[newb megathread] ASP vs TBH vs Flash

[Aleque]

Hi all

(I have assigned numbers to all of my questions to make it easier to target specific questions with possible answers)

My background is around 15 years of amateur Flash animation. I finally decided to move on to other animation-applications due to the limitations of Flash.

My dream is to become an indie animator and get profit from crowdfunding, merchandise and maybe even sponsors. I want to make mediocre quality animations (to begin with) and release them every 1-2 weeks. The duration of each animation is going to vary from 30 seconds to 2 minutes (plus / minis) but I'm aiming at releasing animation of somewhat even duration, eventually.

Regarding the quality of my animations: I am certaintly not aiming at super fancy Disney-stuff. On the contrary - I am looking for methods that make my animations look as simple/handmade/"crappy" as possible, while still being believable and entertaining.

(Inspirations: 12 Oz Mouse, Charlie the Unicorn, South Park, Cyanide and Happiness, Weebl and Bob)

I believe, that if I go for the super-simple style to begin with, it gives an illusion that it was handmade by some handicapped kids (I know it sounds silly), and it has its charm, and I can always upgrade the quality of my animations in the future. My main focus to begin with is: humor, storytelling and character development. I am planning to do my own voices and music. In other words - I want to work alone, until I can afford to hire freelancers. So, now you approximately have an idea regarding what I am aiming at: my ambitions, goals, animation style. Now, to the software aspect.


I have just recently started to learn Anime Studio Pro 11 and I am starting to like it. I like a lot, that it is so relatively easy to just animate stuff and that the bodyparts of characters seem to behave like the parts of a real life doll. If I move a hand, the rest of the arm follows. If I lift up a character, the rest of the body seems to follow - legs bending, stretching out, etc.

Before I started learning ASP, I've spent around a month learning basics of Toon Boom Harmony 12. Even though TBH seems rich in its interface, drawing tools, Node View and other cool features, it seems, like the cut-out feature (in TBH) is premature and very annoying to use. All of the extra steps to make a simple rig/deformation seem too much (plus adding peg on peg on master-peg), and browsing through child/parent bodyparts seems unnecessary, compared to ASP, where you simply drag a bodypart and it just moves like you expect it. Then, you move a few frames forth and move the bodyparts some more, and before you know it, you already have a simple animation ready, whereas TBH seems to require more steps to complete a simple action.

But as I said - I am still a newbie in both applications, so I might have missed out some features in TBH that make cut-out animation less frustrating. I haven't played with TBH's Inverse Kinematics feature, for instance, and still have a long way to go to fully understand the possibilities of Node View and Node Library.

I have read lots of comparisons of Anime Studio Pro VS Toon Boom Harmony and I came to the conclusion that:

A). TBH is preferable for people, who work a lot with frame by frame and complex special effects (Node View/Library). Also, TBH is supposed to be good for camera movements in Z-space. The downside of TBH, however, is supposedly within the field of cut-out animations, and the general simplicity of the workflow is lacking (as mentioned above).

B). ASP is preferable for simple cut-out animations and it's strenghts are bones (they even changed ASPs icon to a bone-icon, because they probably realized this, as well), smart bones, deformations, and more features for cut-out animations that I have yet to learn. I am not sure of the down-sides, however (it will come as a question, below).


I am trying to figure out which features of ASP and TBH I should combine. My immediate presumption is, that I should make most of the body movements in ASP, but when it comes to special occasions where I have to do frame by frame, I should do it in TBH. Then, I should probably end up editing the pieces and compiling the entire animation using Premiere. Although, my immediate doubt is this: For example, if I have a scene with 2 character that interract with each other and an object, then importing these characters into another application might give me some problems, if I already made the animations in ASP.

1). I am looking for guidance, regarding how I can combine ASP with TBH. Furthermore, I would like some general personal experiences, from someone, who have successfully combined several applications (not necessarily TBH), including ASP.

2). Is lipsyncing in ASP more intuitive than lipsyncing in TBH? Over the years I have become lazy and lipsyncing is one of those tasks that can become tedious after some time, especially when using Flash.

3). Do Curve Deformers exist in ASP? And if yes - is it possible to make (for example) an arm that has a curve deformer and a hand that follows the arm, without being deformed by it?

