2D Animation on Mac or PC?

[gunraidan]

I'm interested in buying a 27" i7 iMac for 2D animation. Animating is my hobby and I primarily use Toonboom as my software of choice.

However I'm wondering if the iMac I want would be the best buy? Is it overkill? Or is it not good enough and I should go PC with a better graphics card?

 

[opeter]

It doesn't really matter.

The real question is, will you export your final animations mostly to Quicktime .mov files?
Because Quicktime is home at the Apple's Macintosh platform. It does work on Windows, but has some quirks (damn you, Apple!).

If you have the money, go with the 27" iMac.

But you should know, even on a Core 2 Duo, most Toon Boom products should work plenty fast.

What app do you use? Toon Boom Studio or Animate? Or even Digital Pro?

 

[gunraidan]

It doesn't really matter.

The real question is, will you export your final animations mostly to Quicktime .mov files?
Because Quicktime is home at the Apple's Macintosh platform. It does work on Windows, but has some quirks (damn you, Apple!).

If you have the money, go with the 27" iMac.

But you should know, even on a Core 2 Duo, most Toon Boom products should work plenty fast.

What app do you use? Toon Boom Studio or Animate? Or even Digital Pro?

I use Toon Boom Animate. I use it with a 2009 13" Macbook Pro and it starts to chug and act sluggish once I it pulls out a fair share of frames.

 

[opeter]

I use Toon Boom Animate. I use it with a 2009 13" Macbook Pro and it starts to chug and act sluggish once I it pulls out a fair share of frames.

Yes, that can be the problem.

If you have many layers (background), complex camera and motion-tweens with many-many frames, than you really need a fast multicore CPU with a minimum of 3-4 GB of RAM.

The GPU in this case doesn't matter, since there is almost zero GPU-accelerations in these products (maybe I am wrong).

 

[mBox]

Yes, that can be the problem.

If you have many layers (background), complex camera and motion-tweens with many-many frames, than you really need a fast multicore CPU with a minimum of 3-4 GB of RAM.

The GPU in this case doesn't matter, since there is almost zero GPU-accelerations in these products (maybe I am wrong).

for sequential files, RAID helps in this matter. now this is for playback of course. Ive worked with numerous ToonBoom and Animo users, they usualy work with blocked shots so they dont get bogged down due to display cards. inkers on the other hand different story.

 

[gunraidan]

Yes, that can be the problem.

If you have many layers (background), complex camera and motion-tweens with many-many frames, than you really need a fast multicore CPU with a minimum of 3-4 GB of RAM.

The GPU in this case doesn't matter, since there is almost zero GPU-accelerations in these products (maybe I am wrong).

I see. I'm thinking of upgrading to 8GB of RAM though. Is that really needed or is it just overkill?

The way I animate is that I only have a few layers (like 2 or 3) and try to cram as much stuff as possible. However I don't do too many tweens or anything I just copy and paste frames and change the animation little by little for the most "handmade" style.

for sequential files, RAID helps in this matter. now this is for playback of course. Ive worked with numerous ToonBoom and Animo users, they usualy work with blocked shots so they dont get bogged down due to display cards. inkers on the other hand different story.

RAID?

Could you explain this for someone less experienced with this stuff please?

 

[mBox]

RAID? Could you explain this for someone less experienced with this stuff please?

Sorry too lazy to explain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Powerful hard-drive stuff.
Basically for reading larger files sizes sequentially.
Some workflows (app dependent) lets you render to AVI/QT but most I know likes to use a file checker (reads sequential files e.g. anim.0001.tga, anim.002.tga...).
Hope that helps.

 

[gunraidan]

Sorry too lazy to explain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Powerful hard-drive stuff.
Basically for reading larger files sizes sequentially.
Some workflows (app dependent) lets you render to AVI/QT but most I know likes to use a file checker (reads sequential files e.g. anim.0001.tga, anim.002.tga...).
Hope that helps.

Thanks.