Artoonix - traditional but versatile

[Mohlar]

For a year or so I used Artoonix which was originally created for use by younger users. However, it is capable of far more than seems obvious.

There are two galleries of uploaded examples. One of these is full of really short 2 or 3 second 'tests' by just a few users. The 'Featured Gallery' is better but still doesn't really show the underlying power of the program.

One exceptional function within Artoonix is the way the sound works. It is so blindingly simple to use that you can just as easily edit animations to fit a soundtrack, or create a soundtrack to match an animation. This can be done to an accuracy of a single frame. You can use up to 5 tracks and can thus create rich overlapping or synchronised soundscapes.

You can draw frame by frame, or use imported images or animated gifs. There is an inbuilt 'eraser' with which areas of transparency can be defined. Animations can be saved as animated gifs, swf or avi - or as a seqence of 'ipa' files which can then be used for importing into other Artoonix projects. Using that last function is a very powerful way to create sequences of animation which can be overlaid in the foreground or background to create a highly layered finish.

There are, however, several areas of weakness. The main one is the total lack of lockable pivots for objects. There is just a single independent centre of rotation which has to be moved by hand (well, by mouse or keypress) and this is totally unsatisfactory for anything beyond the most basic type of animation where objects might need to spin or become articulated.

Artoonix is freeware up to a point, but only after registration do you access functions such as tweening. This works well within very tight limits, but as any on-screen drawing doesn't involve vector based graphics, so tweening nearly always produces ghosting effects unless you set things up VERY carefully and don't use the 'deformation' function to alter shapes.

At the time of writing this post, the Artoonix forum is virtually a dead zone with barefuly a handful (less!!) of users ever posting into it. That contrasts mightily with this AS forum. The developers do respond to queries, but sometimes their answers can be sparse in terms of detail. I posted endless walkthroughs of techniques and tests into the forum and usually found that nobody, except maybe the developers, ever responded or provided feedback. The concept of a forum discussion has never ever been a feature. That does suggest to me that most current users of Artoonix are children which is a real shame, as it has the potential to be useful for a MUCH wider audience.

Having said all that, Artoonix IS defintely still worth looking at for anyone who wants an easy-to-understand, entry-level animation program with significantly more potential than might seem to be the case.

Homepage > http://www.artoonix.com/en/index.html

For anyone who's interested - these were probably my best 4 efforts with Artoonix. I think they show that this program does not deserve to be written off as just being for children.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrYqGcn5kNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGQUFY4jG9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45VGbYP-Kz8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoqTCGMKeVE

My final animation using Artoonix using a 'cut-out' style is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp3Co9ILpoU

[TheChewanater]

Look at this Artoonix thing (made by Pennaz91, NOT me):

[Mohlar]

Quite right - Pennaz91 (Riccardo) has a particular Artoonix style and has a range of animations on Youtube and now also posted into the Artoonix forum gallery.

Over the last few months (early 2009) there has gradually been an increase in the numbers of people who have discovered Artoonix and are starting to post interesting and effective animations.

Artoonix isn't as sophisticated a program as Anime Studio, but it certainly allows users to explore a lot of the basics of how animation works and how it can be used to bring ideas to life.