Grades: Middle School to College

Multi-Technique Animation Software for Beginners & Hobbyists
Toon Boom has a wide selection of animation software for home users, school and professional users. I’ve reviewed other animation software programs, and it’s impressive the variety of animation software ToonBoom offers. No matter what level of expertise, Toon Boom provides beginners to experts infinite possibilities of animation.

There’s More Than Just Stop Motion Animation
Many people love cartoons and animation movies, and wouldn’t it be fun to create your own? The easiest choice is to use Flip Boom, and the next step up is Studio 5. Studio 5 requires some familiarity with digital illustration tools and functions. Users can download the Quick Start tutorial pdf and lesson files for practice.

Each lesson I practiced taught me different features, and how to build an animated clip. There were plenty of pictures in the tutorials that identified  different tools and functions. Under eLearning, Toon Boom offers a variety of tutorial pdfs, tips & tricks and character templates.

Studio 5 offers these main features:

• Discover various animation techniques: stop-motion, traditional digital animation, traditional paper animation, cut-out and rotoscoping
• Draw digitally, scan in hand-drawn animations, capture live images or import existing artwork, and enhance images using the various paint and camera tools
• Add audio tracks and lip-sync animation
• Publish animation projects for print, TV, HDTV, the Web, Facebook, YouTube and iPod.

In Class & At Home
Schooling is just not about the 3 R’s (reading, writing, ‘rithmatic).  It’s desirable that today’s students be exposed to the rich variety of media applications, including animation, graphic art, photojournalism, audio,  and video editing.  If later in life, students understand the production process, they can utilize these skills in marketing, communication, design, teaching, engineering, gaming, journalism, etc.

Many students give presentations, speeches, and let’s face it, PowerPoint can be static and overused.Why not animate a historic event (the signing of the Magna Carta, building Rome, Vikings crossing the Atlantic Ocean)? Shapes, equations and geometry could come alive in a short animated clip. Animate cellular division, or molecular bonding. While reading an essay describing Romeo and Juliet, students could develop an animated video that expresses their understanding of Shakespeare.

Studio Projects and Curriculum
It’s best to study and practice the online tutorials and lessons. In addition, Toon Boom offers schools and teachers a selection of various completed projects covering history, chemistry, astronomy, biology, literature and language arts.

Toon Boom also offers the Studio Animation Curriculum which includes various lessons, lecture notes and activities. Students and teachers develop their skills in basic animation, timing, squash and stretch, walk cycle animation, basic multi-planning and scene planning, drag and overlap, animating a jumping character, the take, visual breakdown and lip-sync, plus storyboard and staging. Check with Toon Boom for the curriculum cost (based on license agreement).

Support
Free tutorials are found at Online Tutorials. In addition, Toon Boom offers Workout Video Series ($24.99)and Video Training Tutorials ($59.99). For the purchase of 10 licenses, Toon Boom offers the Edukit at no charge. The Edukit includes The Toon Boom Studio Animation Curriculum with a book, a CD with animation elements, and the Toon Boom Studio Project Courseware with an electronic book and sample material (original combined cost at $ 1749.98 US).

MacNN has these comments about Studio5 in the article Toon Boom Studio 5 adds stop-motion animation.

Animation Magazine gives this advice in the article Toon Boom Announces Studio 5.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Leopard) with Intel processor; ; Windows XP or Vista; 1 GB RAM; Wacom Tablet (optional); Free QuickTime player or Capture device supporting QuickTime or Image Capture interface; Bright colored flat fabric for Chroma Key Feature; Internet access
Contact: Toonboom.com
Cost: Preorder now at $329; check online for education licensing price

Bringing Cool to the School
Final Draft provides K-12 teachers a thorough workbook to utilize Final Draft and provide examples of hands-on, project based activities. And this workbook and Final Draft have been approved by the California Learning Resource Network as certified curriculum tools for the classroom. 

Learning To Tell A Story
The lessons are straightforward, and provide worksheets to help the students not only visualize, but write down how they can improve their media projects. Essays, debates, designing ads,history and science papers, even describing art or music require storytelling skills. Telling a story is not always easy for individuals, especially written ones. Lessons in this workbook help break down the storytelling process with activities, explanations and examples.

Students will improve their writing, speaking, and listening skills, along with developing 21st century skills in video production, story development, creative writing, and screenplay adaptations.

