synthsin75 wrote:I'm having a conversation with you, not playing to an audience.
I'm trying to explain our reasoning behind the choices we made on our feature set. I made one post and went to leave. You have responded with provocative language, calling our prices a "joke" and "ridiculous", accusing us of "tunnel vision", calling our competitors "less restricted" than us, and then describing my actions as "dishonest". Which one of us is playing to an audience?
synthsin75 wrote:If you were indeed joking, why not simply say that and leave it be? Perhaps because you are more invested in your words than a mere joke. Gloating?! I never assumed anything of the kind. I made the simplest assumption that smiley = happy, i.e. happy with what you, perhaps inadvertently, exaggerated/perceived as a recommendation of your product.
Well this is the classic problem with internet communication - what one person thinks is clear, another sees it a different way. I hope my explanation can give closure to this point - let's leave it out of the conversation from now on.
synthsin75 wrote:Sure, and so is CelAction requiring the purchase of Photoshop, or the like, to be even minimally usable. You kinda glossed over that fact while tooting the horn of having to buy 3DS.
I said in my first post that you could use GIMP, which is free. You kinda glossed over that.
synthsin75 wrote:Well, luckily google doesn't return any history of CelAction except your own. And I can't verify your info about Animo either (as the only reference to your date did not cite any sources, nor give a feature list at the time).
Well this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Knights states that The BIg Knights used CelAction2D, and the series was broadcast starting on December 19, 1999. It also states that the whole series (130 minutes of animation) was shown over that Christmas. Although there isn't any proof readily Google-able about the start date, it's reasonable to infer that the series (which used only 6 animators, according to the IMDB entry) took a while to animate (actually 13 months), and that the software must have existed prior to the start of animation (it took 10 months to develop before animation started). But if you still don't believe me, there are witnesses.
As for Animo, you found the wrong one. This is the right one
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.5/siggrap ... ridge.html
synthsin75 wrote:The problem with strictly reusable assets is that you are either limited to those assets or, in the case of CelAction, you are forced to go to a different program to add even the smallest asset.
If you are using bitmaps, there are several programs that require you to go to a different program, it's not an issue exclusive to CelAction2D.
But since you brought it up, in a bitmap pipeline, for TV series work, you have a separate design team that can draw in the style of the show. They make all the bitmap files that they think are necessary for the episode. They do this primarily from the animatic and/or predicted asset list. Should the animators need a new asset, they can request one from the design team. This has several advantages over letting the animators draw their own. Firstly, if 20 animators all need a cowboy hat, they ask the design team for one and a single one is drawn perfectly in the style of the show. If the animators draw their own, you run the risk of having 20 animators each draw a slightly different cowboy hat, wasting 19 animators' time.
Plus you also have the advantage of being able to change a layer in a PSD file and have that change propagate throughout the whole show, should you so wish.
In reality, a professional design team anticipates most of the "smallest assets", and so requests from animation to design are rare.
Note that this is not a CelAction2D-specific workflow, it's just good practice for a large team of animators. It's also common for stop-motion and 3D CGI series too - the animators are not allowed to change the armature/rigging or textures. The more compartmentalised a team, the better it scales up.
synthsin75 wrote:Now you can beat your customers over the head about proper project planning, but if the studio works for a client, client changes are exacerbated by not even having simple mock-up asset tools.
Like I said before, we concentrate on TV series, where there is a defined approval process that gives time for changes to be made properly. Doing a commercial or working with a client who wants to sit behind you while you work, it's always going to be a mad panic rush. Fortunately our clients appreciate proper project planning, I never have to beat them over the head at all.
synthsin75 wrote:Now here's the clincher. You have yet to discuss the actual topic of this thread. You know 3DCutOut. So if you're done "joking", aren't making a sale spiel, and are done reiterating what I already said (which you claim is your only reason for posting to this thread), why are you still posting to this thread?
I could be pedantic and say that my first sentence was about 3DCutOut, but that could be construed as cheeky.
The fact is, the first two posts in this thread mentioned CelAction2D. The two posts after that mentioned the Foundry's software. So in the first four posts, half of them feature you talking about software other than 3DCutOut. We are both guilty of not talking about 3DCutOut.
The reason I am still posting to this thread, as you well know, is to respond to comments you made that, if left unchallenged, would give an at best opinionated and at worst misleading view of our software. You have every right to your opinion, and I have every right to mine. Some people want drawing tools built in to their animation software, some people don't. If we can agree on that at least, then we can draw this conversation to a close.
synthsin75 wrote:Trolling?
Funny you should use that word.
I'm wondering whether you have a bet with your friends as to how long you can keep me in this conversation.
So I propose a deal - you resist the urge to say something that I really have to challenge (in this world of Google search, one can't leave accusations unanswered, they stay online forever), and I will leave this thread. I'm not your enemy, I'm not trying to score points over Anime Studio (I recommend it to people, remember?), and I certainly wish you no ill-will.
What do you say? Shake on it?
(this is a smile of conciliation)