ToonBoom Studio has bones

InfoCentral · Post by **InfoCentral** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 7:50 am

ToonBoom Studio 6 will have bones in the coming release according to ToomBoom. You knew it was going to happen and now it has.

lpbaker · Post by **lpbaker** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:21 am

Yeah, but it still can't do point animation

PARKER · Post by **PARKER** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 5:11 pm

it may has bones but i doubt it will be as good as ASs.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 6:27 pm

Good grief. It looks like TB bought a copy of AS and just duplicated the bones. Watching the bones video I couldn't see anything "new" or "better" than what AS does and has done since Moho. AS has had bones for a long time. It isn't a new feature. Because of that Smith Micro will need to step it up for future versions. SM should consider this a challenge now and try to stay a few steps ahead. One thing I don't see in the feature list for TB is any type of script support or bone constraints. Without that bones in TB are behind the curve.

-vern

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:26 pm

the bones don't seem to have a warp influence as such, at least it wasn't shown, but it's more than likely in there... if it is, combined with the natural drawing tools may really crush AS's potential audience - which is a shame... i always found the toon boom workflow quite convoluted (un-intuitive)

I don't really know how i feel about this... the demos they showed could have been better!

if nothing else it might drive down the cost of AS...

lpbaker · Post by **lpbaker** » Sat Aug 21, 2010 12:09 am

heyvern wrote:Good grief. It looks like TB bought a copy of AS and just duplicated the bones.

I thought exactly the same thing when I watched the video.

I own Toon Boom Studio 5, Animate 2 and ASP7, but I still prefer ASP7 over the other two for its bones, point animation and switch layers (I don't find TB's drawing substitutions as easy to work with). I don't think they are even close to an AS killer yet.

But I agree, hopefully SM listen to the many great suggestions here and up the ante in the next version of AS. My greatest concern with choosing AS over TB is the question of how much SM listens to us users, and indeed, how serious they are about keeping going with AS at all.

~ Lindsay

Peteroid · Post by **Peteroid** » Sat Aug 21, 2010 12:10 am

The only thing I see TB6 can do that (as far as I know) AS can't is stop-motion animation and time-lapse photography. Both require a real-time camera hook-up.

I think the bone feature must be the main new one, since in their demo videos the bone one is the only one without narration. This suggests it as done at a different time, and possibly hurried up.

TB6 is also more expensive!

lpbaker · Post by **lpbaker** » Sat Aug 21, 2010 12:13 am

Peteroid wrote:The only thing I see TB6 can do that (as far as I know) AS can't is stop-motion animation and time-lapse photography.

The other feature it has that is very useful is the ability to import and vectorise images - great when you want to import line drawings and colour them digitally.

If AS could import line drawings and convert them to vector lines ...

~ Lindsay

InfoCentral · Post by **InfoCentral** » Sat Aug 21, 2010 3:10 am

lpbaker wrote:The other feature it has that is very useful is the ability to import and vectorise images - great when you want to import line drawings and colour them digitally.

If AS could import line drawings and convert them to vector lines ...

~ Lindsay

Yep, TB is very good about importing artwork from other programs.

crsP · Post by **crsP** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 12:41 pm

I don't think it's safe to assume that Toon Boom Studio's bones will not be as good as Anime Studio's without trying it first, Parker. From the video though, it could be argued that, like HeyVern says, they wont better AS'. They both seem like different types of apps unless point animation is implemented in TBS as lpbaker mentions. I had warned a few months ago in these forums that it will only take one of the rivals or AS to pull the trigger and implement what is lacking. This seems to be the direction things are heading, and after the stink that was caused over drawing tools in AS, it will be interesting to see Lost Marbles response to TBS' encroachment onto AS territory.

Another thing I thought was very curious about this new TBS 6, is that seemingly [from the feature list] the bones are the only thing added. This indicates that Toon Boom believes this to be a major feature which can stand on it's own. Could it be we are not seeing the entirety of this new bones system [or effect, as they refer to it]?

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:52 pm

The more I work with AS, the more I convinced it's not just about the bones. I will try with toon boon (if they have a demo, or something), but I'm the kind of guy who get exactly the results he wants in very short time using AS. I don't know any other software which give me that freedom.

crsP · Post by **crsP** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:30 pm

It's not. I never get good deformations with bones only. That's why I wonder about TBS handling of bones.

Rudiger · Post by **Rudiger** » Fri Aug 27, 2010 3:48 am

Hehe, even Photoshop has bones now! It shouldn't matter though. For me AS has always been about creating 2D-style animation in the most efficient way possible. As long as SM keeps improving it to that end, then I think they'll be fine, regardless of what the "competition" does.

camino1961 · Post by **camino1961** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 6:55 pm

[quote="heyvern"]Good grief. It looks like TB bought a copy of AS and just duplicated the bones. Watching the bones video I couldn't see anything "new" or "better" than what AS does and has done since Moho. AS has had bones for a long time. It isn't a new feature. Because of that Smith Micro will need to step it up for future versions. SM should consider this a challenge now and try to stay a few steps ahead. One thing I don't see in the feature list for TB is any type of script support or bone constraints. Without that bones in TB are behind the curve.

-vern[/quote]

I agree that Smith Micro is going to have to "step it up" in future version of AS. I just hope whatever new features come down the line don't turn AS into "bloat ware". It would be ashamed to ruin an "already perfect" application.

PS: Is there a way to re-arrange the tool pallets on AS7 pro while still keep the clean interface look? I just want to move the tool palette on the left to the right side of the screen without having it float and detached from the rest of the interface. Thanks in advance.

dm · Post by dm » Thu Sep 02, 2010 3:30 pm

I find it interesting that it took them this long to add bones to Studio. I bought MoHo to supplement TBS many years ago (because of bones). I'd guess that they didn't want to dilute their high-end software sales by making the tools available for less. Naturally, now the market is more competitive, so they probably need to keep Studio viable by moving features down from the other software.

According to the product comparison matrix I saw this morning, Studio only has forward kinematics. It still takes Animate to get IK and morphing. I don't know if that applies to the new version, or the existing one though.

It's a little bizarre to think that they have a dozen different animation products. Seems they would do better to thin out the product line and offer something solid in three or four levels and be done with it.