I asked the same Question on Studio forums, considering the forums are half asleep most of the time.
If someone remember, when Toonboom usually releases upgrades, considering they have a sale ongoing for a while and siggraph is coming early August?
Any ideas/speculations about new features for studio and animate, animate pro? Anybody hear anything about studio and animate merging into one product?
Thanks
Animate and Animate Pro are the same program except Pro has more features. Studio is a relatively limited taste of a few features hinting at expanded capability found in the Toon Boom line beyond it. I imagine they could keep Animate the same renaming it Studio and only update Animate Pro but there is a big feature/learning curve jump between Studio and Animate. I doubt they would merge Studio into Animate.
From talk around the web TB has some form of sale going on more often than not.
Some history:
Harmony 11 was just announced June 11th, 2014
https://www.toonboom.com/news/toon-boom-announces-harmony-version-11-mifa-2014
Harmony 10 announced August 6th 2012.
https://www.toonboom.com/news/toon-boom-harmony-10-unveiled-siggraph-2012
Version 3 of Animate and Animate Pro were official released on July 8th of 2013.
https://www.toonboom.com/news/toon-boom-animate-3-and-animate-pro-3-now-available
TB Studio 8 August 8th, 2013.
https://www.toonboom.com/news/animate-full-gear-toon-boom-studio-8
First, thank you for answering. I am thinking to upgrade from Studio, as I tried Animate ple, and like much more the line and overall feeling. Animate pro looks to complicate for me with the node structure kind of overwhelming, so by extension probably Harmony will be to complex. I just don’t want to rush and buy that before an imminent upgrade, or end of the line product.
I have Studio 7 and am going to upgrade to something. I am attracted to the tools in Harmony. If it were in my budget (maybe true of everyone interested in TB products) I would go for it without hesitation even though I am just getting into animation. Or rather, because I am experimenting Harmony is a lot to invest in. If I had plans to do this seriously it would make the choice simple, I’d go for what I could do the most with regardless of my current skill and knowledge.
With that in mind I am probably going to get Animate Pro. Regular Animate has less to learn and an interface just like Pro but absent of some tools and a window or two or three. I won’t use a lot of it at first and maybe never but the cost between the two is small enough that I want to have the added features. I’ll probably use everything in a limited way for quite some time. The capability will be there if I need it.
One other significant factor in not going for Harmony is that I have an older less powerful system. I am lucky to run Animate. I would need to buy a new computer as part of my Harmony investment. I doubt my system would handle a lot of those tools I am attracted to.
Whatever you choose now, if an upgrade is released soon you will be eligible for the least costly upgrade price, if not a free upgrade, even if something is eliminated.
I tried to analyze logically the issue and concluded that if I do not know what a feature does, probably I don’t need it so Animate is probably enough. Good luck with your upgrade.
You are not in a position to make an informed decision using your approach however you can always upgrade later if you eventually learn about a feature and decide it would be useful.
ocimpean, I myself never liked the line quality in Studio and finally decided to cross-grade to Animate, which has MUCH better line quality and feels much more professional. I eventually cross-graded to Animate Pro, but I’m glad I got Animate standard first because it was an easier transition from Studio. TB has special offers all the time and you could easily jump up to Pro from standard whenever you feel ready.
Animate clicked with me immediately, unlike the Pro.
Plus, I got used from other programs to work with layers not with nodes.