Click on this link to download the workbook: Final Draft K12 Teacher Workbook

System Requirements: Web based browser, Adobe Acrobat Reader (free at Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Contact: FinalDraft.com
Cost: Free

Subject Matter:

Drawing Fun for the Little Ones
A teacher mentioned Kerpoof in a Twitter. Hmm…what’s Kerpoof? There’s not many free, quality offerings for PreK to early elementary students, but Kerpoof fits the bill. Kerpoof is a free, colorful, online application that lets the young ones make pictures, a card, short animated movie clip, a story, and practice their drawing.  Viewers can select seven different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, plus I think Russian and Japanese).  Kerpoof Studio was acquired by Disney.

Pictures, Movie and More!
Open up Super Doodle, and a colorful drawing board with side tools opens up. The drawing palette is easy to identify and use. Viewers can use their mouse, a notebook touch board, or drawing stylus. Young drawers can doodle, splash on paint, change font colors, make the drawing line thin or thick, and print their creation. Check out the multicolor doodle pen. It’s fun!

Make a Move lets students choose a storyline, pick a scene, then provides different characters, backdrop and special effects. Different music can also be added. Scenes can be inserted, choreographed, then dropped into the timeline. Watch the tutorial first, and it becomes pretty obvious how to create a movie.

Play around with all the activities. There’s plenty to keep young and old entertained.

Neat Effects
When clicking on different characters in the various activities, they poof!, disappear, and new characters appear. Some of the movie characters move around. Don’t like what was made, click on the sizzling red bomb, and Kablooey!, it’s gone. Users earn gold coins for applying more advanced tools, which can be redeemed if a member.

Membership, you say? Yes, it costs a monthly fee. Members can unlock additional characters, add music, buy movies, buddy draw, form groups, chat and more.

Learning Sophisticated Illustration Tools
Yet, viewers don’t have to be members to enjoy the initial activities. And Disney is helping budding illustrators, movie makers, graphic artists and designers learn important skills. The tool setup found in these fun activities are simple, yet teach the beginning work flow used in more sophisticated media and illustration software programs (like Adobe Premier Elements and Illustrator, ToonBoom Studio and FlipBoom, Apple FinalCut).

For tutorials, click on the “How To Play” at the top of the website.

I haven’t shown my teenagers this website yet, but I will. I don’t think I’ll have an easy time prying them off the computer when they start designing their movie set.

For another review, check out Virtual World News.

System Requirements: Web based browser (Firefox & Internet Explorer 7 recommended); Flash Player 9 (download for free at Adobe Flash)
Contact: Kerpoof.com
Cost: Free for initial activities; Extra Features Membership required (1 month @$4.39; 6 months @ $24.79; 1 year @$44.79)

Subject Matter:

Paperless Storytelling
Let’s say you have a story for a great movie script, game back story, or television series? At school, what if you wanted to produce your own movie (history documentary, drama, or sports), or develop a play, but it’s hard to visualize ideas in a script without pictures?

Or what if you have a children’s story burning inside, and want to bring it to life?

Story boarding has always been a valuable tool to present stories in sequenced panels.  Yet there are always  changes required to drawn storyboard scenes, or the dialogue isn’t quite right. Welcome to Storyboard by ToonBoom.  Storyboard by ToonBoom offers an intuitive, paper-free program to take your creation and run with it.  Digital storytelling comes alive with Storyboard.

Free the Mind
Storyboard downloaded easily onto my Mac computer, and is also available on PCs. Storyboard is a flexible, vector-based program with layer-based panel displays. The interface is very similar to other drawing programs and fairly intuitive to understand.

Once the program is installed and the Welcome screen opens, select the directory, plus type in the file name and title. Note that the file can’t be created without a title, so fill in this box. Choose the resolution (NTSC appears to be the default).  Printed and video tutorials were available directly on the Welcome screen.  Also note any previously created Storyboard files are identified under the Recent Storyboards box.

Easy To Use and Powerful
I recommend reviewing the user-friendly videos and PDF tutorials before engaging in Storyboard. Storyboard has a well designed interface and intuitive drawing tools, but take the time to learn how to use these tools before creating a storyboard script. There are many cool features, and it’s wise to understand how to insert dialogue, action notes, template scenes, layering etc. into the storyboard panels.

