If you’re an animation creator, you’ve likely had a question cross your mind Is clip studio paint good for animation? Animators always look for in the market good options that can cater to their need to craft their art with less labor and more and more creative tools embedded in that option. Clip Studio Paint is one such option that is an industry-leading software suitable for illustrating, drawing, painting as well as animation.
As the internet is flooded with a plethora of such software programs, customers often get confused while choosing what suits their needs. Although majorly considered in the category of drawing tools, Clip Studio Paint quite has its own set of animation features that can give others a run for their money.
Origin Of Clip Studio Paint
Initially released for macOS and Windows in Japan with the name “Comic Studio” in the year 2001, then sold as “Manga Studio” in West by E Frontier America followed by Smith Micro Software who managed it till 2017. Since then, Celsys and Graphixly LLC started supporting it and rebranded as Clip Studio Paint later. Currently, it is considered one of the best digital art software and through Clip Studio Paint sale, you can get it at a reasonable price.
Different versions Of Clip Studio Paint
Clip Studio Paint has two versions namely Clip Studio Paint Pro and Clip Studio Paint Ex:
Clip Studio Paint Ex, in itself, provides an environment more friendly to animators, boasting features that are absent in Clip Studio Paint Pro. Therefore, we’ll focus our attention solely on this specific variant and conduct an analysis.
Is Clip Studio Paint Good For Animation?
Comic and Manga, animations are the forte of Clip Studio Paint Ex.
- Smart fill feature: A little gap or some unfilled spaces are supposed to make the color go all over, right? Well, the smart fill feature works like a powerful assistant that detects and ignores those gaps and fills the intended area.
- Perfect lines: We often face this problem while drawing a character or object. Shakiness in the contour can be corrected by tapering the start and end of brushstrokes. It looks very much organic.
- Vector lines: We can draw the vector lines as we draw on paper but here we can move, adjust, thicken it, thin, or erase individual brushstrokes with no compromise on quality.
- Manga perspective: Some nice exaggerations to the character after the drawing are done or during the making can be implemented to give it a perfect manga point of view
- AI posing: Clip Studio Paint has an embedded AI-based algorithm that emulates a pose from a photo and gives a 3D actionable figure on the screen. This feature is very much liked by contemporary animators.
Can You Animate In Clip Studio Paint?
- Onion Skin function: Native Onion Skin function helps in adding more frames and overlaying on top of previous and following frames. This is used to adjust images based on the previous or the next one resulting in the perfection of frame progress.
- Light Table function: This helps users reference specific keyframes at any time.
- Cel Animation: Frame by frame animation or Cel animation lets object or character move by itself. This is doable as cels like transparent sheets can be fixed as layers with continuous sequence, creating an illusion of movement when they are played.
- Timeline: Animation timing can be finely tuned and display can also be adjusted with the help of this tool to give an impression of a fluid movement.
- Export options: This option can’t be overlooked as the extraction of the content is of key importance once the job is done. Clip Studio Paint Ex allows the file to be exported as GIFs, mp4, sequential images, etc.
- Import Audio options: Both 8-bit and 16-bit audio in different formats like MP3, OGG, WAV can be imported into the animation video.
- Workspace saves and shares option: Users can save and share the palette layout after work, or the preferred shortcuts, command bar, and other tools that they carefully set for a specific project and use them all later. They can interexchange templates, file settings between teams, and optimize the output.
- Auto Action feature: Most used tools, operations can be set in shortcuts and with just one click using Auto Actions, the operations can be redone whenever required.
- Back up to cloud feature: All the preferences, settings, and work completed can be synchronized on other platforms using the cloud save feature.
Drawbacks
There are some areas which Clip Studio Paint Ex misses out on,
- Lack of Audio Support in Animation with Timeline: Timeline-based audio adding and adjusting concerning the content in the video can not be done. Some third-party help will be needed for this.
- Complex Key binding: Users often complain about the strange key binding in Clip Studio Paint if they previously used other digital painting and drawing software like Adobe photoshops, Corel, etc.
- Bit Costly: Compared to other software, the CSP is quite costly. So, it is better to use the Clip Studio Paint promo code to get it at a low price.
These are the major issues using Clip Studio Paint while making some animation
Pricing Structure
Here comes the pricing of the software. Pricing seems competitive compared to other available options in the market. Currently, the website shows Clip Studio Paint Ex is 219 USD as a one-time purchase or 2.49 USD per month if one opts for a monthly plan.
How Can I Create An Animation With Clip Studio Paint?
These are some of the best tips to create an animation with Clip Studio Paint:
- Storyboarding: Plan your animation’s concept and sequence by creating a storyboard.
- Keyframes: Define key moments in your animation as keyframes, establishing the main actions.
- In-between Frames: Add in-between frames to create cool transitions.
- Timing and Effects: Adjust timing and add effects in your animation.
- Export and Share: If your animation is complete, export it to a video file and share it online.
Overall Opinion For Is Clip Studio Paint Good For Animation?
Clip Studio Paint Ex, not the Clip Studio Pro, is recommendable for animation work. Also, over the years Clip Studio Paint has grown a lot, and incorporated a lot of features, still there is still room for further improvement regarding the stated drawbacks. Mostly for beginners, this software can be recommendable. If you don’t want to use Clip Studio Paint then you can look for its alternatives like CorelDRAW. The good and bad aspects that are mentioned above may vary with users but if average feedback is taken into account, there is a high chance that Clip Studio Paint may provide a satisfactory experience to both tenderfoots and professionals.
