I never liked cleaning up my animation. Hey, maybe I shouldn’t do it. I just want a program that gives me a nice clean line: no arbitrary thick-thin, and good sensitivity. Is that too much to ask?

Well, apparently it is! Adobe’s Flash versions never make the pressure sensitive line that you ask for. I have to turn off smoothing all together (to avoid the weird thick-think line madness).

Artists I admire don’t use newer versions of Flash. Augenblick studios still uses Macromedia Flash MX. Acclaimed filmmaker Nina Paley made Sita Sings the Blues in Flash 8. So… Are there any NEW programs that can make a decent line?

Below are two animations I did on the computer. One was cleaned up in Flash, the other was cleaned up in Toon Boom Animate Pro 2.

Flash: Notice the yucky artifacting that shows up at the end. After three tries exporting, I gave up.

[flashvideo file=../videos/blur-and-shadow.flv image= /]

Now for Toon Boom Animate:

[flashvideo file=../videos/rough-test-celia-01.flv image= /]

Toon Boom was MUCH better for cleanup. Not only was the line superior, but I could edit each brush stroke. Export had more options, and no artifacts.

I also tried using the open source program Pencil. Oddly enough, the pencil tool was the worst part of the program!

I’m always curious to know what people are using to get their artwork to look “just right” on the computer. Got any tips?