4). What is scripting generally used for in ASP? I heard, that it can be used for improving the interface and tools, reusing animations, but how specifically? Please give me some specific examples.

5). Is it possible to somehow assign hotkeys/keyb-shortcuts without using the Ctrl keys? I am used to zoom in and out using single keys but ASP forces me to use Ctrl or Ctrl+Shift/Alt with these keys. Is there a workaround? That is one of those things that annoys me about ASP - also, because I am not able to use arrowkeys when browsing the menus.

6). Is there such a thing as Camera in Z-space in ASP (and multiplane like back/mid/foreground)? And if yes - how does it work (in comparison with ASP or After Effects)?

7). Which (most important) features of ASP should I master (or at least look into) in order to harness ASP's full potential? I am currently looking into Layer Referencing, Smart Bones (the thing where I define the placement/movement/behaviour of points upon rotation of certain bodyparts), Dials (that control eyes, mouth, etc), Reparent Bones. Please give me some keywords (feature names), that I can look into.

8). What are the main limitations of ASP? I am beginning to comprehend the strengths of ASP, but I also want to be aware of its limitations, so I can adjust my workflow accordingly by implementing other programs, that can compensate for these limitations.

9). Is it recommendable to import vector from Flash or should I rather make vector shapes directly in ASP? I am used to making vector shapes in Flash, and I would rather continue doing so, thus importing those shapes into ASP - but I heard that ASP's way of threating vector shapes is different from, say, Adobe's programs. I tried importing *.SVG to ASP (from Flash) but it could not be displayed. So I had to export/import as *.AI

10). If I combine frame by frame animation with normal "tweening" animation in ASP, should I use the Interval feature - and how? As I said, I want to make my animations look handmade, hence the movements are not always going to be smooth and fluid, but mostly choppy. So, if I make some bodyparts of of my character as frame by frame, how can I effectively combine this with the rest of the rigged bodyparts, that are NOT frame by frame? How do I make sure, that the both types of animations are in sync? (I think, I heard, that Victor Paredes made a tutorial about it)

11). Can I "nudge" objects in Z-space like in TBH? In Flash, if an object is on a layer ABOVE another layer, that object will also be in front. In TBH, you can nudge objects to front/back in Z-space, regardless of whether it is on a layer above/below. How exactly does this work in ASP?

12). Which ASP tools do you recommend to use, in order to create basic shapes for character bodyparts, backgrounds and props? I got kind of confused, since there are plenty of vector tools available in ASP. I would like to know, which tools to combine in order to have the most control, when creating simple shapes with as few vector points as possible.

So far, I have been watching plenty of official video tutorials on ASP and diligently taking notes on paper. I am trying to memorize as much as possible, before I decide to fully dive into the program and start creating my own thing. I hope, that some of the answers will remove the doubt, that I have, regarding my workflow. After having spent so much time in Flash, and peaked into ASP and TBH, I'm finally beginning to understand the true limitations of Flash. The next step for me right now, is to acknowledge the strong and weak sides of aforementioned programs, and to decide, which aspects of those programs I should combine (and how) to get the most optimal result.

I know, that the best way to learn is by pure practice, but I just want to clear some doubt from my path, before I start taking the steps. Tired of doing double-work, you know?

Thanks in advance.

[dueyftw]

Much of your questions have been address some where on this forum.

1) Pass, I stop using Toomboom when it only had pegs.

2)Lean to use Papagayo http://my.smithmicro.com/papagayo.html

3)The best replacement for curve deformers is the smart bones

4) I use scripts for user add on tools. Two way ticket and the script that make smart bones are two that I couldn't live with out. I also use a layer script.

5)Yes, almost all hotkeys can be resigned.

6)Yes, it is in the camera controls or in the layer settings. To move on the z you adjust its number.

7) Learn the basics of the program first, then actions and smart bones. Don't get a head of yourself. You didn't lean Action scripts before you knew how to animate in flash?

8 ) Memory on your computer. The dirty little secret is that vector can take up more memory than raster. Flash has the same problem. When you get large working files things will slow down and crash.

9)I find it best to import using a raster format.

10) Set you time line on twos. Animate on the even frames.

11) Yes, it called animate layer order.

