Anime Studio Debut 5 [OLD VERSION]
by Smith Micro Software Inc.
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Software Reviews of Anime Studio Debut 5 [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Does what it says it will do, but what is that exactly?
Summary: 5 Stars
Because of the low price of this software, many people probably buy it thinking it is some simple-minded easy way to make cartoons that even a kid could use. No, that isn't what it is.
What this software does is allow you to take a drawing - of a man or a horse or a worm or a machine - and add "bones" to it. You can then manipulate the bones to manipulate the drawing, in effect turning the drawing into a puppet. And because the bones are all connected together, when you move one you move the rest. So if you move the "hand" bone, the arm moves with it. If you move the thigh bone, then the foot follows along. Therefore you can make your puppet man walk just by moving the appropriate bones.
To animate him you could move the bones a little bit for each frame, but this program is more powerful than that. You can create "key frames" where the bones are in extreme positions, for instance full stride in a walk and then perhaps the point where the legs are crossing in the walk, and then the program will "interpolate" the in-between frames for you. You set up 2 or 3 frames of a walk cycle and end up with 12 or 15 thanks to the software. You can define repeating cycles of frames which also saves time.
It is NOT "easy" to use. You have to think about what you are doing. You have to learn how the program works. On-screen tutorials with video clips explain every tool and a complete help manual is always available while the program is running.
Prepare to spend several hours learning how to use it. You will probably find it too difficult to use for any animation longer than a minute or two. You can add sound. You can import your own backgrounds. You can import a video clip and use it as a guide. You can import animations you did previously and build up the complexity. I had a horse pulling a cart across the screen left to right while plants were waving their leaves and a man walking across the screen right to left and it was getting to be too much for me to manage. The more there is on screen then the more complicated it is to manage it all.
One hassle is that you cannot see what some special effects look like until AFTER you render them to a video clip. That's just a limitation of Anime Studio 5 because it's really an introduction to Anime Studio Pro which does render everything in real time. I'm debating now whether to upgrade to Pro, but first I want to investigate Toon Boom and some other programs.
The output of Anime Studio 5 is very clean (because of the vectors) and suitable for animated logos and flash-like cartoon sequences. And it has a lip-synch feature so you could create an animated face for a web page that said "Hello! Come on in!" or whatever. It has a Flash output but I stuck with Quicktime for everything I did. You have complete control over frame rate, image size, and video quality.
Customer Review: I find this product very worth the money.
Summary: 5 Stars
The one thing that is not made clear in most reviews of this anime creator is that first: The animation software is for people that have worked with some kind of animation software before or have worked with such products as PhotoShop. And those folks should understand a bit of the basic premise of animation production. This is a software package that is made to introduce folks to a product of modest price (compared to high-end products) that will allow you to do TV production scale animations, and the proof is in the examples at e-Frontier's website. I upgraded to Anime Studio Pro 5.5 because the Anime Studio which I bought at Target (and got a complete and FREE upgrade on the website (with registration) to the 5.5 version of the intro package) did what it was supposed to do... show me what was possible with the software. It works with a couple of really fine Adobe products as well... PhotoShop, Illustrator and Flash CS3 Pro... all of which I personally own. And it works in scripted form as well! You just have to understand some basic levels of programming. No, not everyone will like the application, granted. In my honest opinion you should grab this software at this very reasonable price and USE IT! You won't be sorry! Unless you have or want to spend 3K for Maya 8.5 (which is for commercial high end render-farm studios,) but really for a small desktop shop that isn't as much fun or as easy to use as Anime Studio! For the money that makes this product worth it. I intend to use this product to teach animation courses to beginners in the near future.Customer Review: it's okay
Summary: 3 Stars
Well depending on what you are looking to do with it, it's an okay piece of animation software. However there are a few key things to be aware of. First off there is quite a learning curve to this software, and no printed manual comes with it, so I found it to be difficult to learn-relying on tutorial and web manuals isn't my thing). The provided content is very limited despite how the description above sounds. Most of the characters aren't even anime style but more like real primitive toons. The anime figures that do come with the software aren't even produced inside anime studio but are rather Photoshop type objects that are very limited as to what they can and will do for you. Also these don't serve as good examples as to how to even make your own characters. I found the interface confusing and the vector drawing tools to be very limited and of poor quality. It's fun to play with and to learn about animation but producing anything of quality might be more difficult than with other software, even freeware that's out there and available. In my limited opinion it's just written up better than it delivers. Customer Review: In need for a better tutorial
Summary: 3 Stars
Anime Studio 5 is a good beginner software for cartoon animation. However, the tutorial and instructions are deficient. They even describe functions that are not available and you will only find out (and stop searching) if your check their website for the FAQ! Customer Review: A great choice
Summary: 4 Stars
Anime studio 5 is a great way to start creating your own animations, but I highly recommend upgrading to the Pro version if you buy this and decide you like it. Like any media application (Photoshop, Final Cut, 3d Studio, etc) there is a lot to learn and producing quality animations takes time.
The only caveats I can think of are that the mac version still has some bugs (though there are various work arounds, and they are expected to be fixed in the upcoming version 6) and the documentation is less than perfect, but there is an active forum full of experienced animators that will be glad to help you.
To conclude, I would fully recommend Anime Studio to anyone wanting to experiment with animation, but not ready to swing for a more expensive tool.