Photo Shop

[chrisrose]

Is it necessary to have Photoshop to develop my own cartoons in A:M ?

[Fuchur]

Is it necessary to have Photoshop to develop my own cartoons in A:M ?

 

Not necessary, but I highly recommend it. Another paintprogamm like Gimp will however do the job pretty well too.

The GImp is even OpenSource / Freeware.

 

*Fuchur*

[brainmuffin]

You're going to want to have some sort of image editing software, though it doesn't necessarily NEED to be Photoshop. GIMP is a good free program:

 

http://www.gimp.org/

 

And there's project dogwaffle:

 

http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/free/

 

And Artrage has a limited but still useful free version:

 

http://www.artrage.com/

[Rodney]

Is it necessary to have Photoshop to develop my own cartoons in A:M ?

 

You've already got two opinions on the development side... and I wholeheartedly agree!

Although you can do some amazing things with A:M, A:M isn't a digital paint program and that is something you will definitely need.

 

Any digital paint program... not necessarily Photoshop... will assist with creating/cropping/manipulating textures at a minimum.

 

Moving beyond development you'll find a paint program even more useful.

After you've developed your cartoons in A:M you'll want to do other things with those cartoons than just put them on display in animated movies. You'll want to use those images elsewhere (webpages, screen savers/backgrounds, logos, fliers, promotional-share-with-friends-stuff... you name it!). Having a program or two to assist you in that effort will be most useful.

 

You won't go wrong with Photoshop but there are other options available too.

Learning the basics with the programs mentioned already (Gimp) is a pretty good way to go as you develop your own needs for such tools.

 

 

A little off topic:

While its not a paint program, I highly recommend augmenting A:M with OpenOffice.org as well. It has a suite of programs useful in developing and presenting projects with A:M. (I'm surprised they don't have at least a basic paint program!). Read more about it at www.openoffice.org

[AMSpector]

I have Photoshop and I have yet to use it for character development. If you have a pencil, paper and a scanner, you can scan your drawings and save them on your computer. You can then use them in Animation:Master as Rotoscopes to bring them to life as 3D characters.

 

I agree with everyone else however, that there is a point in the creation process (Mapping, Decaling, etc.) where programs like Photoshop, Gimp, 3DPainter, or even Paint Shop Pro will be instrumental in adding realism and/or detail to your characters and sets. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I've already bookmarked several great tutorials from the forum.

 

I hadn't thought of the promotional aspects that Rodney mentions above, but it makes perfect sense.

[John Bigboote]

I've been using Adobe Photoshop since V2 on a Mac back in the early 1990's... today it is more of a 'utility' than a program for me. I'll go in, tear an image apart into layers, retouch, crop, adjust, 'save-as' and close it before I even knew I was there... But-If I were to build a 'pyramid' with the programs I use, it would be the cornerstone. Is it necessary? I'd say yes, if you can afford it, and we don't condone the use of illegal apps here on this forum. If you can't afford it... there are several alternatives... the Gimp(free)...Microsoft Paint(free with Windows)...Inkscape(free)...even the Google program 'Picasa'(free) can do much of what Photoshop users need it to do.