12) Bones have influence or bone strength and it has two setting. Play with each setting. Or bones can control a layer or can control the points. Each setup for the bones has advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage of flash is that you don't have to deal with the underlining vector points. But that is a disadvantage because you lose the control that you get in Anime Studio. New bees hate the drawing tools, and that because they are not drawing tools, but vector point making tools. Think of it, in flash you could use the bezier controls to animate but that would take forever. In Anime Studio that is how your animating. One more thing. Anime studio is using center line vector, where Flash make shapes, even for lines.

Dale

[Víctor Paredes]

1). I am looking for guidance, regarding how I can combine ASP with TBH. Furthermore, I would like some general personal experiences, from someone, who have successfully combined several applications (not necessarily TBH), including ASP.

I have no much experience with Toon Boom, but I have been able to beat anyone who told me that working on TB is faster than AS
Anyway, from my experience, ASP and After Effects work great together.

2). Is lipsyncing in ASP more intuitive than lipsyncing in TBH? Over the years I have become lazy and lipsyncing is one of those tasks that can become tedious after some time, especially when using Flash.

I prefer to do lipsync by hand, but you have Papagayo, which works well enough when you need to make a lot of "automatic" lipsync.

3). Do Curve Deformers exist in ASP? And if yes - is it possible to make (for example) an arm that has a curve deformer and a hand that follows the arm, without being deformed by it?

Yes, you can. One of the greatest features you have in AS is point animation. Also, It can be combined with bone movement, so you can make the overall action with bones and improve it via point animation.

4). What is scripting generally used for in ASP? I heard, that it can be used for improving the interface and tools, reusing animations, but how specifically? Please give me some specific examples.

Scripts can be menu items which make a specific repetive task or something completely new. They also can be tools, (improving the existing tools or creating totally new ones). You can also embed a script to a layer to make that layer behave in a specific way you need.
Most people is very generous and share their scripts on the web, but I recommend you to learn the software as built and once you dominate it, start diving into scripts.

5). Is it possible to somehow assign hotkeys/keyb-shortcuts without using the Ctrl keys? I am used to zoom in and out using single keys but ASP forces me to use Ctrl or Ctrl+Shift/Alt with these keys. Is there a workaround? That is one of those things that annoys me about ASP - also, because I am not able to use arrowkeys when browsing the menus.

You can use Shift instead of Ctrl on 11.1.
If you want to zoom without using the keyboard, just select the Zoom tool.

6). Is there such a thing as Camera in Z-space in ASP (and multiplane like back/mid/foreground)? And if yes - how does it work (in comparison with ASP or After Effects)?

You can and one of the coolest features you won't find on After Effects is you can move the elements in Z, but maintaining their visual appearance, so you won't need to move and scale your elements after arranging them in Z.

7). Which (most important) features of ASP should I master (or at least look into) in order to harness ASP's full potential? I am currently looking into Layer Referencing, Smart Bones (the thing where I define the placement/movement/behaviour of points upon rotation of certain bodyparts), Dials (that control eyes, mouth, etc), Reparent Bones. Please give me some keywords (feature names), that I can look into.

Learn to draw and rig inside AS.
If you focus on that, you will learn to draw, fill and animate shapes and also Smart bones and Targets.

. What are the main limitations of ASP? I am beginning to comprehend the strengths of ASP, but I also want to be aware of its limitations, so I can adjust my workflow accordingly by implementing other programs, that can compensate for these limitations.

It's hard to talk about limitations. For me, the biggest limitation in the past was you couldn't make Frame by frame animation on AS. Today that has been solved, but there's always room for improvement.
Also, you have to take in count this is a software which needs a lot of experimentation. There are several ways to get a result and many of the things you will have to animate will need a clever use of the tools, probably in ways most people never thought before.

9). Is it recommendable to import vector from Flash or should I rather make vector shapes directly in ASP? I am used to making vector shapes in Flash, and I would rather continue doing so, thus importing those shapes into ASP - but I heard that ASP's way of threating vector shapes is different from, say, Adobe's programs. I tried importing *.SVG to ASP (from Flash) but it could not be displayed. So I had to export/import as *.AI

No. The way AS vector works is different to the rest of the software and the conversions is always deficient. If you need to work with vectors, draw them directly into AS.
Now, if you want to animate images, AS works extremely well with psd files.

