Category Archives: News

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News: Petition to Adobe: Eliminate the mandatory “creative cloud” subscription model.

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There’s been quite a buzz on the web about Adobe’s decision to make a cloud subscription mandatory to use their Creative Suite 7. Obviously not everyone is happy about this as evidenced by John Hack’s Adobe blog. Derek Schoffstall has created a petition to show Adobe that not everyone wants to rent their software.

Dear Supporters,

Thank you all for signing this petition! In just 4 and a half days we already have received more than 5,500 signatures from professionals, designers, freelancers, hobbyists and photographers from across the world.

Firstly, I wanted to inform you all, that as of late yesterday and early today there have been news articles written about this petition, including an article by CNNMoney and ComputerWorld. This is a small victory for us! As the media picks up on the fact that there are people out there who aren’t in favor of Adobe’s new changes, this petition will only continue to gain traction.

Secondly, I wanted to let you all know another important detail: As I have been reading around the web, I noticed a considerable amount of misinformation from both sides about the CC subscription model; those confused about the specifics of CC as well as deceitful propaganda coming from everywhere. Adobe has cleared up a few “myths” and misconceptions about CC, but nothing they have said has addressed the underlying issues. I wanted to let you know this so you all can be vigilant and support this petition for the right reasons.

Thirdly, know that this petition is not my petition- it is ours. There are many troubling problems that arise from Adobe’s change from licensed, owned software to a monthly rented subscription service. This petition is a conglomerate of many differing, yet valid reasons, for changing Adobe’s minds. Do not be afraid to leave Adobe your honest feedback and rationale in the comments section of the petition page, and let your voices be heard!

Finally, with all of that said, continue to share this around with everyone you know! Also think about sharing this petition on Twitter. You can link to this petition using this: http://mnch.us/adobe2. Also consider signing a petition by Corey Edwards, which asks adobe to reconsider their Creative Cloud subscription plan terms and pricing. You can find his petition on chang.org here: http://mnch.us/adobe.

This isn’t over yet.

Thank you everyone for all of your help and support,
Derek Schoffstall
@iamdts

What do you think  Can we make them change their mind? Do you care?

You can sign the petition here.

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News: Adobe abandons its Creative Suite entirely to focus on Creative Cloud

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Wow, this really big news for us animators, especially those who use Photoshop and Flash.

There will be no Creative Suite 7.

All future Adobe apps will now subscription based via Creative Cloud meaning you can not own a physical copy of anything past Adobe CS6 any longer. Very sad news for struggling artists because I’m sure they’ll all go this way eventually. Some might argue this is good news because you can buy software when you need it and stop when you’re done with the project but I’m sure there will eventually be a two year agreement bullshit like cellphones currently do.

Some friends have told me they like the subscription based Creative Cloud but I’m not really a fan of everything going to The Cloud. Personally I have had huge amounts of trouble with Adobe’s licensing and trying to register software I’ve bought in the past and can only imagine this being a disaster in the long run. One call to Adobe tech support sort of says it all.

What do you think? Is this good or bad for our business as a whole?

You can read more here.

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News: Bosto Open Source Mac Driver Released

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19ma-homeThanks to the Bosto Community the first Mac driver (19MB) was released yesterday. Bosto, which sells two alternatives to the Wacom Cintiq has just recently come onto the market with their Kingtee 19″ and 14″ interactive pen displays. Previously they were Windows only so this is good news for those wanting to not spend so much on a  Cintiq!

Animation Insider is awaiting two of these units for review and we will surely share pour findings once we’ve checked them out!

 

You can download the drivers from http://www.bosto.co/support/file-download

Just for background information here is the open source README updated yesterday:

Run the installer, and it will install the bostoTablet driver to you /Applications folder. When you run it, you’re pen should work – and you should see the monitor icon up the top in your status bar (note if you are in an application with lost of menu options, it might not appear – so you might want to alt-tab to finder, of something like that if you can’t see it).

It might be that 19ma will work too.. you can always try.

Status:

Works on photoshop CS6, corelpainter, and other graphics apps
It is fast, and also includes a feature to make it faster… there’s a button on the settings panel which will increase the processes priority; making it faster (your admin password is required)
Can edit pressure,
Can edit the cursor offset,
Includes a “test pad” for testing the pen settings,
Automatically checks if it’s already running if you accidentally try to run it several times,
Pressure is not normalized – can lead to heavy line starts/endings,
Position is not normalized – can be quite jaggly when drawing slowly.
Sometimes you can get a bogus line being drawn : I think it’s because I screw up a mouse up event somewhere – I’ll debug it over time.

The last 3 items on that list are my priority items.

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News: Toonboom Storyboard Pro 4 has arrived!

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Toonboom has finally released Storyboard Pro 4!

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have always been a fan and advocate of Toonboom Storyboard Pro. Over the years I’ve had a number of heated arguments with friends over it; most of them entailing why they can’t support 2d bitmapped drawing. While I see the benefits of vector drawing, I also understand the need for an easy flowing 2d brush as it’s much closer to a real pencil and there’s truly no substitute for that. Nevertheless, I have found that, once you learn Storyboard Pro and have made use of it’s timeline there’s really no going back to a program like Photoshop for storyboarding regardless of the vector drawing. It’s far and away a more efficient tool. I have even found it’s vector engine to be far superior with regards to inking as it’s much better than Illustrator and I use it for all my inking and cleanup as well as my coloring.

That said, it looks like Toonboom has been listening to it’s users and Continue reading

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News: Medical Storyboarding

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Here’s an unusual facet of Storyboarding from Toonboom which you probably haven’t heard of. Medical Storyboarding!

From the article:

Carolyn Harts, a Managing Partner at Evolution, works with an entire team of creative people, including Carolyn Olauson who graduated from the University of Toronto’s BMC program, which combines the disciplines of art and science. Initially in the gaming industry, she decided to leave and start working in medical illustration. The team is using Toon Boom Storyboard Pro for all of Evolution’s creative projects.

Check the article out here.