There’s a war brewing in the animation software world and Cartoon Brew is right in the thick of it. In fact, I only became aware of the no-holds-barred battle in the past few months because two of our biggest advertisers have been the dueling companies: Adobe and Toon Boom. The latter is currently making a serious run to overtake Adobe Flash as the preferred software package for 2D digital animators. Toon Boom’s new Animate software has an animator-friendly set of features and more importantly, it’s price-competitive with Flash. This isn’t a new development. We spoke of the animation community’s increasing dissatisfaction with Flash last January when Mucha Lucha creators Eddie Mort and Lili Chin announced they were switching to Toon Boom software.
Australian animator Adam Phillips, of Bitey Castle fame, has reviewed the new packages from both companies—Toon Boom Animate and Flash CS4—and approves of both, though he’s more enthusiastic about Toon Boom Animate:
[Toon Boom] Animate is definitely an exciting release for animators who are frustrated with the animation limitations of Flash. It’s also the most intuitive of their fantastic animation programs to date and it’s priced very competitively. Packed with animator-friendly tools, is based entirely on traditional animation workflow (with all the benefits of digital animation) and has a library of effects that will put your work way ahead of the average web animator.
Phillips’ verdict on Flash CS4:
If you’re sticking with Flash and you decide to upgrade to Flash CS4, I think you’ll be blown away by it. There are a few persistent gripes, such as masking, audio, video format export, brush sizes & shapes, colour management and the Timeline. However, certain new features have thrilled the shit outta me! They include armatures (Inverse Kinematics), 3D movieclip translate/scale/rotate, the Motion Editor (an amazing, kickarse version of the old Custom Ease window), Spray Brush (which can spray movieclips all over the Stage - perfect for say, millions of flowers in a meadow, animated swaying in the breeze) and completely new motion tween model.
It’s no coincidence that industry website Cold Hard Flash recently hosted three launch events in LA, NY and Toronto celebrating the release of Toon Boom Animate. Not to mention the site’s primary advertising spots are taken up by Toon Boom. The bottom line is that this competition between software makers should lead to more powerful and efficient packages for the animation community. Hopefully both software makers will continue to use Cartoon Brew as a battleground for spreading their message. We could use the few extra bucks.
Would be interesting to hear some animator perspectives in the comments—who’s switching to Toon Boom and who’s sticking with Flash? Speak up.
Click the arrow to watch “Villains” by Zack Keller.
Zack Keller used to work for Pixar and is currently in LA working as a writer/director. He and Ed Skudder have established RootFilms and just finished a music video (using Flash/After Effects) called William. Their other work is multi-media, utilizing live action, puppets, CG and special effects. Fun stuff. Check it all out at www.rootfilms.com.
Tamás Patrovits (aka “Patro”) is a 40 year-old Hungarian animator and illustrator - and also the president of ASIFA Hungary. Six months ago he started an online Flash cartoon series for one of Hungary’s biggest news sites. Says Patro:
I make these alone, sometimes with a musician. All the shorts are made in 5-10 days, and are about our Hungarian public life and political bullshit - created with with old-style graphic design mixed with Flash animation. The series becomes more popular every month. Please take a look my blog site. Unfortunately its in Hungarian, but I plan English subtitles in the future.
Bio-Bak is the wacky and inventive Flash portfolio site of Dutch artist Coen Grift. It’s packed with bits of animation, sound effects and puzzles. I spent at least half an hour navigating the interactive playground that Grift has set up and enjoyed every moment of it.
“Inside a Boy” is a fresh-looking music video for the group My Brightest Diamond. It’s directed by Spanish artist Rafa Toro. He says that he made it “with a tight schedule (barely a month and a half) and low budget (I made every step of the production, including design, animation, editing, etc…).” The illustrations in this vid are a treat for the eyes and the real highlight of the piece. This is Toro’s first major freelance animation assignment and I hope it’s not the last.
To teach himself Flash CS3, Russell made a fan video for the song “Water Curses” by Animal Collective. The result is a fun-to-watch piece of abstract animation. He writes in the video’s online description:
I started making this in an attempt to learn Flash CS3. There are two basic layers in this animation, a flash layer at 24fps, and a stop motion powdered charcoal layer at 12fps. They are mixed together in nifty ways with After Effects. I started to get a hang of things in the second half of the video, so, sorry if the first half isn’t as interesting.
There are more details about the making of the video posted on his blog Music to Video.
Animator David Essman posted this piece he animated on the Cartoon Brew Facebook group. The humorously animated film pokes fun at “liberal Democrats’ fantasies of how an Obama Administration would instantly change things for the better.” It was written and designed by political cartoonist Ted Rall.
