Category Archives: A-I Menus

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Disney “Animation” app-$13.99 at the App Store

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by Matthew Malach

In 1923 two brothers opened a cartoon studio, stuffed into a tiny garage in southern California. What followed was an entertainment empire. Today, stuffed into something even smaller than that garage is a stunning I-pad app that’s sure to wow Disney animation fans everywhere.

Disney’s I-pad Application, “Animation” is everything you want to know about Disney Animation, including hands on animation exercises.

The program opens with a series of “Chapters” whose large icon screens animate with moving images and sound – some familiar, such as Mickey Mouse and Sleeping Beauty — and others less so. That mixing of classic Disney fare and some of the newer productions is a slightly awkward distraction that we’ll touch on again later.

But the heart of this app is in its “chapters”:

“Art in Motion” takes you through the beginnings of the Disney studio, with early photos and Mickey Mouse’s first appearance in a rare silent clean up animation, which in fact was never picked up by a distributor. In the chapter called “Story” Walt himself explains this critical phase of production, including a look at a storyboard from One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Disney’s Bill Peet.  Other chapters include “Visual Development”, a look at the artwork that was used to set the mood for the actual animation teams. And of course, there’s a chapter on “Character”, the backbone of the Disney studio technique. And the chapters continue with a perfect mix of written word, visuals and sound, touching on “Layout and Background”, “Animation,” “Visual Effects”, “Sound Design and Music”,  and a chapter that brings it all together with a look at the very basics such as Ink and Paint, The Multiplane camera and a nod to the more recent process of CG animation.

Below the chapter headings, is a chance to dive in and make your own animation, starting with a basic bouncing ball. You can also change the moods of “Maximus” (the horse from Tangled) and you can create your own animation using “Vanellope” from Wreck-it Ralph. You can even direct tendrils of snow as mastered by “Elsa” from the yet to be released Frozen.  If the app has any drawbacks, it’s here in this section, at least if you’re an animation professional. These are the most basic of animation engines and they make use only of the latest Disney characters. While the rest of the app spreads the wealth from the Disney library, this section feels like a half-hearted attempt to keep alive of some of the recent and perhaps less memorable Disney outings.

Nuts and Bolts

It took a while to download this Beauty of a Beast, which with a 1.78 gig size, you might have to dump a few things to make space.  Also make sure to hook the mini output to a stereo or at least a good set of headphones. The sound design on the application is superb.

Bottom Line:

At $13.99 this is a must have for Disney fanatics.  More than just an homage to the art of Disney, this is a breathing, talking animation school at your fingertips.

Disney Animation app $13.99 at the App Store

Matthew Malach
got his start as a writer and dialogue director on the 80’s pop sensation, Thundercats. 
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Computers: Choosing a tablet for digital artists in 2013

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By Chad Essley

I’ve been following the world of creating digital art since the dawn of home computing and the Commodore 64. ( I miss my Koala 64 ) So when I was asked by Animation Insider to do a short article on the various options available out there to today’s artist, I had an easy short list to share.

 

It’s a fantastic time for gadget junkies, and people looking to invest in new hardware to create visual media. So many options are available, and technology is advancing so quickly, it’s a bit hard to keep up with it all. In this article, I’ll try to outline some of the many modern tablets I’ve used, and my suggestions for the cheapest entry point, to the most expensive.

 

I’ve seen many technologies come and go, but over the years the gold standard for pressure sensitive tablets has been made by Wacom Inc. Being one of the originators of drawing technology for the computer, Wacom’s combination of hardware design, build materials, responsiveness & line quality has been second to none. No one out there has been able to build a wintab driver that supports pressure sensitivity in all applications, at least not one of any quality. That being said, having been noodling around with tablet hardware reviews for many years, occasionally I am sent a review unit which surprises me.

 

Standalone tablets:  The Genius EasyPen F610E – $80 – $100 USD

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The EasyPen F610E (er.. nice name?) by Genius, arrives in an attractive red box, along with a copy of Painter 4 Essentials. Hey, bonus! I’ll take it.. although, Painter FOUR? I actually never installed the software.

Opening the box, one finds the slim 10” x 6.25” Genius EasyPen tablet in black. It’s very light and flat. Almost too flat. Wacom’s products tend to be thicker, because they implement a good amount of radio frequency shielding, preventing jittery lines while drawing. Hmm.. we’ll see how well it does..

