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DavidN · Joined: 15 Oct 2006 Posts: 52 Location: Orlando, FL

Decided this would be a good topic , playing off a comment made by "Stickman" over on the thread about Phil Nibbelink's "Romeo & Juliet" :

idragosani · Joined: 22 Sep 2006 Posts: 85 Location: Germantown MD

I'm using several different tools, both commercial and open source and use both Windows and Linux for my production ... I'm still relatively inexperienced so I am still exploring what works for me. Right now, I am focusing on traditional cel animation, drawn by hand (my drawing skills are a little rusty, so I am giving myself a quick crash course in pencil technique). I'd like to move to using a Cintiq tablet but that is probably further down the road -- trying to stay within a tight budget right now

For inking and coloring, I am moving things onto a laptop with a desktop scanner, and using Flipbook and two open source graphics applications called The Gimp and Cinepaint. The Gimp has an add-on tool called Gimp Animation Package which is good for compositing. Cinepaint works well for highresolution images scanned from film (it works in 16bpp color, as opposed to the typical 8bpp color most applications do).

I'm also using a stoyboarding package called BoardMaster (apparently the company has gone out of business, but you can find the software still for about $40) -- it's useful for creating animatics also.

For vector animation, I am using Anime Studio Pro (formerly known as Moho, which I still use on Linux since AS Pro isn't yet available for Linux).

I do some stuff with 3D, primarily with a free Renderman renderer called Aqsis, and modelling with Blender and K-3D (both also open source). I'd like to use Maya but the full version is a bit too pricey for me right now. :-)

Also got a small music studio in my basement for audio production.
_________________
Brett McCoy
Programmer by Day, Musician by Night
http://www.electricminstrel.com

MichaelS · Joined: 13 Oct 2006 Posts: 10 Location: NYC

I do storyboards on pencil & paper and clean up & finish in Photoshop.

My animation is done on paper, scanned and touched up in Photoshop. After Effects is used to put the art together and make QT movies. It's edited in Final Cut Pro.

I resist all the other programs out there. It takes too long to learn them properly. I don't feel I fully get Photoshop after ten years of working with it; why try to learn another program? I particularly do not like Flash - the anti-animation program.

Saying that, the only one that interests me is Mirage. But the time factor keeps me away from it. Too much time is spent learning and reworking with the computer. I feel a lot of the energy is lost in it, and the possibility of oddly positive errors is all but eliminated. That's not good.[/b]

idragosani · Joined: 22 Sep 2006 Posts: 85 Location: Germantown MD

DavidN · Joined: 15 Oct 2006 Posts: 52 Location: Orlando, FL

RMills · Joined: 21 Oct 2006 Posts: 6

David as you know I use Mirage. I've been working with the Bauhaus people to bring new features into future software from them. Using it on a tablet PC is fantastic and I find that I'm able to get the results I want. Some of the new tools coming up from Bauhaus will be nice. Some of them I know you've seen previews of on their site. I teach Mirage classes all the time in the LA area. I find Mirage is a great tool for both individual animators and studios. One of the things I like is it's basically a full animation studio in one piece of software. Anyhow I've got a lot of new stuff to put up on my blog starting this week about using Mirage for my film so check it out. :wink:
http://the-plausible-impossible.blogspot.com

artmaestro · Joined: 05 Nov 2006 Posts: 3

2Dee · Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 7 Location: Batam, Indonesia

Hi guys!
Nice to meet you all here 2d animators. My background is traditional animator whose using pencil and paper. But now I'm working for the company that use Toon Boom Harmony. So it became paperless. But I wonder how is Mirage compare to Toon Boom Harmony? I mean the workflow and other things? I'm interested in Mirage because of it's prize that relatively more economic than Harmony. This is for my plan of build my own animation studio. BTW I came from Indonesia & thank you for all of your answer!

DavidN · Joined: 15 Oct 2006 Posts: 52 Location: Orlando, FL

My understanding is that one big difference between Mirage and ToonBoom is that Mirage is bitmap and ToonBoom products are vector-based . Does Harmony also allow drawing in bitmap ? I wonder because of a post on The Animation Guild Blog that mentioned Disney animators using Harmony to animate on the new 2-D Goofy short that Disney is making .

http://animationguildblog.blogspo...2006/12/animating-in-harmony.html

It seems to me that ToonBoom Harmony was intentionally created to fit into a large studio production pipeline and is actually being used for production by companies such as Nelvana (and now, apparently Disney ) for their paperless workflows, whereas Mirage seems to mostly be used by individuals or small groups of animators . I'd be very interested to read of any medium to large production houses who have incorporated Mirage into their workflows.

I haven't used ToonBoom Solo or Harmony enough to get a real handle on how they work in production. (I had a 30 day trial of ToonBoom Solo at one point , but was so busy with regular work at the time that I barely got to spend any time playing around with Solo) I enjoy the drawing tools in Mirage and/or TVPaint very much. To me , as a traditional pencil and paper animator , the drawing tools in TVPaint feel very "natural" .

There's an animator named Shawn McInerney who posted recently about how he works using TVPaint for rough and then switching to ToonBoom to do clean up:

2Dee · Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 7 Location: Batam, Indonesia

Thank you David! :)
I have look at the site about TV Paint Animation, and even it is interested me more about the program. I've seen very useful feature in TVPaint, which is the same as i found in Harmony, Animation Disc. Does Mirage has the same feature? What do you think about TVPaint & Mirage? I'm really interested in Mirage, which is very cheap. But does Mirage have all of the option that an animator need? Mostly for the one who changing from traditional animation to digital? If TVPaint is better, maybe i'll change my choice. :lol:
Thanks!