10). If I combine frame by frame animation with normal "tweening" animation in ASP, should I use the Interval feature - and how? As I said, I want to make my animations look handmade, hence the movements are not always going to be smooth and fluid, but mostly choppy. So, if I make some bodyparts of of my character as frame by frame, how can I effectively combine this with the rest of the rigged bodyparts, that are NOT frame by frame? How do I make sure, that the both types of animations are in sync? (I think, I heard, that Victor Paredes made a tutorial about it)

Working with different intervals is useful, but advanced. If you want your animations to look good, they have to be well animated. Try to learn and play with the Animation Principles.

11). Can I "nudge" objects in Z-space like in TBH? In Flash, if an object is on a layer ABOVE another layer, that object will also be in front. In TBH, you can nudge objects to front/back in Z-space, regardless of whether it is on a layer above/below. How exactly does this work in ASP?

You can nudge objects in Z-space, but only if they are inside the same Group/Bone.
Anyway, you can also animate the layer order, which is simpler (at least for me).

12). Which ASP tools do you recommend to use, in order to create basic shapes for character bodyparts, backgrounds and props? I got kind of confused, since there are plenty of vector tools available in ASP. I would like to know, which tools to combine in order to have the most control, when creating simple shapes with as few vector points as possible.

For me, the Add points tool makes most of the job.

[Aleque]

Thank you so much for the replies. Now I have a great foundation.
http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... IC_ID=3205 <-- I also made the same topic here, and also got very good replies

[chucky]

I did used to use both, ASP for Close up acting and most general stuff.
TB for FBF, I think ASP needs a few more tweaks to its drawing system to be on par to TB for freehand , but as a matter of course. I now use the FBF in ASP to get through many situations much more quickly and fluidly than mixing and comping. Actually since V11 I haven't had to open TB and I passed on a ridiculously cheap upgrade to Harmony ( probably should have taken it for safety) .. hopefully I won't actually need it again.
Having said that, Toon Boom Storyboard is and shall remain one of my most used apps , even though it is fairly long in the tooth and badly needs significant improvements.

[Greenlaw]

My background is around 15 years of amateur Flash animation. I finally decided to move on to other animation-applications due to the limitations of Flash.

My dream is to become an indie animator and get profit from crowdfunding, merchandise and maybe even sponsors....

That's a good dream.

I worked as visual fx artist and 3D animator for about 17 years, and this year I crossed over to 2D cartoon animation for work. So far it's been a fun, stressful, crazy and oddly satisfying journey. Right now, I'm using ASP, Toon Boom Harmony, AfterFX, Fusion and LightWave (actually a 3D program but with some good ‘toon’ capabilities) for 2D animation production, and I started dabbling with Cancani for FBF. I can't talk about my day job as an animator for NDA reasons but I can certainly talk about the personal animation productions I create with my partner Alisa Klein. Our eventual goal is to produce our own animation series, and design related merchandise as well.

At this stage, a lot of what we create in our home studio is experimental--'testing the waters' so to speak--but we feel like we've been making progress. If you're curious about what we do, you can check out our 'hobbies' at our website littlegreendog.com and our vimeo channel. (Note: the site may go down for a while in the near future because we're currently redesigning it.) There's some info in our blog about our indie productions (animation, comics, 3D printing, etc.,), and I've posted some of my thoughts on the topic elsewhere in these forums as well.

Anyway, it sounds we have a common goal. I'm always eager to learn from the experience of others and share what I've learned too.

Before I started learning ASP, I've spent around a month learning basics of Toon Boom Harmony 12...But as I said - I am still a newbie in both applications, so I might have missed out some features in TBH that make cut-out animation less frustrating. I haven't played with TBH's Inverse Kinematics feature, for instance, and still have a long way to go to fully understand the possibilities of Node View and Node Library.

As mentioned above, I haven't used either program for very long but these days I do use both programs fairly regularly these days for work (and play.)

My general feeling about ASP is that it's very strong for cut-out style animation because of its bones and ik system, as well as it's ability set up comp layers. Vector drawing and texturing is pertty good with some clever features, but Its Styles system can seem a little clunky. Once you get used to its quirkiness, it's very useful but it can still stand some UI improvements. In 11 the developers made some Library improvements for sharing Styles across scenes, which is great for longer productions and series. There are no bitmap paint tools in ASP but it does reference image files directly so you can edit in your favorite paint package and see the updates without re-importing. If you're not hung up on using bitmaps, the vector tools can do a very good simulation of natural media painting--we used it all over place in our HLF titles animation. In the past, the program's main weakness was the lack of FBF tools but the developers have started addressing that in version 11. I haven't used the new FBF tools much yet but will be focusing on that after I get some other projects completed.

