Toon Boom Studio 4 rated a "BUY!"

Toon Boom Studio 4 will soon be available for sale. I had a chance to review a copy of the software this week and am extremely pleased.

My priorities in working with animation software are:

1. Will I be able to learn the software in a reasonable time frame?

2. Can I make a professional grade production using the software?

3. Is the software something that is usable creatively? Is there a creative flow to the software? This is difficult to measure, but when you find it, you know it.

4. Is the documentation good? Is it REALLY good?

5. Are there tutorials? Are they also really good?

6. Features are nice, but I don’t want to drown in a sea of endless features. Other artistic programs often add so many features they make the program unusable.

7. Is the software technically solid? Crashing software only makes me insane.



My conclusions about Toon Boom Studio 4:

1. The software is very logically laid out for conventional 2-D animation. If you are used to working with old fashioned animation and are fans of techniques describes in classic animation texts, you will find Studio is very well organized.

2. The upgrade continues to improve the interface.

3. You can make anything from a web production in Flash format to Film or HDTV quality animation output. You can also output the full spectrum of production from the same project with a few clicks to simply change settings.

4.I find the software provides the best environment for creating animation. The workflow is very conducive to productivity. Amazingly, the upgrade has improved the workflow further.

5. The documentation is incredibly good. In fact, Toon Boom’s documentation with Studio is the best I have ever seen with an animation program. Manuals are sold separately, but a “pdf” file of documentation accompanies the software. I would advise printing out sections on a color laser printer for study. The quality of writing and artwork in the documentation is excellent.

6. The tutorials are very good and give you a fast of the program. Later tutorials give a deeper knowledge of the program. All are very doable.

7. I did not yet investigate the latest features of the program. My biggest concern is always: “How usable is this program?” I did not drown in the added features, so nothing about the upgrade has harmed overall usability. On the contrary, it is even better.

8. The program is solid. On my older Tablet PC, I needed to tweak some settings, but it worked very well.

9. The price point for this program is very generous. No other program of this quality is priced so affordably. This is better than the “professional grade” products of other companies. For anyone interested in animation, this program is a “no-brainer.”

10. Toon Boom is on top of this program and constantly working to provide improvements.

Bottom line:
I am very excited and pleased with this product. I would rate it as an extremely strong “Buy.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Animating on Paper: The Sneeze 1992

Image
I made my last animation with tracing paper and a pen back in 1992.  At the time, I was mainly drawing with a Summagraphics Sketch Pad attached to a desktop Amiga Computer with a ton of peripherals. Even though they all filled a room, it still only output low resolution video. After a day of traveling 23 years ago, I sat down with a black marker and my tracing pad and drew this animation.  When I got home, I scanned the drawings, colored them and compiled them with triggered sound events in Disney Animation Studio.  Paper drawn animation of this type has an interesting jitter referred to as “Line-Boil.”  Like the early animators, I believed line-boil was a terrible imperfection.  Sometimes, however, it makes the animation interesting.  Around the mid 1990’s and later, television grew to like line-boil and added the deliberate exaggerated effect to many titles and animations. Anyway, I found the original 1992 drawing files for "The Sneeze" and, with some e
Read more

Hospital-Admin-Speak: A new language

Image
Anyone who has ever served time on a hospital administration committee knows what I'm talking about.  This is where the vast difference between the world of hospital administration versus the world of doctors and nurses becomes clear. As a side note for those interested in the process of creating these animations: I experimented with a different method of creating the talking head portion.  The result was not what I wanted, but it was interesting... Here is the comparison video:
Read more

Coronavirus Cartoons

Image
It's easy to forget how early most of us knew Covid-19 could become a real problem.  Experts were downplaying it as a minor hazard compared to influenza.. Not until January 20 was there official acknowledgement the virus could spread from person to person. On that same day, I tried to buy face masks for our office and discovered a disturbing problem:  They were all sold out.   Something was brewing.  Though the American Public was preoccupied with Democratic Primaries and impeachment hearings, many were also aware of the new virus in Wuhan.  By January 23, I felt enough people knew of the threat to create two cartoons: The second cartoon was done at a time when people were entering crowded DMV's to get their new driver's license which would enable them to fly in airplanes.  The lines were insane and the wait was many, many hours. This one did not age well.  I thought it was pretty hilarious at the time and I got a lot of positive feedback.  Now, it looks.... kind of cliche
Read more