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Further inspection shows a rubber and plastic pen dock, the driver, a copy of Painter 4 essentials, and the Genius two button pen, and a single AAA battery.

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The pen ships with tip refills, similar to a Wacom pen, although the tips feel like they’re made of much softer plastic, and don’t install quite as easily.

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Installing the battery into the pen. Everything bends slightly.. build quality isn’t fantastic here, in fact it feels very cheap. Everything about the Genius EasyPen F610E feels like a less than premium experience so far. The plastics used feel brittle and cheap to the touch.. but what about the drawing quality?

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Side by side with my old Wacom Intuos 3 standalone tablet.

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Installing the driver for the Genius Pen went off without a hitch..

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And when finished, this generic icon for “Pen Pad” buried in the control panel, brings you to Genius Pen’s Tablet Properties configuration panel. Settings for customizing top and bottom pen buttons are there. Sadly you cannot map either of these buttons to switch dual monitors, as I do with my other Wacom tablets.

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I was able to assign this in the MacroKey settings, the buttons along the side of the tablet which can only be pressed with the pen, not your finger. Job done. On to a drawing test..

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Sketchbook Pro responded fairly nicely, with some shakiness in the line quality. I wasn’t sure if this was due to the USB cable being near other power sources, but overall the tablet had a slightly jittery feel compared to it’s Wacom equivalent. Zooming in while drawing helped quite a bit, and honestly the Genius Pen did a fairly good job overall. I’m not sure I would reccomend it for the serious professional, but for the casual hobbyist, at 84 bucks and dropping, how could you not pick one of these up? It’s the first time I’ve seen a company besides Wacom do pressure sensitivity across all of my applications, so well done on that front..

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Paint Tool Sai ( Why are you kids crazy for the Paint Tool Sai? ) worked brilliantly. Full pressure supported.

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As well as Flash..  The Genius EasyPen F610E did better on vectors than it did on bitmaps, due to vector line smoothing..

 

All in all, not a bad tablet at all. Great job Geniuses at Genius.

( I would however heartily recommend changing your name and making a few changes to your product. Psst.. call me! )

So you could have yourself a brand new Genius tablet or even a used Wacom Intuos 1, 2 or 3 tablet from Ebay for the same price. But what about actual TABLET tablets? Ever since Microsoft created the first Tablet PC’s, Wacom has been there as a hardware partner, and many of these great devices can be gotten for a song on Ebay, should you choose to go that direction.

 

Some of the better used Tablet Pc’s out there that I’ve used have come from a company called Motion Computing. They cater to the medical industry quite a bit, but in years past had designed some of the most reliable and slim tablets out there, before the iPad came along.. They all included Wacom digitizers, making them a natural to stick in a backpack and carry around as a mobile drawing / animation solution..

My beloved old Motion Le1700. Still a fantastic machine.

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Only a few years ago, this machine went for $1400 or more. Now, you can find the core 2 duo 1.5 ghz (Still pretty speedy really, for drawing and web surfing etc..) for anywhere from $200 to $500. This was the only machine with a 4/3 aspect ratio, and an sxga 1400×1050 resolution display. A real pleasure to draw on, but the display is a little bit dim. Battery on these are also lacking, being several generations behind in chipset tech. An old battery in these is going to last you about 2 hours tops. No problem if you bring a power supply with you, or external battery like one of these: http://www.voltaicsystems.com/v60.shtml

 

Motion also made a lower resolution Le1600, as well as a 1400.  The 1600 was preferred by many, because it actually had lower resolution than the Le1700, believe it or not. I was always a pixel junky myself, needing more screen real estate for menus etc, but some liked it because they could actually read menus and text on those smaller screens. If you buy a Le1700 or Le1600, look for ones with a “view anywhere” display, and a core2 duo for a bit more speed. I had mine tricked out with 4 gb of ram, and an SSD drive, and it was quite the workstation for a long time. I may find myself going back to it yet.

 

There are so many older tablet laptops out there with Wacom digitizers, I could hardly list them all. It really comes down to what you prefer, and the power / speed you need.

 

Which brings us to the new mobile tablets..

