"Anime Studio Pro (ASP): I first found this product in the fall of 2005. It was called Moho at the time. I bought it for the 2D IK bones. No other 2D application that I knew of, for any price, had the ease of use, simplicity and effectiveness with this feature. If the only thing I ever did with it was animated scenic props like grass, leaves and trees, it would be worth it.
A short while later, an old colleague called needing help. Her company had to have an animated character to use as a spokesperson for a training video. There was over 7 minutes of lip-synced dialog, and after the character style was finally decided on, I had about 1 week to animate and render everything. I delivered everything on time.
The particle feature was the next delight I found. I use them for smoke, waiving grass, a swarm of butterflies, etc. I don't just use this for toon animation. I also render different passes in ASP, and combine them in After Effects for broadcast design purposes like animated titles.
In total, I find ASP far outpaces applications like Toon Boom for quickly working through natural looking movement.
Now that Smith Micro, a relatively new owner, is making this product more visible, adoption might take off like a rocket. I personally know of studios in Spain, Hungary, England and even Texas that are doing broadcast series and theatrical work with ASP."
I agree with John. I don't see any reason why Anime Studio Pro cannot be used for everything from a web based series up through television and feature length films. It is inexpensive enough and fairly easy to use that you could put together a number of seats for a little bit of money and produce something really nice. Just make sure you have a good story to tell and some talented artists. ASP is easy to use and will work with photos, as well as libraries of characters that come with it and you can buy additional characters and scenery. However, in the end, to do really great work, you need to know how to draw and have a good working knowledge of perspective, color and composition. (At the least, you need to know how to put a collage together.)
