CompuServe Thread

>> I was considering purchasing AniStudio sometime in the future… but considering all the complaints here and in the 3ds Internet Usegroups I will think again… << just a minor note… more than 30% of the complaints i see there and here are that users can't get Animator Studio to run under NT or Win95. the program was written specifically for Windows 3.1, and many of the problems that have cropped up have also resulted from improper configurations, underpowered systems and faulty drivers. Animator Studio has some problems too (as all software does in its first release), but these are being resolved and fixes will be available shortly.

Hey Mark, >>Yes I but when I buy software that costs a lot of money I try my best to see if other people think it's a good package or not. << That's a good point, Mark, but what alteratives do I have? Go back to DAS? or maybe Dr. Halo? Remember Dr. Halo? God, I hated that package, (but at least it worked) :). Anyway, Mark, I'm not here to make enemies, I just want the problem resolved. I remember when I first was thinking of getting 3DS; people ware telling me, "Oh, don't get that, it's crap", or, "It's too expensive, get something else". In my opinion, 3DS is the best 3D animation package for PC. People always have an opinion of software and the only way to be sure if it's any good is to try for yourself. Believe me, I tried it the hard way. I know what you might say, "Well some people may like AAS and your opinion means sqwat"… My only response to that would be for anyone and everyone who thinks AAS is acceptible and is acually producing work on it to come forward and tell us how. I would like to hear your opinions. My personal experience involved attempting to draw one frame of an animation then moving the image over a bit because it was off center. The result was a system error and my entire computer froze-up. I couldn't even 'ctrl-alt-del' it was that bad. Not giving up faith, I tried again, only resulting in a crash once more. Getting fustrated, I attempted again, being more patient and not making any cuts or moves. Things were going well when all of a sudden I get this 'FLIPPER' thing and the program crashes again. What burned me up is that I didn't save my work. So I wasted half a day's work and no results but me getting pissed off. Well Mark, there you have it. My little story. I hope you can see my position here. Take it easy, Juan An animator

The manual is NOW FREE if you know about it on CIS. I know of people who are not on CIS who have paid for it – and I haven't heard that Autodesk is going to offer them a refund either! Judy

I agree with you – I personally never understood why they just couldn't make the change to AA which so many people really like and used a great deal. AAS just isn't even half as good as AA and I find myself using AA instead of AAS. But like you I have never seen anything about "fixes" to AAS. Judy

>> By the way, that's a smart idea with the true-color AniPro… they already have the drivers…they already have the program…What's the problem?<< Am I understanding this correctly, there are true colour drivers for anipro- where can I get them or who should I hassle at autodesk for a release? thanks in advance for any reponse. james (uk)

"…any news from Autodesk about a patch or something." Hi Juan, I believe that an announcement is pending – this week is my understanding. I hope so – this thread is showing some strong unhappiness. " By the way, that's a smart idea with the true-color AniPro… they already have the drivers…they already have the program…What's the problem?" I missed the part about true color drivers, so I can't fully comment on that. I know that Autodesk doesn't have any for AAPro. As far as rewriting AAPro, it was looked at and the option was finally discarded (and thus AAStudio was born). The decision came down to this: rewrite AAPro almost completely, to support True color, or write a new product that supports True color & Windows. (Windows support was the 2nd biggest customer request after True color support.)

If the company does not respond to customer dissatisfaction early on in the process, complaints gets nastier and with a good reason! Judy

>> Because someone eles may like it , It may be that after all the years I have used Ani Pro that Im spoiled. << you're not the only one. sucker's fast. -dave

I hope so, since that is the only way that changes will ever be made and product improvement take place. Unfortunately I expect that complaints and unhappiness from non-CIS users will never reach Autodesk's ears. I suspect that the indication will be in dwindling sales! Judy

Randy I've been using MOVE to create individual scenes and then editing them together in Adobe Premiere. So far, I haven't noticed any particular color changes. When you finish a scene you render it to an AVI file, or to a series of sequential bitmaps. I just got a copy of Animator Studio to review and while it looks feature packed, it is much more quirky in the way you create sprites and mix files. Move has less bells and whistles, but is VERY straightforward using actors, backgrounds and props. The backgrounds can be any bitmap, the props and actors created in the drawing/editing popup or imported from a file. (clipart, other bitmaps, etc.) It uses a path with nodes to create motion around the screen. There is a cell sequencer rollup that allows you to change the size of your actors and create different cell orders. You can draw your cells out of sequence and then order them any way you want. This is great for things like talking where you can use a handful of mouth motions mixed up to create sentences. The sound and transition editing leaves a lot to be desired though. I use Quad studio to mix voices, voiceovers, sound effects and music into tracks to be assembled in Premiere. By the way, I've been following the tutorials with AS, I get the funkiest results when I try to paste the splash into the diver animation. Looks like the drops are half cut off and gall of them go vertically up in a single fountain-like spurt only relatively near the area I placed the clip. Anyone have anything like this? I'm admitedly new to the program, but 4 or 5 tries resulted in the same thing! Not a good start to the review process….. Al