Animation Master: Only $50 at Macworld (Worth it??)

[enrico7300]

I watched the demo of Animation Master at Macworld today. It looked like pretty powerful software, and they dropped the price to $50 from $299 for the show. This made me a little suspicious but hey that seems like a great price to just fool around with 3D, since the next cheapest software is Cheetah 3D.

Has anyone tried Animation Master before? (www.hash.com)

[mikebw]

Never heard of it, but it looks like it's probably worth $50 if you have the time to learn a new program.

[Blankity Blank]

Animation Master has been around for years. It's supposed to be a great program, but have a *steep* learning curve. If you've ever seen the early Killer Bean animations by Jeff Lew (later the lead animator on "Matrix Reloaded") you've seen what Animation Master can do in talented hands.

The company also had a reputation for having a really unfriendly support attitude; words like "snotty" and "arrogant" kept coming up (I've never used it, just did a bit of research for a friend, so I've never dealt with their support).

Yesterday they're (much smaller than previous years) booth had one kind of bored looking person working it and nobody stopping to check it out. It made me wonder if maybe the negatives I'd heard about had outweighed the positives and times had gotten tough for them. The big price drop might be another piece in that puzzle, I guess.

[enrico7300]

I see what you mean...the presenter could hardly hide his disgust of the audience, though one woman immediately bought a copy based on his Homer Simpson animation demo. I want to like small, scrappy companies that offer 84% discounts on their software, but I thought he could have snapped an any moment and killed me on the spot