An animation tool leaves the market….

By Andrew Mussey One of our favorite Convertible Tablet PC’s was pulled from the market this past summer: The HP tm2. For a Tablet PC running Windows 7, it was relatively inexpensive (under $1000) and unique, featuring an ATI graphics processor in select configurations. The digitizer was quality Wacom with excellent pressure sensitivity. The tablet […]

Drawing Tools for Animating:

By Steven Mussey, M.D. When animating with a computer, you have several options: 1. Draw the picture on paper, scan it, clean up and color the image on the computer. Advantages: Good for folks who still prefer the feel of paper. Cons: Post-production work needed. Not as smooth as drawing straight into the animation program. […]

Animating cartoons: Which Toon Boom Product does what?

Toon Boom animation software saves time over older tools from years ago. Creating a sophisticated seven minute animation in the era of the 1930s to the 1970s required a large room of animators, lots of expensive equipment, and more money than I can imagine. Thus, by the end of the 1940s, the average seven minute […]

Some cartoons from last month…

Using Animate Pro to Tackle Medical Malpractice:

Newspaper Comics: Transitioning from stills to animation

The newspaper industry is in trouble. Unfortunately, newspapers are simply just plastering the same stuff online that would be in print. The online experience allows full motion video. What about the comic pages? How realistic is it for one artist to create a weekly short animated comic. By short, I mean about 15 seconds: Just […]

Animate Pro allows true 3D motion and rotation

One of the interesting features introduced into Toon Boom’s Animate Pro series was true 3D positioning and rotation of objects as well as the camera. This allows a lot of techniques and shortcuts for creating animations quickly with great quality. In this short experimental four second clip, I created a doctor’s office. The characters are […]

Toon Boom at CES

The showfloor at CES opened Thursday, January 6 and the first place we went: The Toon Boom booth, of course! Karina Bessoudo and Steven Chu were present in the booth describing the educational benefits of Toon Boom’s line of software for young animators.

Motion’s Tablet

In contrast to the Lenovo’s “a work in progress” tablet, Motion seems to have its act together. Appearing in March or April is their Motion CL900. Up to eight hours of battery. Lightweight and rugged with a four foot drop test. Display with Corning® Gorilla® Glass. Both touch and stylus input. 30GB or 62GB solid […]

Let’s discuss that “Lenovo Tablet.”

It feels like all of the big companies are freaking out and screaming: “Oh, no! We need to get a tablet out right now!!!” Lenovo is promoting a cool looking tablet, maybe in a $600 price range. We posted on this earlier. Further questioning of the Lenovo reps was a bit disappointing. There seemed to […]