Digicel

[Pencil_weilder]

has anyone used this software? i just ran into some money, because i won a school sponsored contest for $500, and now i'm looking into buying some software so i can animate my ideas, so far digicel seems like the best program because i want to do traditional animation.

i'd like to know some animators opinions in the software, is it good? bad? pro's and cons. are there better programs? etc..

anyways thanks guys.
this forum has been a great source of knowledge for my newfound hobby.

[bleupencil]

You mean their program "flipbook", right?

Why don't you download the trial for yourself and give it a shot.
I've used it for pencil tests and that's about it (until I discovered the joy that is MonkeyJam, which I like much better).

Flipbook seemed to glitch on me a lot, and I had trouble editing frames and things. The files corrupted very easily, so one ended up having to reshoot the entire scene all over again. Never used the ink and paint section either.

Other people might have had better experience with it though, so don't let my opinion sway you. Just try the demo out before you buy anything.

I would suggest something like Toon Boom though, it's a lot more flexible and you'll get better use out of it for finalizing your projects. If you want to penciltest your scenes under a webcam, just use MonkeyJam.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

[kdog]

I'll second the toon boom recommendation. it's a very powerful program for the money, & although a lot of people find the learning curve steep, once you get the main ideas down, you can produce some very high quality stuff (time & effort not included)

TBS is also designed to work well with a traditional approach as well as a digital approach. A lot of the terms used in TBS are direct descendants of things used in traditional animation. (pegs for example) TBS also makes use of an exposure sheet as well as a timeline, whereas I believe flash only has a timeline. A lot of people use them interchangeably, but they really each have their purpose. I don't know if you use flash or not already, but one more nice thing about TBS is that it works pretty well together with flash. Anyway, check your options, but I think you can get more powerful stuff than flipbook for your $500.

[Pencil_weilder]

yea i'm sure there are way better programs out there, but i've never animated anything other than little post it note flip books , so i didn't want to spend a lot of money on a program and not like animating ( although thats very unlikely)
and i'm spending some of that money on a new computer and scanner most likely from ebay.. so i can afford it. so i'm trying to keep a moderate price on the software.

i did take a look at toonboom, and i like what i see but i also found this

http://www.e-frontier.com/go/animestudio_hpl

although i have very little to no interest in Anime, i still think you could use this software to make some pretty good toons.

idk though.. anyone else find picking out their animation software as hard as i'm making it for myself?

[kdog]

it can certainly be overwhelming with the number of choices that exist. the best advice I could give you would be to survey your options, & pick the one that you think will suit you best. Otherwise you could waste endless hours trying to choose.

I wasn't sure what to get when I started either, so I let a couple things make my choice for me. It was either flash or toon boom for me, flash cost between $600-$1000 depending on the package; tbs cost me $330. price wasn't the only factor either, my buddy that I kick ideas around with already has flash, so we both figured it would be best for me to get tbs. They compliment each other quite nicely, & it helped "build our arsenal" so to speak.

The point is you'll eventually just have to make a decision based on something, but it's up to you to determine what that criteria is. Don't forget to look into academic pricing either...

[myshkin]

I use flipbook lite and love it. I am not one for bells and whistles though. Before knowing of any animation program, what i wanted, is what flipbook turned out to be.
The only problems i have had are only due to a very slow computer.
They are having a half off sale, you can get the studio version for $250.00. The lite version is only $50.00.
If you have any problems with figuring out the program, or the program itself, you will get your question answered very quickly.

[Pencil_weilder]

so i bought Anime Studio, and i have to say.. it is the biggest waste of $50 i've ever made. i hate it.. i'd much rather a more traditional means of animating. i've still got some money left over so i'm still debating on the $50 digicel... or the $99 toonboom.

i do have one question about digicel flipbook before i make my decision. it says the $50 one can only hold up to 300 frames of animation. so i was wondering if that only meant scenes can only hold up to that much, or the whole animation?

and are there any frame restrictions on toonboom?

[2DRules]

Over the last 15 years or so I've used most of the animation programs out there and for me DigiCel FlipBook is the best. It's clearly the easiest to learn and use and it does exactly what I need.

It's also the favorite of every professional animator I know from Don Bluth to Eric Goldberg and even the guys working on the Simpsons movie and the Futurama series right now.

I know someone said they had problems with it. But if it can stand up to both feature and series production schedules at all the major studios you got to know it works.

Check it out and see for yourself.

[myshkin]

In Flipbook Lite, your scene is limited to 300 frames.
You only put out scenes from Flipbook, you then put them together in whatever movie program you have or your computer came with.
You are also limited to two levels in the lite version, one foreground and one background. You can easily manipulate it into giving you the effect of more levels by exporting and importing stills.

[kentbraun]

FlipBook Studio is on sale now for half off the normal price and that version gives you 6 levels. And Pro is on sale for $599 including all the options. That's a $1400 value. Pro includes 100 levels, 1500 frames/scene and 10 extra layers per level for doing special effects. It also includes AutoMatte which can do a lot of common effects like shadows, glows, highlights, rimlights etc. automatically.

But what's even better than the great pricing right now is how easy FlipBook is to use. And as it has already been said, the pros use it because it does what they want and it's faster and easier than ANY thing else.

And did I mention there's free tech support and you actually get replies to your emails and someone on the other end of the phone line during normal busines hours.

Check out the demos (OS X and Windows) and see for yourself.

Kent Braun
Founder
DigiCel Inc.

www.digicelinc.com