Moho Animation Forum

I'm currently using AS 5.6. I do my animation drawings on paper, then scan them into Photoshop Elements, where I edit them. From there, they eventually are loaded into AS, one by one. Finally, the resulting scenes go into Final Cut.

My question: why should I buy AS 8, that is: what does it do for "traditional" animators like me?

What do you do with your drawings when they are imported into AS?

If you don't use AS to manipulate your drawings in any way not only do you not need to upgrade, you don't even need AS. You can import them directly into Final Cut Pro as a scene (like most video editors, FCP will import image sequences as an animated movie). If you are using AS to manipulate them in some manner, then it depends on how and what you are doing as to whether an upgrade would help or not.

I do manipulate the drawings: I use the camera features, layer ordering, switch layers, actually quite a bit. And occasionally I use vector layers, for smoke effects for example.

I guess I'm wondering how AS 8 has evolved since 5.6. Right now I have to manually load each drawing into AS -- perhaps there's a mass load feature to ease that pain somewhat? I'm just wondering if AS has started to accommodate the sort of "traditional" animator that I am, or if it has moved even more towards the kind of "flashy" animator.

If you name your files in an orderly sequence with trailing numbers -- e.g., char001, char002 etc., there is a script which will load these images in as a sequence. (Scripts|Image|Import Image Sequence).

You can definitely load more than one image at a time -- worse comes to worst you could even write a script using new features in 8 that do this automagically (I'm not sure how long ago it happened, but at some point you could just drag over multiple drawings from Explorer so even without a script you can do this).

Version 7 and on allow easier manipulation of multiple layers, so it's easy to select many and drag to a switch or group layer, for example. Based on what you are doing this alone might be worth the upgrade cost.

However, there is no getting around that AS is not a frame by frame (FBF) animation program. Animators used to that approach are not going to benefit as much for anything in AS, let alone anything new. Many new features have been added that are primarily for those without talent -- and it doesn't sound as if this describes you at all.

But you don't have to speculate on any of this -- there is a free demo version you can try out to see if it meets your needs. Test it out and you should know within a short period of time if you want to upgrade (and you have 30 days for a full money back refund even then).

Yeah, thanks. I'll definitely try that first. I skipped versions 6 and 7 at the time (6 because of a HD issue, a bug in the software), but the other day I was thinking: It has been about 3 years now, maybe it's time for an upgrade.

I'm aware of the Import Image Sequence feature, but my file names are often too wacky to be able to consistently rely on that.

There is an app called TVPaint, which is supposedly suited more towards traditional animators, but its price is pretty steep and, having tested it out, I'm not so sure I'd benefit from it *that* much. I do the bulk of my work behind my desk anyway.

Debo wrote:My question: why should I buy AS 8, that is: what does it do for "traditional" animators like me?

I'm not familiar with Photoshop Elements, but does it save out layered PSD files like the regular version of Photoshop? If so, the ability to load layered PSD files may be useful for a user like you. (This is a feature of Pro, but not Debut.)

It kind of depends if you're "traditional", or "semi-traditional". For example, if you layer different eye and mouth shapes on top of a head and want to switch out different facial features, this could be very useful to you. If you draw each frame in its entirety, this may not be quite as useful, but it could still serve some purpose.

Here's a cool video done by Mike Scott, using Anime Studio Pro 8 and layered Photoshop files (combined with other techniques too):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-tNUur2YoU

A "making of" video too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz1_MQnw5WA

Like I said, I'm not familiar with Photoshop Elements, so I don't know for sure if the PSD feature would be useful to you. I would suggest checking out the trial version to be sure.

-Mike

Lost Marble wrote:

Debo wrote:My question: why should I buy AS 8, that is: what does it do for "traditional" animators like me?

I'm not familiar with Photoshop Elements, but does it save out layered PSD files like the regular version of Photoshop? If so, the ability to load layered PSD files may be useful for a user like you. (This is a feature of Pro, but not Debut.)

It kind of depends if you're "traditional", or "semi-traditional". For example, if you layer different eye and mouth shapes on top of a head and want to switch out different facial features, this could be very useful to you. If you draw each frame in its entirety, this may not be quite as useful, but it could still serve some purpose.

Here's a cool video done by Mike Scott, using Anime Studio Pro 8 and layered Photoshop files (combined with other techniques too):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-tNUur2YoU

A "making of" video too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz1_MQnw5WA

Like I said, I'm not familiar with Photoshop Elements, so I don't know for sure if the PSD feature would be useful to you. I would suggest checking out the trial version to be sure.

-Mike

Mike, thanks for sharing those links!

This one is very interesting too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pblMKuup ... er&list=UL

.

Lost Marble wrote:I'm not familiar with Photoshop Elements, but does it save out layered PSD files like the regular version of Photoshop? If so, the ability to load layered PSD files may be useful for a user like you. (This is a feature of Pro, but not Debut.)

Definitely. But AS doesn't recognize layered PSD files from Photoshop Elements. It's Photoshop only. That was actually one of my great disappointments when I first bought the software, about three years ago. I had just supposed there wouldn't be a difference there.

It kind of depends if you're "traditional", or "semi-traditional". For example, if you layer different eye and mouth shapes on top of a head and want to switch out different facial features, this could be very useful to you. If you draw each frame in its entirety, this may not be quite as useful, but it could still serve some purpose.

Yeah, semi-traditional by that definition. (I'm not a Luddite.) I use Switch Layers a lot in this way. But Group Layers too, and occasionally Vector Layers. The main reason I want to stick with AS and not switch to another app is that I have established a workflow that, well, works.

Thanks for the videos, I'll check them out.

Debo wrote:That was actually one of my great disappointments when I first bought the software, about three years ago. I had just supposed there wouldn't be a difference there.

But the support for layered psd-files was just introduced in AS 8, the most recent version.

ponysmasher wrote:But the support for layered psd-files was just introduced in AS 8, the most recent version.

No, it wasn't. I'm still working with version 5.6, and it works with that. Do you mean Photoshop 8?

Perhaps we're talking about different things, I'm talking about this:


That's new right? Otherwise I've been wasting a lot of time...

psd files can only be imported using a script prior to ver. 8. I have 5.6 and it won't import psd directly.

Also, to answer Debo, I have PS Elements 5.0 and the psd file imports with layers intact into AS8.

ponysmasher wrote:Perhaps we're talking about different things, I'm talking about this:


That's new right? Otherwise I've been wasting a lot of time...

Yeah, we're talking about different things. Version 5.6 can't read psd files directly, of course, but can import layers via a Photoshop script (version 8 or later).

Can I interpolate between groups within a switch layer?