Product Description: Discover all of the unique capabilities of Anime Studio, a 2D animation software program with some amazing advanced features such as the ability to move the camera in 3D, a bone-based rigging system for manipulating 2D images and vectors, particle systems, dynamic bones, and the ability to import and view 3D models with textures. "Anime Studio™: The Official Guide" shows first-time animators, hobbyists, and digital enthusiasts how to create, render, and animate characters and even entire scenes that can be exported to various video, TV, and web formats for viewing and sharing. Using clear examples and step-by-step tutorials to help you conquer each feature and new skill, the book includes instruction on managing and configuring the workspace, working with layers, using drawing tools, editing curves, working with bones, and adding sound. You’ll even learn how to render a final scene and export it, import and integrate 3D models and textures, video, and Photoshop files, and add special effects. "Anime Studio: The Official Guide" will help you master all of the essential features of the software as well as give you creative inspiration for your own projects when you are ready to go beyond the basics with this innovative animation program.
A very indepth study! A must have if you plan on mastering this program. Don't waste your time if you have the standard ver. of Anime. For one thing if you aren't planning on doing anything serious it's not really worth getting the standard ver. HOWEVER, if you want to master the pro ver. of Anime GET THIS MANUAL!! It contains a multitude of shortcuts. The only drawback is that this thing covers a LOT. If you are planning to master it during the thirty day trial you probably won't make it within the thirty days. Well, maybe but you'd have to have a lot of time on your hands. Anyway, back to the review. I am still reading it. But like I said there are a lot of time saving shortcuts that are in the manual you won't find in the tutorial in the program. Honestly, this would be awesome if it were bundled with the software. Still a MUST have. Get it!
It's what you need to know Good manuals are hard to find. This one is good. Not only clear explanations, but a CD with all the files you need to do the exercises and the final files to see how various functions are built.
I did a video course for Anime Studio Pro, and it helped get me up to speed rapidly. This manual fills all the little gaps where I still had questions.
If you use Anime Studio Pro, I'd suggest you get this manual. I recommend it.
Hard to tell the Pro info from the non Pro info I recently bought Anime Studio and wanted to get a good reference book to help me learn how to best use the features of the new software. This book had good reviews so I decided to get a copy.
The book is well written and easy to follow but, as I discovered, the book covers both the Anime Studio edition and the Anime Studio Pro edition in the same book.
My only criticism of the book is that it is hard to tell when the info presented is for one or the other. Often you have to read though a section to find that "this is only for the Pro edition" and its all been a wast of time. I think better visual queues or clearer separation of the material on Pro and non Pro would have been better.
Useful, but mainly due to lack of competition Anime Studio Pro is an amazing software package that seems to linger in the shadows of its more well-known competition, Flash and Toon Boom. While it costs less than half the price of either of these, feature wise it defeats them in many areas when it comes to creating vector-based animation. While the Adobe community is all agog over Flash's new `armature' feature, it is almost laughably limited compared to the extensive bone-controls offered in ASP. It is therefore a good thing to have a serious-looking guide that delves beneath the deceptively simple surface of the program and offers a complete insight into its many possibilities. Users of the non-Pro version should be warned that this book extensively describes many features that will not be available to them.
The book is well-produced, on thick, slightly glossy paper and is in full color throughout. It will deliver what it promises, discovery of all the features of the program. Subjects are arranged so that they more or less follow the animation work-flow. Many features are explained tutorial-wise, for which you can use the files included on the accompanying CD-ROM (which, by the way, does not contain the promised trial version of ASP; not that anyone is likely to buy this book without owning the software). You may or may not like this; personally, I find that using functions by being guided through them step by step is the quickest way to master them.
That said, the book does leave a few things to be desired. For one, the writing can hardly be called inspirational. It doesn't venture much beyond a bone dry summing up of functions. This can be annoying especially when an effect can be achieved in different ways, and you want to know when to use which approach. For instance, what is the advantage of using animation graphs over simply manipulating layers in the scene view when conforming the movement of an object to a landscape? While both options are described, there is no answer to the question when you would want to use which. Nor are there pointers for imaginative ways of using functions for less immediately obvious purposes (such a the example included in the ASP help files, of using a particle system to cover an area with grass).
Wholly in tune with this, the artwork featured in the examples is pretty dismal. If ASP wants to appeal to professionals and wants to look like a serious alternative to Flash or Toon Boom, this book won't be much of a help. Also, clearly some things went wrong in the final editing: some titlepages of the parts that separate themes within the book are in the wrong place (e.g., Part VI, which is dedicated to working with layers, opens with a chapter on exporting video which obviously belongs to the previous part; it is also unclear why Part III, which deals with bones, opens with a chapter on camera movements). Throughout the text typo's can be found (e.g., `affect' instead of `effect'), and sometimes a stray sentence will have landed in the wrong place.
However, as this is the only reference book of its kind for this software and it does offer a complete overview of its features, it will be useful to many ASP users.
I would have given this book five stars,.. but... Kelly Murdock has given a great deal of consideration to this book in the outreach to a lot of questions most folks will generate in the use and exploration of Anime Studio Pro (currently at version 5.6). Since the change over from e-Frontier to SmithMicro ownership, Anime Studio, both in Debut and Pro offerings have undergone a 'hiccup' since this book was originally conceived. There is no free 30 day trial of Anime Studio Pro 5.0 on the disc. And even with the App. fully installed (I have the full legal version of Pro 5.6) I cannot get some of the examples on the disc to function properly. And for the most part the examples that are laid out in the book are for function exploration and experimentation... The reason this book doesn't receive a 5-star rating from me is that the examples are overly simplistic!.. Let's face it the artwork projects don't do much to sell the product!.. However IF one overlooks the lack of quality artwork in the examples one will get just what the book promises... A COMPLETE GUIDE to Anime Studio Pro (and Debut if you apply it to that). The book is straightforward and easy to read and use for instruction. I intend to use it with kids who want to learn basic animation, and to use it as a class manual for Anime Studio instruction. The REALLY nice thing about this book is that it is multi-layered in its purpose: It can be used for basic, intermediate and advanced instruction. It includes in the chapter on 3D work information on using rather sophisticated softwares such as AutoDesk's MAYA and 3ds MAX, Adobe's PhotoShop and Illustrator as well as apps like Anima8or and Poser with Anime Studio. Overall from beginning to end this book will get you up and running with Anime Studio (Pro or Debut) and in a lot less time than trying to just use the examples from the software's 'lessons'. Concise, compact and all in one book... SO if you have either of the Anime Studio offerings at your disposal, have THIS BOOK close at hand! (Do make sure you visit the online forum at 'lostmarble' though... updates are always just around the corner and new references too!) Happy animating!!!
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