 

I’ve been pretty happy to see Wacom diversify itself over the years, with one of the most surprising options being having a tiny Wacom tablet, right in my pocket at all times on my Android phone! The Galaxy Note 2. $300 on contract / $600 retail. ( video link)

 

If I were to pick a dark horse in the operating system wars, it would have to be Android. Using Samsung’s Wacom “S-Pen” on my phone is just crazy cool. Sketchbook Pro on the go is just fantastic to have as a quick drawing tool, and having a quad core device in my pocket with a large screen has been truly amazing. The variety of pressure sensitive drawing and animation software out there for Android is growing every day, and it’s a real pleasure to be able to use these little Wacom tablets on the go. Highly recommended.

 

Samsung also makes a 10” Galaxy Note ( $300 – $400 USD) which in my opinion beats the iPad, for also sporting a pressure sensitive Wacom S-Pen. I’ve tried a demo unit and come very close to buying one. There’s even a full version of the professional animation software TVPaint available for Android. A full and direct port of a professional  animation / image editing / and video editing suite on the go. Kind of blows the iPad out of the water in my opinion..

 

Check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2mfLFX61HI

 

They also make a new 8” version.. http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-Note-16GB-White/dp/B00BQH8UEY/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1372775617&sr=1-1&keywords=galaxy+note+8.0

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S-Note drawing on the Galaxy Note 2 ( whoops blurry snapshot..)

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Samsung seems to be making the best hardware at the moment. My current tablet laptop is also being a Samsung. The Samsung 700t.

 

(extensive review over here on my website: cartoonmonkey.com )

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Samsung 700t

 

But keep your pants on.. Samsung has just announced the Haswell chipset version of it’s Ativ line, the Ativ Q!

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A 3.3-inch, 3,200 x 1,800 slider that runs both Windows 8 and Android (4.2)!

Be still my beating heart. This tablet ( With Wacom S-Pen!) sports the highest resolution on any mobile device or tablet I’ve ever seen. I’m sure there will be a premium price to pay for it as well.

 

Engadget hands on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM8VSxuye94

 

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And finally my very short review of one of the most expensive options..

The Wacom Cintiq 22HD Touch. ( $2500.00 USD )

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Wacom has really outdone themselves this time, with the Wacom 22HD Touch. Do you need touch? No. Is it nice to have? Yes. It’s early days yet, with most applications and touch. Windows 8 itself works well with palm rejection technology, (resting your palm on the screen while drawing, without making inadvertent lines on the screen) and there are several applications out there that make use of multitouch gestures, the best among them being the amazing ArtRage.

 

This is everything you’ve come to expect from a Wacom product. Smooth, responsive, and amazing to work with. I actually prefer the 22 inch model to the 24 inch. I’ve owned both, and the 24 inch takes up far too much desk space, ships with a 70 lb stand (!) and is almost impossible to mount on a swing out arm, such as I’ve done with the 22hd. The 22hd is the natural wide screen progression from the older Cintiq 21UX. It’s light, has the same great rotating stand as the 21UX, and comes in both a touch screen, and non-touch screen options.

 

http://www.cartoonmonkey.com/animinsider/Cintiq22HDTouch.mp4

Big thumbs up on the Cintiq 22HD. If you’re serious about your business, and serious about digital artwork, you can find no finer tools than the Wacom Cintiq line. ( Caveat: stick to the Cintiq 21UX and newer. 1st generation Cintiqs, the 18sx etc were in fact quite terrible. )

 

There’s a slight war going on between Microsoft and well.. everyone else in the software world who uses the Wintab pressure specification. But Wacom’s latest driver for the Cintiq 22hd includes the option to turn off “windows ink” which allows certain software to work again, that had previously had problems with touch and pressure working together. ( Like Adobe Flash ) But that’s a future article all together..

 

I hope this article sparks some ideas on the available hardware out there, and the many choices available to todays digital artists.

 

Chad Essley is an independent animation director and founder of CartoonMonkey Studio in the Pacific Northwest. He draws funny pictures for a living, obsesses over gadgets he doesn’t need, and hangs out with his cat way too often.

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Website: http://www.cartoonmonkey.com

twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chad_essley

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Review: The Croods

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The Croods-reviewed by Melissa Milo 4/7/13

The Croods is a well-animated, prehistoric film that not only includes adventure and silly jokes kids will love, but heartwarming moments and an engaging theme of enlightenment as well.

