Step 5: Painting and drawing using dynamic color picking tools.

Step 6: The Lypcsync exposure sheet.

Step 7: A Lypcsync drawing with audio sample.

Step 8: Camera output shows the final composition from the camera's view.

Zip! Pan! Zoom!
In addition to facilitating accuracy, Toon Boom Studio provides some other outstanding capabilities. The camera work is perhaps the most impressive of these attributes. "Toon Boom Studio is very much about camera moves and effects that can be done in Flash, but really aren't its core functionality," says Mike Viner of Balloon Dog Studio. You can lay out 2D drawings in a 3D space, simplifying the creation of depth and perspective. You can use a motion path to map out where you want to move from one frame to another and you can add control points to this path to change its shape, changing the motion path the element will follow.

The opening scene to Stan Lee's epic Web adventure The 7th Portal, presents a long pan and zoom that could easily have been created in Toon Boom Studio. As a matter of fact, the production of the series is presented throughout the Toon Boom user guide as a tutorial. Stan Lee was a perfectionist and always pushing the medium to its extreme. In using Toon Boom Studio, he would have been at home. The type of camera effects that can be found in Toon Boom are not presented the same way in Flash.

With a little talent, this software and a computer, anyone can become their own animation studio. That was the promise of Flash but somehow it's more fun with Toon Boom Studio. "It's not for making animated GUIs that talk to a backend. It's for a Web show -- not for making buttons," adds Viner. If you want to get serious, you can always import your cartoon into Flash.

For $350, it's a pretty good deal (100 bucks if you're a student!). Maybe if we'd have had this software when all those celebrities were on the Web, they would have stuck around even after the bubble burst. But if Toon Boom Technology's track record is any indicator, those big names may just come back. Their high-end tool, USAnimation is the leading software among major studios, including Klasky Csupo and Warner Bros., with a presence in more than 30 countries. Toon Boom Studio is considerably less expensive but follows the same standards and ideals.

The world of online entertainment is more fertile today then it ever was during the summer of 2000, despite the economy. This wonderful tool will undoubtedly open the door to another wave of creativity and expression. Maybe this time, without the distraction of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, something exciting will evolve. Regardless, Toon Boom Studio will help everyone have a lot of fun trying.

Eric Oldrin was the senior producer of series and show content for Shockwave, where he produced and developed some of its key content, including Tim Burton's World of Stainboy. Prior to joining Shockwave, Oldrin helped build Mondo Media's online animation studio and produced The God and Devil Show, Thugs on Film and Like, News. Before that, he created games at America Online's WorldPlay Entertainment and Sierra Online's Imagination Network. Currently, Eric is a principal at Telepathic Transmissions, his new, new media company. Eric holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Pomona College.