Something that I am trying to understand as someone that has avoided using adobe products because of the monthly / yearly subscription model. As starting out I want to buy software to get my foot in. Which is why I have bought realusion products.

The question is why would a company that has their own animation creating software aimed at users that want to make animation easier suggested I use After effects, Adobe illustrator and Photoshop to create props and actors?
In the Reallusion videos and even the 2d101 course's they show these as the better choice to implement along side CA5 to create SVG, PSD props and actors etc.

That would mean it's best we have the all apps subscription with creative cloud to have those 2. In adobes creative cloud they have their own animation programs  (animate & character animator) along side PS, AE, PP.
Why would it be a good idea to point us in that direction to use a competitors subscription service when showing us how to use this paid program to make animating easy and more affordable?

I want to watch better tutorials to teach me how to draw and design my own characters into CA5 with out feeling like I have to keep buying more things or pay for adobe's creative suite to do that.

Would it not make more sense for there to be a 2d cartoon character software like CC4 for us to draw / edit / rig actors and props to use in Cartoon Animator 5?

Hi...

Cartoon Animator 5 is 2D Animation software whereas Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are image editors and drawing software that can help you create characters ready to animate in CTA5. They are not competing products. However, it's important to remember that you are not limited to using Adobe products to create characters for CTA5. You can also use software like Affinity Photo or Designer, Corel Draw, Photopea, Clip Studio Paint, Inkscape or Krita.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

'They are not competing products.'

I meant more in terms of if you have a adobe creative suite subscription then you have access to the competing software Animate and Character Animator.

'It's important to remember that you are not limited to using Adobe products to create characters for CTA5.'

I understand that but the guides and tutorials provided so far for CTA5 don't fully show how to create characters using these other software and how to implement them.

Coming from using Adobe Animate background, I can say there is a vast difference between both.

You can say CTA5 is an upgraded Animate with lots of cool features not present there.

I am still going to create everything in Animate, take the body parts into Photoshop and rig them there to bring them inside CTA5.

You cannot avoid using Adobe products. If you are looking to do that, then maybe look for other software like Gimp or the ones talked about in the 2D animation 101 courses.

Quite frankly using Adobe for the last 2 decades, if I try using other software it feels like degrading my skill set. This is one of the reasons why even in tutorials they are using Photoshop and not gimp or other PSD creators. The shortcuts are in my muscle memory and I can work much faster in photoshop than in new software.

Reallusion products are not a substitute for Adobe products. CTA, CC, and iclone are completely on a higher and different level. (I have all of them now).

Yes, they should come out with tutorials using the other PSD creators as well, which they probably will in some time.
 






CTA5, Iclone 7, 3D Exchange Pro, Character Creator 3, Popcornfx plugin, Zbrush, Blender, Vue 2014, Adobe cc suite, Spriter
Homebuild Workstation (Pretty old now but still working great) Win 10, Intel i7 950, 24 GB RAM DDR3, Gigabyte x58a-ud7 motherboard, AMD R9 390 sapphire 8GB VRAM.
Official Website  Reallusion Store  

If you know photoshop, you can easily work with affinity and other software. The process is exactly similar. Just first learn how to use affinity and you will be able to retrace the steps given with the photoshop tutorial.

Try to get hold of old versions of Adobe suite if you can. They will still work great.

CTA5, Iclone 7, 3D Exchange Pro, Character Creator 3, Popcornfx plugin, Zbrush, Blender, Vue 2014, Adobe cc suite, Spriter
Homebuild Workstation (Pretty old now but still working great) Win 10, Intel i7 950, 24 GB RAM DDR3, Gigabyte x58a-ud7 motherboard, AMD R9 390 sapphire 8GB VRAM.
Official Website  Reallusion Store  

Thank you for this. This is helpful because if they all can be used together to create content then that sounds more ideal.  I have avoided Adobe products for a while since they went into a subscription service and used Photoshop elements / Art weaver and Sony Vegas instead for other production projects. I will do the 7 day trial and see if this makes creating characters more smoother. While the black Friday offers are on. I know it probably will be more beneficial to go back to using their stuff for my video editing projects just been very stubborn about it.   

Thank you for your response.

See it depends. I make game art in Adobe animate, been doing it for years, so creating characters for me in animate is very easy.
If you are not used to animate or illustrator, it will take you many months before you can be good with the process.
Try to get an older version of illustrator or animate on ebay or other sites ( if you can find it). That way you can spend months practicing with those till you are ready and creating good art on demand. Then buy the Adobe subscription and pay monthly for the newer versions of the software.





CTA5, Iclone 7, 3D Exchange Pro, Character Creator 3, Popcornfx plugin, Zbrush, Blender, Vue 2014, Adobe cc suite, Spriter
Homebuild Workstation (Pretty old now but still working great) Win 10, Intel i7 950, 24 GB RAM DDR3, Gigabyte x58a-ud7 motherboard, AMD R9 390 sapphire 8GB VRAM.
Official Website  Reallusion Store  

I Agree.  I will like to see more tutorials using and mentioning and using other editors like Affinity Designer, etc and not constantly hear the word Adobe.  I think that's what's causing confusion.  The word "Adobe" eliminated and should be substituted for "your favorite PSD editor" or "your favorite SVG vector editor".  This will be greatly appreciated from the community of Cartoon Animator users.

Cheers!

Although a lot of our existing tutorials are done using Photoshop, you will find in Cartoon Animator 5 we just refer to an SVG Editor or PSD Editor. Also, in Preferences we list all compatible editors you can use for SVG and PSD and not just Adobe products.

However, I will pass on your feedback about producing new tutorials using software other than Adobe products. Hopefully we can do that in the future.


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com