reuse a piece of art. Advanced layer features include Switch Layers which allows you to rotate among all the layers in a set and shows only one layer a time. This saves you a great deal of time when animating body movements or facial expressions. You can also use Anime Studio to rig your characters, objects and scenes with the revolutionary bone system that makes the animation process easier than ever before. Bones create a skeleton that determines joints or flex points in your artwork. You can then manipulate the bones to move the image into new positions without time-consuming redraws.

Simple tools let you design dynamic character movement.

Stop thinking of your drawings as fixed, static images -- with Anime Studio your drawings become like soft rubber with stiff wires inside that help you move and position the objects on the screen. Bones are never displayed in the final render, they're just used as a tool during the animation process. And to make the process smoother and easier to follow, you can organize your project using keyframe animation and a timeline. Then all you need to do is position your image on the canvas and manipulate the timeline. The software will interpolate the motion between positions for you to create a smooth-flowing, graceful transition from one movement to the next. Anime Studio creates animations up to two minutes long, but if you need unlimited length, take a look at the Pro version. Once you complete a project, you can finish it for web, TV, film and still formats. With Anime Studio you can output your finished work to a variety of standard formats, such as AVI, MOV, and Flash (SWF export for vector based animations).

Animation Techniques
Traditional animation was created by drawing frames one after another, each frame drawn slightly different from the last. Anime Studio helps you simulate frame-by-frame animation, yet drastically reduces the time required from traditional animation. Designed to mimic real skeletal structure, the Anime Studio bones are interdependent, so when you adjust one bone all the other connected bones will move in response. The bone-rigging feature also uses spring-like simulation to calculate dynamic bone movement. This makes a wide range of movements seem real, such as jumping, waving flabby body parts, and bouncing hair. You can also take advantage of Anime Studio's Switch Layers function to work with a combination of connected movements that occur along a timeline. This is particularly valuable for animating body movements or facial expressions, such as lip-synch animations, when each graphical layer can be a mouth shape for a different sound.

Sound and Special FX
Anime Studio allows you to add a soundtrack to your animations, including lip-synching. You can import sound clips into our project and adjust the timing and length to fit your scene. This program includes a free copy of Papagayo lip-synching software. Papagayo will break audio dialogue files down to their basic sound elements called phonemes.

Anime Studio then allows you to lip-synch based on these phonemes. Besides adding sound to your project, Anime Studio allows you to add a variety of special effects to your animation. With Anime Studios you can customize colors and fills for your objects using the style palette, or add line effects such as shaded, soft edge, splotchy, spots, halo, and gradients.

You can also manipulate the camera around your scene to create action and drama in your projects. For example, you can use script commands to call in pre-made particle effects like smoke or explosions. You can also make your own styles by saving your favorite sets of effects for use later. Other effects allow you to draw with pattern brushes, create perspective shadows with Anime Studio's layer masking feature, create glows and outlines, and use particle layers to create a flurry of flying objects.

Anime Studio includes over 60 sample files that make it easy to get up to speed so you can start creating your own animations quickly. Samples serve as starting points, or explore them to learn more about the richness of Anime Studio. This program includes anime characters, Aya and Winsor, backgrounds, animation, other characters, scenery, and props.

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