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| Anime Studio 5 Win/Mac | 
 enlarge | From: Smith Micro Software Inc.
Category: Software
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $31.96
You Save: $18.03 (36%)
New (17) Used (3)
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 224
Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows Xp, Mac Os X
Media: CD-ROM
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 1.3
MPN: ASO-C50-DEM-R
UPC: 814956024108
EAN: 0814956024016
ASIN: B000IK412K
Release Date: October 30, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SAME BRAND NEW AUTHENTIC SEALED RETAIL BOX AS DISPLAYED * CONTAINS ALL AVAILABLE PRODUCT LICENSES USER GUIDES & WARRANTIES * NEED IT NOW? PAY FOR STANDARD AND WE'LL SHIP BY AIR MAIL 1ST CLASS ANY ORDER THAT ARRIVES BEFORE 5PM THAT DAY AND OUR VETTED 5 STAR STAFF WILL E-MAIL YOU A USPS DELIVERY CONFIRMATION NUMBER SO YOU CAN TRACK YOUR ORDER FROM OUR DOOR TO YOURS FOR WORRY FREE TRANSACTIONS!
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 14 | | NEXT » |
 Does what it says it will do, but what is that exactly? July 15, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
I find this product very worth the money. December 28, 2007
15 out of 19 found this review helpful
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.
In need for a better tutorial September 6, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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!
 A great choice July 30, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
ok July 30, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
The tools work good, but i wanted to import images from my scanner, and when i did, it didn't allow me to color any of it, and would not let me use any of the "easy" bone tools.
It's kind of a waste of time to draw it with a crappy mouse, because it dosen't look good. This is more of a "basics for beginners" program.
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