CompuServe Thread

Well… I've been sweating over Animator Studio for about a month and a half now and I am bummed. I have been a loyal Animator Pro user for years. I have previously worked with gobs of Amiga based animation programs. I like to think that I know what makes for a good "art" program. Animator Studio seems relatively flawless when you just play around with it, without doing any serious work. Playing around, though, is not a great test for a program. I suspect that all of the magazine reviewers have just "played around" with the program and have thus given it rave reviews. My experience in the actual work of animating a project has been frustrating. The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate…to an extent, but the screens seem so cluttered. Crashes occur randomly and unexpectedly, but frequently. Loading times take forever. I find myself dozing off during what should be an adrenaline rush of creativity. The pauses sap ambition. The crashes sap my sanity. The program is ambitious and packed with features. Initially, I thought that the execution of these features actually made more sense than in Animator Pro. Yet, Animator Pro seemed to place its features in a pattern that never detracted from my creativity. Animator Pro is a masterful program! It is an artist's program. I don't know why… just that it is… Comments on these forums seem to reflect this sentiment as well. I forced myself to avoid Animator Pro for a month so that I could get familiar and comfortable with Animator Studio. Now, I'm kind of comfortable with Animator Studio… but I hate it. I cannot work in it! I just used Animator Pro again for my latest project. For instance… why is the macro repeat limited to only 50 repeats? Why does it crash so often? Why didn't anyone even attempt to load .flc files that contain multiple palettes. As has been noted earlier in these forums, this uncovers another bug in Animator Studio. You even used multiple palettes in some of the CD-ROM .flc demos…. Surely you viewed some of the flcs in Animator Studio??? Nope. Yes! I'm griped! The "upgrade" is expensive and was delivered a half a year later than promised and seems like it was barely tested. Yes, I know complex programs are hard to write and I make no pretense that I know how to write them. So… you all have goofed. Let's get to work guys!! We need some major bug fixes. Animator Studio is supposed to be a tool. When that tool keeps failing, it's not much good…is it? Gee.. it would be nice to have a "dos" truecolor Animator Pro.. Thanks for listening to my rants. I have no intention of returning my software. You all gave me a great product in Animator Pro and I believe you will make good on this error. Steve Mussey