Review: Anime Studio Debut 6

Anime Studio Debut 6 is a very good animation application that gives you a lot of power if you are willing to spend the time to learn the software. There is a bit of learning curve that is only marginally assisted by the included PDF tutorial, but I was able to get the basics after a few hours of playing with it.

We wanted to add animations in our instructional videos to highlight key points, so needed the software to support video and picture "backgrounds". I have added a short video test clip to the review to show a basic star animation interacting with me. The Chromakey "Green Screen" and background were first rendered in Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack and then imported into Anime Studio Debut 6 where the Star animation was added. The animation part took roughly 15 minutes to setup and about 5 minutes to render on my fairly powerful 64 bit Vista Compaq laptop.

The use of virtual "bones" that can be embedded into drawings or imported picture objects and used to bend and warp the shapes makes the animations fairly easy once you get the hang of manipulating the strength and range settings. I did have some difficulties mastering the included freehand drawing tools, but it is easy enough to import and use objects created in other programs.

This is a fairly powerful program that is geared to the beginner through intermediate level user. It is also a great value for the price. Now that I have the basics down and I have shown my son (13) how it works, he is starting to use it as has taken to it faster than I did, which means we will have to buy another copy for his computer soon.

Recommended!

MSRP: $49.99
Amazon: $24.99

My Amazon Review: Anime Studio Debut 6