Animation Desk Classic - Create Animated Videos App Reviews

It works well with my Bamboo, but the stamp tool is missing on the Mac version (that is huge) and it crashes every time I try to delete anything, from a single frame to an entire sequence. Itd be nice to be able to expand the window, but the size seems fixed. The second star is for the potential and for the hope that some fixes come soon, its way too wonky to have pay money for right now...

I had this app on my ipad where it actually works and the ipad version actually has more tools like the stamp tool that you dont get on the mac version. Anyway I wanted to get this on my mac so I could use my waycom tablet to draw better but the app refuses to run or really do anything. All it does is freeze and crash. Dont buy.

…it keeps crashing. I didnt expect much for $7, but I do expect it to not keep quitting on me. Ive only used the software for about an hour, and it has quit four times. This needs to be fixed, even to make it worth the $7. Hopefully they will fix the prob[this review quit unexpectedly]

I am very dissapointed in the application because there is no automatic inbetweening app. This app is no better than the ones that you can get on the internet for free ( for example: pencil). I think that they should definately make an automatic inbetweening feture and sales will go up massively!!! Also, I am very dissapointed with the fact that you can not delet your animation projects. (Even if you can, it is very hard to find and the controlls and formatting are horrible.) My last critique is that the whole app is very slow and quits a lot… I tink that they need to lessen the response time, make automatic inbetweening, and ability to delet your projects!!!!

It is a very good program and I was very excited when it came out for mac. The only problem I am having is when I scroll through the frames sometimes the frames get jumbled and messy. This also occures in the project menu. It can get quite frustrating.

My frustration is with the instability of the program. I seem to loose frames frequently and "save as" does not work. I have lost complete projects while doing saves for some reason. I guess you get what you pay for.

After spending three days drawing frames, the program crashed in ashes and I cant get it back up and lost everything. Good-by to this App.

this is a very hard to use app, do not get. the controlls are hard to use and there is no quit button

I really need a transparent paper. the interface looks like a lightbox but frames arent transparent so when I draw a next frame, I have to copy whole frame and draw on there and carefully erase a previous scene. what a time consuming.

I’m a huge fan of Animation Desk and actually use it to teach the fundimentals of animation to students. I have it on every platform (windows, ios, os) and have loved watching the students discover the joy of animation. The most recent version has some issues though. The biggest is that it crashes alot. I have had this version destroy several good pieces and it’s becoming more frustrating. And saving often isn’t a sutable fix, as the crash destroys the most recent save. So it’s best to save and then restart the app. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.

Very unprefessional

It does what it’s supposed to do, you can add frames and change the frame rate and such. The only real problems I have with it are the 24 FPS max, I can’t have a sub layer strictly for the purpose of drawing an outline, unless I use the middle ground which is a bit weird, and you’re kind of restricted to doing it one scene at a time. Otherwise the program’s good, especially for $10.00. If there were a layer tool so I could rough sketch everything, then trace over it all this would be my go to animation software.

this is one of the worst apps I have bought and it was ten dollars! It keeps crashing and doing the weirdest things. DONT BUY IT!

This app has serious problems for people that really want to animate and dont waste their time finding out how to do things. Ill list the things that I dont like: 1. The developer says that it fully supports Wacom tablets. NOT TRUE. I own a Cintiq and an Intuos 4. The back part of the pen on both doesnt work as an eraser, just as a pencil. 2. The full screen mode was scam and it’s now finally fixed. OR IS IT? Once you go to full screen, there is no turning back your only way is to close the app and start again. Ridiculous. 3. The number of frames that you can onionskin. Cmon, only 2? The user should have the option of choosing how many frames he/she wants to see on the onion skin. Righ now, I seriously regret buying this for 10 dolars. The app is small (and the full screen option is terrible), not enough onion skin frames, no support for Wacom tablets. Fix those things, and Ill gladly change my review - this is a product that might become the standard for animators, beginners or advanced ones.

…and Ive used Microsoft apps! But this is the worst; after 20 minutes of poking around, attempting to find docs, and clicking things in desperation, I literally cannot figure out how to use this app. There are tons of things to click, such as the "next frame" button which causes the text "go to next frame" to briefly appear, but otherwise has no apparent effect. Indeed, there appears to be only one frame in the project by default, and I havent yet found the magic sequence which lets me add more frames. Various functions are hidden away in drawers around the edge of the screen, including "Navigator" (which appears to show a thumbnail of your drawing) and "Project" (which seems to contain file operations, though Id rather just do those in the Finder where I have a decent UI). Nowhere can I find any way to add a frame. If you use the "Help" menu, it takes you to a poorly-designed web page (tip: clicking on the tabs does nothing; you have to click BELOW the tabs to select one), which diagrams the user interface, including things that dont appear in the actual app (for me, at least) -- including icons A16 through A19, which apparently are where the frame controls are supposed to be. With a UI this obtuse, youd think they would at least have a tutorial or user guide that says, "Heres how to get started with our difficult software!" But nope, if there is such a guide, its extrermely well hidden. Overall Im very disappointed… I suspect there is some useful functionality here, but its so poorly designed and documented, I dont know if Ill ever figure it out.

I’ve had this app for twenty minutes and so far, while it looks great, I cannot make heads or tails out of it. Nothing is as intuitive as it looks. No amount of clicking on buttons or studying the menu seems to do anything. The help desk is no help at all giving you ZERO instructions on how to operate the program. Can you use it to draw? sure. Can you animate those drawings? I don’t know. I was hoping I could, and I’ll keep trying, but so far it’s $9.99 I’ll never get back. I’m not the smartest guy in the world, so can somebody tell me what I’m missing?

This would be great if the controls werent clunky, drawing wasent just plain hard, any of the tools were usefull, and most importantly if you could import photos!!!! It seems like an easy thing to add and would make this app so much better if you could just impor and use a photo.

I really like the ipad version of animation desk, but the desktop version doesnt work at all. I am running OSX10.8.4 and installed Animation Desk 1.5.1. Please give us and update fix soon!

I have a wacom tablet to draw from. I thought I’d give this a go. It’s not compatible I guess because the Eraser on my pen (when you flip it) won’t work with it. You can’t zoom in. Makes it hard to see angles you draw. The stamps don’t do small sizes. If you want a small circle, forget it. The smallest size it like the top of a wine glass. I feel like most of the brushes look the same. And I don’t have a favorite. Most of them are see-threw. And If you use the paint bucket, then paint the same color on it, It turns a different shade of the color? Also the curser is black. So if you have anything black painted on your screen you loose your curser. The curser losing part is my most iritating problem. Most of what I’m drawing is Black… But I think this is a pretty good beginers app. I’m use to a lot of Adobe applications so I may have had high expectations.

It has some real promise and is a nice little program, except for a few things. I cant add audio, like the ipad version, and it crashes or otherwise wont comply when I try to export. Just two issues, but they are very important ones. Fix the glitches and it would be really nice. Still expensive for what it does, however.