Animation software poll

[D.T. Nethery]

If you're on Twitter and you're a TVPaint user vote in this poll . (5 days left as of today, Friday, Oct. 28, 2022)

https://twitter.com/tonikopantoja/statu ... 8939042816

Screen Shot 2022-10-28 at 10.08.13 AM.png (82.59 KiB) Viewed 11635 times

[slowtiger]

Already did!

[D.T. Nethery]

Here are the final results that were posted.

Screen Shot 2022-11-22 at 2.47.32 PM.png (66.44 KiB) Viewed 11114 times

Obviously no poll conducted on an individual's Twitter account is going to be close to "scientific" or broadly representative because there are too many factors that can skew the poll results, but I was genuinely surprised at the higher numbers using Clip Studio Paint compared to TVPaint or Harmony. I would have guessed that Harmony would have been the most popular, then TVPaint , then Clip Studio Paint and/or Adobe Animate (Flash). I wonder if everyone who responded to the poll understood that the poll was not "What software do you use most for drawing or illustration", but was specifically about "what software do you use to animate" ? My impression is that many people use Clip Studio Paint for drawing and illustration (comics ,concept art, illustrations), but not as much for animation, but maybe CSP is more widely used than I knew about ?

[slowtiger]

CSP is 220 $ - once. That's a very strong argument for beginners and hobbyists, of which a lot might start with the non-animation version for 50 $. Lots of artists I know use it, especially students. I haven't used it and can't say anything about reliability.

I see this as an ongoing process for all graphics software. Affinity vs. Adobe is a good example. There's not a lot of functionality Adobe could possibly add to their products, aside from making coffee. Their products haven't changed significantly since the 90's - it's still the same UI, just with different colours. And it still is pricey - not much for a professioal studio, but for any beginner.

Affinity OTOH had a fresh start, could concentrate on what users really needed in their daily workflow, and could easily improve their user interface. Don't forget that nowadays there's a metric ton of very good developers available for this kind of work. And they were smart enough to include iPad from the very beginning. Add to this their marketing move of giving away the whole package (3 apps) for 150 $ for a certain time. (Just a detail: Adobe's Indesign is very picky about file versions (not like Photoshop), but if you have a PDF, you can import it to Affinity Publisher and it will have the very same frames and editable parts as in Indesgn. Now that's clever.)

TB Harmony is only wide-spread because of their very aggressive marketing. They used the old-school sales model of "professional software" for a long time: don't publish any price list, instead let each customer enquire for an offer (this has changed, seems to be subscription-based now, about 800$ a year for the middle version). Their main argument is "everybody uses it!" which is not true, of course.

[D.T. Nethery]

TB Harmony is only wide-spread because of their very aggressive marketing. They used the old-school sales model of "professional software" for a long time: don't publish any price list, instead let each customer enquire for an offer (this has changed, seems to be subscription-based now, about 800$ a year for the middle version). Their main argument is "everybody uses it!" which is not true, of course.

However, because of their aggressive marketing they have achieved the status of "everybody uses it" , at least in North America. Almost every 2D animation job listing posted on LInked-In or Creative Heads, etc. says: "Experience using Toonboom Harmony is required" (or at least "desirable"). I was pleasantly surprised to recently apply for a job which said: "Experience with Harmony or TVPaint is required" . (that "or TVPaint" warmed my heart and brought a smile to my face) . With export/import scripts (such as the script worked out by Cardin Collins: viewtopic.php?t=14067 ) it is feasible to animate and clean-up in TVPaint and export the work to be colored and composited in Harmony. Of course , if the animation requires a Harmony-specific function then that is not possible , but for straight hand drawn animation there is nothing that prevents an animator from working in TVPaint and delivering the work in a Harmony file. (this is especially true in the case of rough animation ... with clean-up it can be a little trickier if the clean-up line style is using a specific Harmony brush ... this may require some fiddling around in TVPaint to make a custom brush that faithfully duplicates the line quality of the Harmony brush).

I read that for "My Father's Dragon" Cartoon Saloon continued to use TVPaint for rough animation and clean up (as on their previous films), but switched to using Harmony for coloring. So obviously they have a script for exporting from TVPaint to Harmony. (I know of a few animators on "Klaus" who used TVPaint and their drawings were imported into Harmony for clean up and coloring).

As I am sure you know, Cartoon Saloon also used Moho extensively in their animation pipeline for animating props (vehicles) and effects. Moho is much more aware of the value of promoting their software in association with prestige products such as Cartoon Saloon's "Song of the Sea" , "The Breadwinner" , "Wolfwalkers" , and "My Father's Dragon". TVPaint could do the same, but doesn't. (why?)

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[slowtiger]

Because Cartoon Saloon invested in the new company, IIRC.

[D.T. Nethery]

Because Cartoon Saloon invested in the new company, IIRC.

I did not know that. So they own part of Moho. Interesting.

But I still recall on the old TVPaint website there were some images from Song of the Sea and also some video examples from Cartoon Saloon (among others) in the gallery , letting potential customers know that TVPaint was the primary character animation software used on those films. Unless Cartoon Saloon has now gone the way of the "big" media companies and have become highly secretive about any information on their production pipeline being shared. They used to be very open about promoting TVPaint in interviews. As recently as 'Wolfwalkers' I saw interviews where Tomm Moore made a point to give a shout out to TVPaint (as well as Moho).

[slowtiger]

They still are quite open about what they work with, which is a mix of nearly everything (they even used Flash in "Secret of Kells").

Here's the original article: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/tools/moho- ... 00309.html, which says "endorsement" not investment.

[D.T. Nethery]

They still are quite open about what they work with, which is a mix of nearly everything (they even used Flash in "Secret of Kells").

Here's the original article: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/tools/moho- ... 00309.html, which says "endorsement" not investment.

Well, I suppose the ultimate "endorsement" is that a studio chooses to use the software. Cartoon Saloon's use of TVPaint and Moho has produced excellent results for them. I still think reminding people that TVPaint was used on such high-profile projects as "The Song of the Sea", "The Breadwinner", "Wolfwalkers" , and "My Father's Dragon" (not to mention Cartoon Saloon's short films, such as "Late Afternoon" and "The Ledge End of Phil (from accounting)" , among others. https://www.cartoonsaloon.ie/short-films/) would be good promotion for TVPaint.

[D.T. Nethery]

I've been watching some "making-of" videos about "My Father's Dragon. It seems to me they are using Moho much more extensively for characters (not only props or effects) than in previous films .

Victor Paredes, the Moho animation supervisor at Cartoon Saloon, has posted a number of videos on his YouTube Channel -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOlwAvantE



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IV9QhxEM14



https://youtu.be/qciofaRk0oA




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[slowtiger]

I think the reason that they post that many Moho making-of videos is that there's much to show about rigging, whereas a TVPaint scene is a pretty straghtforward and self-explanatory thing. The amount of videos don't necessarily reflect the amount of usage in the film.