Immediately the female lead, Eep (voiced by Emma Stone), is a relatable teenager who just wants some excitement in her life that doesn’t include hunting and sitting in a cave. The most important relationship we see in the film is the father-daughter connection between Eep and her dad, Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage). The two obviously love each other, however Eep wants to explore and Grug he wants her safe at home in the cave which leads to controversy between the pair. As soon as the enlightened character, Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) shows up the whole family learns new ways to do things from him, such as set up a trap instead of chasing their dinner or wear shoes. The only person who does not agree with all these new things is Grug who would much rather conserve the old way of life. However with on point character development, Grug comes around to the new things as well as Guy learning to respect Grug’s ideas too. Eep and her father also mend a fractured relationship in the end with a surprisingly emotional scene including a  life or death situation.

Despite the unanticipated (in a good way) heavy themes and thrilling action sequences, the movie was overall quite cute. The comedy was transcendent thanks to skillful writing and the talented cast who really brought life to the characters. Although the humans were great, the fantastical creatures created for the film were marvelous and colorful, like turtle-birds and giant owl-cats. Also the sloth named Belt (because he also cleverly serves as a belt for Guy’s pants) is adorable and has just the right amount of personality for a children’s movie. The only problem one might see in The Croods is the quick movement with the humans and their facial expressions. It was sometimes hard to catch the exact expression on the people’s faces and it made watching somewhat frustrating. However there were no other problems as far as animation goes, the entirety of details and textures was impressive.

All in all The Croods was a lovely film that kids will most definitely enjoy as well as even some adults. This movie will make audiences laugh, cry, and smile with it’s splendidly outlandish creatures, deadpan humor, emotionally moving scenes, and captivating animation. The Croods gets two thumbs up from me and will surely get two thumbs up from others.        8/10 Pencils-Croods

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Review: The Hidden Life of the Burrowing Owl

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_hjvdibk4w
Okay, I’ll admit it up front. I’m already a fan of Mike Roush and his films. There, I said it. The guy draws and animates like an angel. His draftsmanship all at once pisses me off because it’s so good (and I’m jealous) and then makes me stand up and cheer. This is the kind of guy you want to watch in the animation industry and I really appreciate Titmouse spending money to do short films and showcase new and seasoned talent. Not many studios do that even though it makes sense to do so. Sense in the animation industry quite often seems to go the wayside and yet Titmouse nurtures ideas, talent and makes themselves cool by default to artists wanting to share their vision.  That in and of itself  is a great calling card in my book.

That said; today marks the release of  Mike Roush’s latest short The Hidden Life of the Burrowing Owl. Mike is one of the many amazing artists which we were fortunate enough to interview a while back. Mike is a rare breed who seems to get just the right amount of emotion out of his animation and his latest film is no exception.

The Hidden Life of the Burrowing Owl is an extremely creative take on a wildlife program in which an 2D animated owl who lives in a real-life desert gets his mate taken from him by a malicious driver who runs her over on the side of the road. All the while in this five-minute short a male narrator talks to us about the life of a burrowing owl in a very casual manner, as if this is an episode from the Animal Planet or Discovery Channel. Despite the aloof narration the short has a very dramatic and sorrowful undertone when we find out the owl is plotting to kill the driver responsible for his wife’s death.

The film is beautifully animated and although the story is not necessarily upbeat it’s still very intriguing. Also, the creativity of the real-life scenery combined with 2D animation makes the story all the more quirky and entertaining.

We feel emotion, we feel sorrow and we’re treated to the art of the film itself. The goal of animation is in it’s barest minimum the illusion of life and Mike does that deftly by that by making us feel for the owl and his plight. We want him to succeed. We accept his revenge and it’s this kind of tasty morsel that is synonymous with Titmouse. They give you a bit of edge but keep you enthralled and I for one appreciate that. The detail of the wings alone boggle the mind if you’ve ever animated in Flash. Hats off to Mike Rosuh, Chris Prynoski (who we interviewed sometime back) Shannon Prynoski and Ben Kalina in a well done film. One of which I hope to see many more of.

You can download the full film on iTunes here.

Below are a few exclusive pics from the making of the film.