Functional Tool Bars
Storyboard opens up with a drawing area, tool bars, thumbnail screen or “shot”, and caption fields. On the left side of the tool bar are the drawing tools and layering features. The top tool bar contains file functions (save, cut, new files, etc), workspace icons, along with Panel, Camera and Transition tools. Users can also select Panel, Storyboard, Library,Pen and Text features.

There are four work spaces: Drawing, Viewing, Horizontal and Vertical.  Note the “eye” button above the tool icons, which provides a pop-up window identifying each tool’s function. Nice feature.

Nailing the Story
Before you start drawing,  ToonBoom recommends you develop and write the script.  This advice makes sense, since as you develop your dialogue visual scenes emerge as the story builds, and helps identify where actors or avatars are engaged, the various climaxes, plus the story ending.

Once the script is complete, just import, or drag content into the appropriate Panel box.  I had an old script on a Word Doc, so I highlighted a dialogue section, dragged it from my word doc, and dropped it into the Dialogue box.  Piece of cake. Panels can be created with constant reference to script.

ToonBoom gives users the option to draw their own the scenes, import images, or reuse images in the Library.  At the bottom of the interface screen, Storyboard displays thumbnails of completed scenes, so it’s easy to observe scene sequence.  I attached my Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, and doodled away.  The drawing tools were easy-to-use and responsive. Storyboard supports SGI, TGA, YUV, PSD, PNG, JPG image formats.

Camera Angles
If different scenes require various camera angles, this feature can be installed in panels.  Start and end positions can be moved, tightened or widened, and rotated.

Extras
In the Library, ToonBoom provides various Templates (action, characters, FXs, props and sets).  Fancy a beach scene, or need props?  These available templates save drawing time.

Files can also be exported as PDF files, eliminating printing and bulk mailing costs.

Support
Online, click on the eLearning button associated with Storyboard. ToonBoom offers a wide variety of support material found under Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Templates, and Documentation. It really is simple to download Storyboard, review the tutorials, read the Getting Started and User Guide PDFs,  and start your own storyboard.

I highlighted the main features of Storyboard, but there are many other neat tricks to explore with Storyboard.  Download a free PLE license and give it a try.

Systems Requirement: Mac OS X 10.4; Windows XP and Tablet PC; Intel processor with 512 MB – 1 GB RAM, 500 MB available hard disk space; 1280 x 1024 resolution monitor; Wacom drawing tablet optional
Contact: ToonBoom.com
Cost: $249.00

Grades:

Personal Tutor in a Book
Most computer classes don’t provide one-on-one tutoring, yet Adobe offers Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a Book as a great substitute.  Each lesson is well laid out to let readers explore how to manipulate powerful illustration tools.  Beginners can follow each lesson chapter-by-chapter to improve their skills, while experienced users can explore many advanced features. 

Good Learning Tool
Illustrator CS4 Classroom in a Book a good learning application for print, multimedia and online graphics.  Beginners to experts can master a wide variety of application tools to create artwork for page layouts, blog illustrations, logos, stationary, posters, etc.  Illustrator CS4 integrates with Adobe’s Flash movies, InDesign layouts, Photoshop imagery, and Flex open source framework.

In the first lesson, Adobe encourages users to jump right in to create an artboard. It’s okay to feel a little lost, and not recognize work panel names or their function.  Adobe guides the reader step-by-step, and if one fumbles, it’s easy to retrace, correct and continue. There are many “cool” moments using tools in the Application Bar and various work panels.  And it’s simple to customize and reposition these panels.  Illustrator CS4 provides paths to create, experiment and expand your horizon.

Individual lessons are provided on the Classroom CD. At the beginning of each chapter, Adobe estimates each chapter’s completion time ranges from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.  Review questions and answers are also provided. In less than one month, beginners will be amazed at their competence and skill level.

Additional Support from Adobe
Adobe offers additional teaching resources with online Adobe TV, Community Help and the CS4 Resource Center.  Adobe also provides numerous online self-help articles to further enhance and define illustration skills.  In addition, Adobe provides online paths to become an Adobe Certified Expert, demonstrating marketable digital knowledge and expertise.

Through Adobe Press, Safari Online books offers a free ten-day trial period. Download the free trial of Illustrator CS4, and Adobe gives beginners to experts the opportunity to explore both Classroom in a Book and Illustrator CS4.

Systems Requirements:Lessons on CD
Contact: adobepress.com
Cost: $54.99, check online for savings opportunities