Toon Boom Harmony is a good cut-out program too, but the process of setting up rigged characters can be a bit convoluted compared to ASP. Yes, there is basic IK available but it's not very well implemented, and if you use any nodal deformers like bones or curves, you don't have IK or goals available at all. To work around this, you need to create an unparented 'reverse' rig that places the root of the limb away from the character. As you animate, you need to move the unattached limb to follow your character. This may sound somewhat primitive but it works surprisingly well once you get the hang of it. One of the strengths of the program is its painting tools--it's not fully featured for 'natural media' looks, it does a decent job. Like ASP, it also offers vector based drawing tools that can do a good simulation of natural media. I think the biggest downside is when you want to use the Library system to store poses and animation sequences (like walk cycles). The system works well for animation but the tiniest change to the nodal structure and can invalidate your entire pose library. This can happen even if the change you make is not related to the physical rig itself, so watch out. The key strength of TBH, is it's FBF system. It works well if that's what you want to do. (Although I think it's XSheet system is awkward and can stand some of improvement.) Another plus is the nodal network--it's quite powerful for setting up fairly complicated masking and breaking out scenes for compositing. In some situations, the network can also be a hindrance (as described above) but most of the time, I'm glad to have it.

(Cacani seems like another decent FBF program, but I'll leave that one off the table for now since I'm only just starting to learn it.)

In practice, I don't see either program as the answer to all 2S animation needs. In fact, I find that to use either program most effectively, I also need a good compositing program like Fusion or AfterEffects. (Scareplane was comped in Fusion and HLF was comped in AE--both projects were animated in ASP though.) Luckily, both programs work very well for compositing. For breaking out layers and specialty masks, I generally like ASP better--the Comp Layers system is similar to Photoshop's--it's straightforward and very easy to use. In TBH, you need to create a nodal structure for each layer pass and add a separate write node to each structure--this allows you to create some very sophisticated setups, however, it's also much more time consuming to set up even for simple layer break outs. They're both good solutions but with different strengths and workflow.

I think animating lipsync in either program is comparable. TBH has its drawing panel and you can switch drawings for your mouth layer quickly by pressing brackets. I think ASP is a little more 'intuitive' in that its Switch Layer system allows you to clearly label what the individual mouth shapes are, making it unnecessary to cycle through the set. However, switching between shapes is not as fast as simply pressing brackets in TBH. On the other hand, in ASP, it's nice to see editable keyframes on the timeline for each mouth shape; in TBH, you need to edit the XSheet instead, which can get overwhelming if you many characters and layers in your scene.

Again, these mostly just different approaches to solve common problem. Some people will prefer one system over the other but one is not necessarily 'better' than the other.

Hope this helps.

G.

[Greenlaw]

About TBH's Curve Deformer--this is one really bright spot in the program. It seems like I use Curve over the Bones deformer almost every time and get much nicer results. I do wish ASP had something like this.

That said, you can do a fair simulation of TBH's Curve Deformer in ASP by using the path tool with the Alt switch. It's not quite the same thing but for some situations, it can be used in a similar way.

G.

[djwaterman]

9). Is it recommendable to import vector from Flash or should I rather make vector shapes directly in ASP? I am used to making vector shapes in Flash, and I would rather continue doing so, thus importing those shapes into ASP - but I heard that ASP's way of threating vector shapes is different from, say, Adobe's programs. I tried importing *.SVG to ASP (from Flash) but it could not be displayed. So I had to export/import as *.AI

I actually think the vector creation tools in ASP are faster and more intuitive than playing with bezier handles, so once you understand how to work with them it becomes a quick and snappy process to draw out vector shapes. I love all the stroke thickening and turning off edge visibility, you can really get a hand made look to your lines. So my answer to you on this is you should just learn how to make all your vectors in ASP.

Also, for what it is you want to do, I think ASP is 'the' program for you. Just concentrate on the jokes and funny, do your voices and write your scripts, with ASP you wont have to sweat over the animation if you want fast and crappy, it sure can do that (I mean that in a good way).