I’m always been a fan of comics, and the chance to combine comics with animation seems like a dream come true — to someone who was a kid in an age when the coin-operated photocopier was the best advanced comics-production technology we had access to. So it’s exciting that Smith Micro, of Poser fame, have announced that they are to very shortly release MotionArtist, for making interactive digital motion-comics…
“MotionArtist is going to be released very soon with amazing improvements over the public beta version. These span from HTML5 output to animated panels, text and word balloons, 3d Parallax effect, and Anime Studio input. Start counting your pennies and watch for additional news about the official launch coming very soon!”
Reallusion also reportedly have something similar in the works, and it’ll be interesting to see what CrazyTalk Animator 2.0 looks like when it arrives. I’d expect Reallusion may learn a lot from letting MotionArtist launch first.
It’ll also be interesting to see how MotionArtist interfaces with Smith Micro’s comics production software Manga Studio, if at all. It sounds like it might interface more with their animation software Anime Studio.
Talking of comics software, check out this very generous (free!) one-hour webinar, on drawing comics art using Smith Micro’s new Manga Studio 5 comics drawing software…
Still to come are another two more hours of free webinars, completing a tutorial on the start-to-finish production of a comic.
The pro “Ex” version of Manga Studio is set for a summer 2013 release.
