Dan Durbin Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 Can anyone recommend 2D and 3D animation software for Apple? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Keller Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 That really depends on what you're trying to do. Different software has different things it's good at, and something that does a great job for children's cartoons may not be the right choice for science fiction effects work, which may or may not be the right choice for animated scientific illustrations or title cards. If you could give us a general sense of what sort of work you'd like it to be able to accomplish, we'd be a lot more helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Keith Mottram Posted January 27, 2009 Premium Member Share Posted January 27, 2009 Maya for 3d, after effects for 2D (unless you are talking about more cartoon led animation, in which case toon boom studio) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Keller Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 Maya for 3d, after effects for 2D (unless you are talking about more cartoon led animation, in which case toon boom studio) FWIW, we bought Maya here and upgraded the computer it was installed on six months later. Maya refused to migrate the license. We now use Lightwave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Durbin Posted January 30, 2009 Author Share Posted January 30, 2009 We are mostly interested in 2D cartoon animation, and are new to the area. It would seem like Toon Boom Studio is a low cost approach to getting started. However, we already have Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended. Are we missing significant capabilities by not spending a little more and getting After Effects? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Hepburn Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 Dan, It all depends of what you want to do. Toon Boom is the cartoon "standard" so if you're going to be doing, or want to be doing that kind of work, that's what I would consider. AfterEffects is a whole other thing. You won't be able to do the same kind of work that you would with Toon Boom, but it is ideal for motion graphics animation, compositing, and video/film, among other things. You can do some basic 3D work, but nothing like, Maya, Lightwave, or Softimage. Maya, or any other 3D package is another animal as well. I will say that you won't hit the ground running with any of these as there is a steep learning curve, if you haven't used them before. All three of these packages do something well. If it were me, I would decide what it is I want to do and make my software decision based on that. If you're mostly interested in 2D cartoon animation, then I would go with Toon Boom. Good luck, Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Bass Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 CAn I jump in with another suggestion? Not knowing a lick about Toon Boom, I'm not going to NOT recommend it, but I got turned onto to a program called Anime Studio Pro. It's a 2D animation program mainly, though it operates in a 3D environment (You can do some cool 2D/3D mixing, and also import 3D models/animations, but you CANNOT animate your 3D models, except in a very limited way). It' has a bone system to make animation easier. Simple example: say you create a character; arms legs, etc. You bind each arm and leg to a bone, and then, instead of moving every single limb individually for each keyframe, you just drag, say, a hand, and that pulls the forearm and arm with it. . .kind of a 2D marionette. The bones have other uses too, and there's a lot of other stuff you can do if you draw well and learn the program. Take a look at the lost marble forums to see examples of what some of the members on there have done. I've been working it with it for a year putting together an animated short film, and I"ll post a short teaser/demo here when I get there. It runs about $200, works on Mac and PC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Durbin Posted January 31, 2009 Author Share Posted January 31, 2009 Tom and Josh: It sounds like Toon Boom or Anime Studio Pro is were we need to go at our level. Thanks for all the input Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Bass Posted January 31, 2009 Share Posted January 31, 2009 Tom and Josh: It sounds like Toon Boom or Anime Studio Pro is were we need to go at our level. Thanks for all the input Dan I like ASP. I am only barely familiar with it, and it has its quirks, but like I said, pretty powerful if you can draw well in the first place, and learn to use the software. From what I've seen, with some serious time put in, you can get stuff indistinguishable from traditional 2D. What I mean is, it's not all "cut out style" like the new sealab, or aquateen, or metalocolypse. Though you can do that (and who knows, maybe some of that cartoon network stuff is made with this software). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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