Flash vs. Toon Boom
April 18, 2010There’s no doubt that Toon Boom is the better software, but flash has some features that I’d like Toon Boom to have. I’d like to be able to create symbols, objects and loops, and add more than one of these to a drawing layer. As of now, to create loops I have to copy and paste the frames, and if I have lots of loops happening at the same time, I have to put each of them on a separate drawing layer. And there’s no way to tell when a loop starts and ends unless you go through the frames and count. Also, I have to create a whole new layer even if I want to create just 5 frames that are separate from the others layers.
Besides that, it would make the network a whole lot less complicated. Mine looks like this:
It’s a mess. And that’s as clean as I can get it.
Ideally, I think each loop, object or symbol would connect to the layers, which in turn would connect to the composition. There’s gotta be a better way to visualize that. I’m wasting a lot of time figuring out where loops start and end and trying to sort out the network. I’ll just have to trust that the technology will continue to improve and the better it gets, the more time it’ll save.
You can create symbols in Harmony and put them in your library (go through the help section and it will tell you how to do it). Then, you just grab that animation/ asset whenever you need it (drop it into the timeline). Will make easier. Though, for what you are doing, I’ve seen much more complicated networks than the one you have going here. Can also go in and group modules to clean things up a bit (go into groups when you need to work with them). Stop by the Anime Studio Pro demo Wednesday. I think you’d really like the software. And, what you are learning with this assignment, you will most of the time be using multiple softwares to get the look you want (not everything will be done in Maya or Harmony, etc…) I think people get stuck many times thinking (for example) ‘this is a 3D film, I need to do everything in Maya’ or ‘This is 2D… need to do it all in Harmony or Flash’. Mix and match these programs (a little here, a little there). Get what you can out of one and use another if it does something you like for a different part of the project (with Anime Studio Pro, makes cut out animation EASY). Hope to see you wed.
TOM