Anime Studio Pro from e frontier - 2

Anime Studio Pro from e frontier - 2
Anime Studio Pro comes with several built-in particle special effects which you will add to a Particle layer. These particle effects can be used to simulate water, sparks, smoke and more. Of course, the software comes packed with several built-in particle animations (see Sample 3 above) and you can build your own effects with the Lua scripting language. There is a 3D layer for importing 3D objects to be rigged for animation and for working with the pseudo-3D layer features. Although the software is not truly a 3D environment, you can simulate a 3D environment with a combination of 3D camera angles and 2D layers.

The layer that you will like the best is the time-saving Bone layer. Here is where you will add the skeletal bone hierarchy that will control the movement of your animated characters. Adding bones to your characters is as simple as a click and drag with the Add Bone tool. It is almost mistake proof due to the built-in Inverse Kinematics (IK) which sets the bone hierarchy for realistic movement. Of course, you can save time by using any of several built-in, pre-rigged characters.

Now that you have chosen a pre-rigged character, or draw and rigged your own character, you are ready to build your animation along the Timeline. Anime Studio Pro's Timeline is similar to the keyframe-based Timeline and tween animation in Flash. To animate your character along the Timeline, you simply add keyframes at various frames and move your character into different poses by dragging their bones much like a puppet. You continue adding keyframes and posing your character to complete your animation. When you are done, the software will build the tween frames for you. You can preview the results and make changes as needed without leaving the workspace. You can also add WAV and AIFF audio soundtrack files to your animation.

Finally, you have several export options. You can export your animations to video, TV, and web formats, including Flash swf. Stills of your animation can be exported in several image formats including layered Photoshop images.

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e frontier screen shots used by permission of e frontier America, Inc. and e frontier, Inc. Poser, Shade, Manga Studio, MotionArtist are trademarks or registered trademarks of e frontier America, Inc. and e frontier, Inc.





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