Search form

Newbie question on 2d software choices

11 posts / 0 new
Last post
Newbie question on 2d software choices

Ive be fooling around with 2d animatoin programs and I havent had the results that I want yet. I want to do my art by hand and scan into an animation program but the images look to pixelated and rough. Im thinking about scanning them into photoshop an then importing them into an animation program with vector. What is a good affordable animation program that I can do traditional frame by frame animation and get the quality of professional anime. Thanks in advance.

ToonBoom is the answer.

ToonBoom Animation Pro is designed to do what you want. Check their web site. You can draw on Cintiq tablet, or do it on animation paper and scan it into he program.

That is an excellent question, I would like to see the answer to it as well.

Thanks for the reply. Ive been looking into Toon Boom for a while but some of their software is waaay out of my budget. The only one thats affordable is Studio ($399 I think) but I dont know if it can convert photoshop files or scanned art (both characters and background) into vector images for frame by frame animation

Flash

If you scan in the pictures at a high resolution, import to flash and convert to bitmap or vector images (I'm not in front of my computer at the moment), that should work very well. If that's a little too time consuming, you might as well just scan in a few images, redraw in flash and animate through the program. The newer version of Flash is pretty pricey, even with a student discount, but there's a trial version you can get.

Hope that helps.

Cool thanks. Didnt know that Flash had vector conversion Ill look into it. Right now im weighing all my options before i spend any more cash. Im working with Digicel Flipbook Lite and I love it because its easy to use(I have lame computer skills) and its set up for frame by frame animation but it wont work with imported vector images is there any way to finish an animation with Flipbook and convert to vector?

Cool thanks. Didnt know that Flash had vector conversion Ill look into it. Right now im weighing all my options before i spend any more cash. Im working with Digicel Flipbook Lite and I love it because its easy to use(I have lame computer skills) and its set up for frame by frame animation but it wont work with imported vector images is there any way to finish an animation with Flipbook and convert to vector?

I'm not versed in Flipbook, but if you can export an image sequence, you should be able to import that sequence into Flash and do a "Trace bitmap." I'm not sure if you can batch it or you'll have to do each frame one by one. I think it'll be the latter.

Also I'm not sure if "trace bitmap" is what you are wanting. You can probably cut the Flipbook step and just import the scans directly into Flash. The you can time out your animation and vectorize them in that program.

The process you are describing is going to be long and tedious. Draw>scan>import to Flash>time out>trace bitmap. It's up to you and I don't know the look you are going for, but I'm just saying it's going to be a lot of time of non-animation work.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Toom Boom Studio will do all of those things. You can import image files, including Photoshop. It also allows you to create a cutout rig using either drawings or images--and it also supports image transparency. You can also import and vectorize, though it vectorizes into a single color and doesn't really do color vectorizing like Flash. Seems like there's a workaround for that by importing textures, but I rarely do that, so I'm not sure.

It also has automatic lip-synch features.

I recommend downloading a trial version and see what you think. They also have a new program called Animate that does all the same stuff with a few higher level tricks like morphing and IK. I haven't tried it yet, but there's a free/trial version as well.

Cartoon Thunder
There's a little biker in all of us...

I guess I should start saving up some cash. Animate looks like an awesome program as well as Flash but there both $700 but I guess if I wanna play I gotta pay. I really need to be able to do colors in vector. Thanks guys

There's always Serif DrawPlusX2. Cheap as well.

I guess I should start saving up some cash. Animate looks like an awesome program as well as Flash but there both $700 but I guess if I wanna play I gotta pay.

I really need to be able to do colors in vector. Thanks guys

ToonBoom Studio 4.5 is $399.00 and I've seen it on sale for less from time to time.

If you must use a vector app and you'd like to spend less than $700.00 take a look at ToonBoom Studio.