
I have always hated the animation tools in Flash. Maybe it's because I cut my teeth doing animation the old-fashioned way. But ever since Adobe killed off
LiveMotion my inner animator hasn't been happy.
Which is why I was delighted to hear
Toon Boom Studio has recently risen to the big 3.0. It appears the Mac version is now on par with the PC version (lip sync didn't work before) and there are some
new features too. It's not as easy to use as
Swish, but for my money much more powerful as an animator's tool.
The big deal on Toon Boom Studio? It's clearly designed with
traditional animators in mind. Using GUI metaphors like lightbox and cameras, it's more attuned to the old-school world of animation. As a bonus, you can do some things in there you can't easily setup in Flash. Like how about a camera to pan, zoom, and rotate? Give the demo a try, but unless you're familiar with the animation tools of yore, be prepared for a learning curve.