New to Anime Studio pro 6

promytius · Post by **promytius** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 9:06 pm

Hi -
I'm retired and just got this program; tried to watch some of the tutorials on the anime website but they're for a different program; also the first one I watched was flawed, identifying the fill icon as the draw shape icon, and the lady talks so fast and never repeats the important stuff and the cursor flies all around, and I get ZERO from them. I watched some youtube videos by one of the moderators here and really thought they were great, so I'm looking for some direction here and some guidance as to the best way to learn this.
I've worked in Photoshop since 4.0, I draw and paint and photograph; I like making my own videos and animations, but have been relying on slideshow techniques to create my animations and they suck. I want to make my own animations, of stories and ideas of my own making.
So, any advice or sources or suggestions for the best way to learn this program would be appreciated. Due to the economy and retirement I can't upgrade, so I'm stuck with 6, which still looks pretty powerful; but since it is not easily intuitive, I need some help.
Thanks for any comments.
promytius

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 9:29 pm

Hey promytius -- welcome to the forum. I'm retired too, stuck on version 5.6! Everyone tries to be helpful here, so if you have any questions, ask away. Good luck with your animatiions.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Fri Oct 07, 2011 11:56 pm

Hello promytius and welcome to the forum.

I have a blog with a few tutorials on specific task in Anime Studio, maybe they will be useful to you!

http://gcharb2d.blogspot.com

shannock · Post by **shannock** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 10:28 am

Mark Bremmer's VTC video tutorials for version 5.6 are excellent, as is the book Anime Studio 6: The official guide, by Kelly Murdock.

GCharb is doing a series on Animation which, judging by his previous tutorials, should be super.

AmigaMan · Post by **AmigaMan** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 11:04 am

This seems to get overlooked quite often but by far the best way to get to grips with the software initially is to open the Help guide under the Help menu at the top of the screen. That contains tutorials that are fun to follow and will give you a good idea of what the program is capable of.

promytius · Post by **promytius** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:06 pm

Thanks for the replies!
I see that they are really up to version 8 - is there that big a difference in them?
I did look around a little in the help and was surprised to see so much help - to be honest I NEVER go to help except to get the version of a program, because almost all program "help" is barely that - best (or worst) example is Microsoft. For instance, I needed to set a restore point on my WIN7 system - put that in search... yup, no results; so I never look at help. Nice to see it done well.
So I will study hard and try to make something worth watching.
I'm sure I'll have a million questions.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:23 pm

There is this guy, cant really remember who, who made a decent pdf on character creation in Anime Studio!

http://anime.smithmicro.com/tutorials/t ... acters.pdf

Heheh, pulling your leg here, this is one of the best Anime Studio tutorial out there!

promytius · Post by **promytius** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:55 pm

Wow, I just printed out the "Quick Start" and it's 41 pages! 41 for a "quick" start! It took a while to stop laughing; then I figured, heck, just print out the manual, but it is 321 pages!! I don't have that much paper!

I have watched a few videos by heyvern, and they are far superior to the Smithmicro ones, so THANKS, heyvern!
I found the video with the error; for the curious here's the details:
on this page
http://anime.smithmicro.com/anime-studi ... rials.html
this video
http://anime.smithmicro.com/tutorials/a ... shape.html
in the middle, after the 3 small circles, she clearly has the fill tool highlighted, yet she calls it the draw shape tool. I have a screenshot, but don't know if you can do that on this site. Is that a big deal? Well, it stopped me cold, so it certainly will at least confuse anyone trying to actually duplicate what she is talking about; I couldn't keep up with her show-off, do-it-this-fast-if-you-can style of narration; all it proved was I'm a moron and she's too good for me!

Anyway, this looks pret-ty complicated, and a lot of work, so good thing I have a lot of time! Looking forward to a lot of animation discussion here, thanks.

promytius · Post by **promytius** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:58 pm

Hey! Your presentation is also 41 pages! Looks great, and thanks for the headsup on this! I've drawn since childhood, and now in my second childhood, I'm gonna make'm dance!
Thanks for your help.
promytius

F.M. · Post by **F.M.** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 3:39 pm

@ GCharb. If I'm not mistaken, Amigaman created that PDF.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 4:31 pm

F.M. wrote:@ GCharb. If I'm not mistaken, Amigaman created that PDF.

LOL, yes, he did, I started to translate it to French but I get caught up in work all the time, pretty good tutorial.

I was pulling Dale's leg really!

promytius · Post by **promytius** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 5:04 pm

I'd like some feedback here!

I really have a problem when OFFICIAL documents are crap.

So far on only two pages of instructions in the Anime Studio Pro 6 Quick Start guide, I've found 5 errors.
What is the point of following wrong instructions/incomplete instructions/misleading instructions?
Here's my list of errors, and if you could comment if there's any sense in my going on with the tutorial, let me know, because I am already very discouraged; if a company can't even write it's own manuals properly, what's to be gained from reading them, other than how to NOT do it?

p4 - Starts off with a "why do I do this" for "Next, choose EDIT>SELECT NONE" Never explains why, and sets up the next two errors.

p4 - After you pick the TRANSLATE POINTS tool it says "Click and drag the bottom point" IF you followed along correctly, there ARE no points to select; isn't that the function of the "SELECT NONE"? No, first you have to click once IN the object to activate the selection points!

p4 - "Click and drag" No, "Click AGAIN and drag".

p5 - "Press PLAY...to watch it go." NO, stupid, you are on frame 72!!! You will see NOTHING!

TWO pages and it's all wacked with errors. This kind of thing drives me crazy! I've written instruction manuals, procedures, etc., and if it isn't perfect, it's practically useless - that's why you spend so much time on them - or not.

So PLEASE tell me - is it ALL this badly documented? Know anywhere that has GOOD, correct explanations?

Since the programmers do not share my mindset, this is not an intuitive program for me so I must be trained; but bad information or missing information is no training at all. Any comments?
THANKS!

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 6:21 pm

http://www.amazon.com/Anime-Studio-6-Of ... 59&sr=8-12

Its all relevant except for the newest features.

promytius · Post by **promytius** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:22 pm

Thanks for the link to the book - unfortunately that's no comfort to me if it has as many errors as the program's documentation itself. $20 for a retired guy is a week's worth of groceries my friend, so I'll need more assurance than a link!

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:42 pm

Not sure what you want then promytius.

I am pretty sure that book is not filled with errors, but since I did not buy it I cant be sure.

You want free, error free tutorials, is that it?

You can search the forum for pretty much anything, though I suggest you use Google, as the forum search is not the best!

Dale pdf should get you going as far as character creation goes.

My blog also has some useful information, especially if you want to tackle scripting or masking.

New to Anime Studio pro 6

New to Anime Studio pro 6

Wow, thatnks!

Is animation really this complicated?

to Gilles

NOT REALLY GOING WELL -errors in text

thanks