Apr
25
2008
Jail Time For Animator Phillips
posted by aaron, 7.03 AM
filed Under: Animation
filed Under: Animation
Toon Boom, which is advertised as a “Perfect Upgrade for Flash Animators” has swayed one of the most talented Flash artists around. For a recent undisclosed freelance project, Adam Phillips has utilized Toon Boom Digital Pro, and he has captured his process in a series of 6 videos. First, watch Phillips in the final stages of building a prison exterior, and then you can see the final shot below.
And here’s the final shot…
Tags: Adam Phillips, Toon Boom
April 25th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Toon Boom does some great things especially in the area of effects, shadows, glows, and camera movements that Flash alone just can’t hold a candle too. Their Storyboard app needs some serious work though.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Can Toon Boom export to SWF, for dynamic web animation, or is it mostly raster based?
April 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Worth it? Not three THOUSAND DOLLARS worth it!
April 25th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Pretty lighting and fun camera moves have nothing to do with the core of a good film.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
cool but hes missing the lighting bolt reflection.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Hey Joe, Toon Boom is vector based and does have SWF export, however some of the effect modules are bitmap based, so they won’t appear in a SWF.
As most of us know, Flash is excellent for web based stuff but when it comes to broadcast (TV, DVD, etc) well, we all have our gripes. Toon Boom is built especially for broadcast so not only is it capable of amazing feature-quality frames, the interface is designed to make the animator feel right at home.
There are one or two things I like about Flash that would be nice to see in Toon Boom, so it’s encouraging to me that the people at Toon Boom are always listening to their users. For this reason their software can only get better IMHO - including Storyboard
(ps @Fonce):
- Toon Boom Studio 4 is $350
- Toon Boom Digital Pro (the big daddy) is $2500
April 25th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Im sure Mr. Philips could of done an even better job with flash, after effects, and photoshop; all part of the creative suite extended. cheaper than toonboom pro too.(gimmiez teh moneh adobe!Ima shuckin’ your wares) Cool shot, very moody.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Toon Boom is a delightful piece of software, but I do have some interface gripes with it. And once again, like Adam mentioned, it is geared more towards broadcast. It is a much more well built program, to me, than Flash, as it doesn’t murder your computer when you use it.
And for Adam, it was a delightful scene with some great atmosphere. I don’t like where you placed the lighting though. I found it distracting and off setting to the balance of the scene. I personally would have had two lightning strikes, one for each side to help balance it a bit.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Adam- I thought it was 3 grand. Maybe it was, several months ago when I first heard about it? Either way, two and a half grand really isn’t that much better.
Still, it does look powerful. If Adobe doesn’t step up and give the character animators some love with the next release, I might just hafta break open a couple piggy banks!
April 26th, 2008 at 6:47 am
=) wel you can try toonboom for free, just go to their website register and download, i did, and had a play and a fiddle.. but when it comes down to it i really like using flash, just cause its made for dummies… like me =) toonboom has a strange interface and since my animation course doesn’t start til next year lol i’m not sure how an animator would like it to be.
When i was playing round with toon boom tho, i really liked how you could do the mouth sync… wel kinda it gives you a base neway, be nice to see flash do that with the graphics or sumthing. think ther’s an adon…but neway nice intro scene, but i kinda agree the bance seems off… i dunno sumthing my design teacher wuld say haha, but it looks really toony and it looks like somthing youd see on cartoon network.. so yeah very nice. i’ll catch up… lol sumday
April 26th, 2008 at 10:14 am
looks like he did way more work that he needed to
April 27th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I’ve had my eye on Toon Boom for some time, but there is always the learning curve which takes time away from everything else. I’d love to give it a try (Pro version) if they can bring the price down about 1,000 bucks (or more).
Ah….to dream.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:17 am
ToonBoom is perfect for what Adam is doing. If you’re just making crappy talking head Flash cartoons then ToonBoom will be overkill. Depends on what you want to do.
Great work Mr. Phillips, thanks for the videos!
April 29th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I had alot of fun with toonboom. as far as I know though, you cant add menus, subtitles, interactive cameras and other abilities like flash. and due to flashes flexibility, its still the number one tool for exposure for animators . The one thing I would like to see in flash that toonboom has over it is, the 3d camera, and the bones system. both of which are said to be added to flash in the later versions.
so yeah, flash may not be as powerful but unless you plan to make cartoons only in movie format, not many will see them.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
True that Flash is perfect for web exposure but menus, actionscript, etc are so rarely utilised by hard-core traditional animators that ToonBoom is a more ideal choice - particularly as it’s dedicated to animation, rather than being just one facet of the app, like Flash.
Especially now that download speeds are less of a concern and video is nearer the forefront of web media, animators can export to video and needn’t worry about buttons, interactivity or even preloaders.
One thing I’ve always found tedious is preparing a SWF for broadcast. Nowadays I realise I would rather create a short in ToonBoom and export straight to a video format, than taking twice as long to do the same using three separate apps (Flash, SWF2Video Pro and After Effects), after first removing all the SWF stuff like preloaders and play/replay buttons.
I love Flash like a brother, but video export is something that needs some serious attention in order for Flash to stay competitive in the broadcast arena - - my opinion
May 30th, 2008 at 7:15 am
[...] brushes or advanced camera functionality. Adam Phillips, the creator of the Brackenwood series, has already discovered the power of Toon Boom Digital Pro, and I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for other artists [...]
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Adam that is amazing, and what I’ve seen on Toonboom, I think I’m going to give it a try in the near future. I’m really attracted to that Depth the camera gives, and maybe the Character bones feature.