Toon Boom or Flash. Anime Studio Pro 6? Which Animation software should you choose?

An overview of the popular animation software packages.

So you want to learn how to animate? It was my dream since a child to become an animator. Maybe being an animator is one of your dreams too. Well, welcome to The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators where animation dreams come true!

Which animation software should you invest the time to learn? Flash or Toon Boom or Anime Studio Pro 6 or some other animation software? Does The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators allow you to learn the fantastic principles of digital animation film production no matter what software you are using? The answer is "yes"!

The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators is a timeline based work flow that works in Flash, Toon Boom, Ton Boom animate Pro or Anime Studio Pro 6 or virtually any timeline based animation software. The lessons in The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators are based in Photoshop (bitmaps, color, scanning artwork) and Flash (animation) but can be applied to any scanning and image software, and any animation software that works in timelines like Toon Boom, Toon Boom Animate Pro, Anime Studio Pro. All of these software's are vector, based and allow a person to make streamlined animations and animated characters such as taught in detail in The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators.

What does Leading Flash experts the world's #1 Flash expert, Adobe Certified Expert, say about Toon Boom? "I like the 3-d plane feature. But it is complicated to learn, and I don't have the time to invest. And works on a different metaphor than FLASH. And, I can't make money working in that software. TheTV animation industry in working in Flash. And Flash allows you to drop the audio on it's won timeline which really is awesome. Toon Boom does not let you do that. " The world's #1 Flash expert, Adobe Certified Expert, thinks Toon Boom is complicated to learn.

So, it seems for the foreseeable future Flash has the edge on market penetration which includes TV and commercial production. It's a fact, that more people currently animate in Flash than any other software in the world. Flash also has a deep programming language inside the application called action script that makes it possible to build highly sophisticated games, web sites and phone applications. The entire billion dollar online gaming industry is built in Flash. Toon Boom has no programming or application building features being a pure 2-d animation software package. But the tool are robust and you can export out Flash files so you can integrate your Toon Boom work flow with Flash and get to use them both.

What is the cost? Flash costs $699.00! $299.00 is the cost for regular Toon Boom (on sale at that price, usually $399.00). Animate is $650.00 and Toon Boom Animate Pro is $1,999. And the learning curve, for Toon Boom like Flash, can be steep.

How about Anime Studio Pro 6? It will allow you to export SWF Flash files. Cost is $199.00. Anime Studio Pro is a bone-based animation program. This means that you will animate your characters using a bone system similar to that of a 3D app instead of making a frame-by-frame animation. This is a two-sided sword, actually. It makes it easier for you to make your animations since you don't have to worry about creating every single in-between (although you do have to worry about tweaking your interpolation using function curves), but at first hand it limits what you can do with your characters (for example, making a 360º turn-table of your character to create a a very dramatic shot). I say "at first hand" because Anime Studio Pro lets you import 3D models that you can manipulate in 3D space while combining them with the standard 2D animation.

The characters and objects are animated just like any other program. Just select the frame and then move your objects to create a keyframe. Anime Studio lets you animate the bones for your characters, shapes (in this case think of shapes as "props"), layers, and even curve points. You can animate all the objects contained in one layer by moving the actual layer. This can be used to simulate moving clouds, for example, or maybe falling objects. The curve points can be animated to simulate deformations and can yield different results (such as the famous squash-stretch).

The learning curve. That is one of the big problems with any new software, Flash, Anime Studio Pro or Toon Boom, all take time to learn how to use. It's much faster to learn to drive a car. Animation software like Flash and Animate pro are very deep. Anime Studio Pro 6 can be daunting as it looks and acts like a 3-D animation app and that means lots and lots of windows and options to learn.

For the average person, several months of study just to get up and running is required to even attempt to make an animated film in any software platform. What about becoming a professional digital animator? How long does that take? Years. Literal years of study and practice to become a professional animator. And, after you "learn" the software program, you then have to "learn" to animate, and that too, can take some considerable time to master.

The good news is we can save you a boat load of time by learning our smart work flow system for making animated movies no matter what software you use, or computer platform, MAC or PC. The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators can save anyone 100's of hours of bumbling around not knowing how to go about making an animated film. We teach you the "ropes" as it were. The step by step method to making animated films.

If you have the desire to learn to animate and want to speed up your production and learning curves, then Animation Film School for Lazy Animators can be of great value to you. It teaches you how to make an animated movie, using a completely digital workflow. Animation Film School for Lazy Animators is not just valuable for Flash, Toon Boom or Photoshop users. The workflow and animation techniques and "easy sync™" system of lip sync, work in Toon Boom (all versions) and all timeline based animation packages. You don't have to use easy sync to sync your dialogue, it's only an option, but you will want to use it, believe me.

Animation Film School for Lazy Animators teaches a smart, fast way to make animated movies without devoting a massive amount of time to learning how "to do it". Yes, you can learn to easily animate a film by attending The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators. The Animation Film School for Lazy Animators workflow and "easy sync" lip sync solution can be used exactly the same in any timeline based software. This includes Flash, Animate,Toon Boom Animate Pro, and any other timeline based animation software.