History

Once upon a time, there was Moho

Anime Studio is a proprietary vector-based 2D animation software for animators originally developed under the name "Moho" in 1999 by Mike Clifton at LostMarble and later distrubuted by e frontier. Since November 2007, Smith Micro Software has distributed Anime Studio and Mike currently works for Smith Micro as the lead engineer on Anime Studio. The software comes in two different versions, named Anime Studio Debut and Anime Studio Pro. Anime Studio is available for the Windows and Macintosh operating systems; as well as the English, French and German languages. Anime Studio Pro 7 is available for Linux.

And then there was Anime Studio

The last Moho version 5.4 was identical with the first release of Anime Studio Pro in 2006. The name change was commissioned by Fahim Niaz who served as Anime Studio's original product manager from 2005 to 2007. He cited the reason for changing the name to relate the product to the Japanese style of animation and to focus on the anime fans who needed a creative outlet. Fahim left e frontier in late 2007 only to return to Smith Micro in 2011 to once again serve as the senior product manager of Anime Studio.

Feature History

Anime Studio is capable of multiple styles of animation. It can export animations as flash cartoons, create cutout-style animation, and, within its restrictions, mimic some pencil-drawn animation. Since it features some basic 3D functionality, it can be seen as a 2½D program. Short films, especially those which tell their story in one scene, can be produced relatively quickly compared to other programs, because of the usage of vector morphing instead of frame-by-frame animation. On Wed Jun 09, 2010, Smith Micro released Anime Studio 7, which added features such as Physics, 3D creation, and improved interface. Approximately, one year later, on Wed June 08, 2011 Smith Micro released Anime Studio 8, which added features such as the Character Wizard, layered Photoshop import, and real-time media connection. The first major update of Anime Studio 8, version 8.1, also supported the new Poser 9 SDK and integrated the Wacom Multi-touch API. The latter feature made Anime Studio 8.1 the first graphics based software product to work natively with Wacom's Multi-touch Wacom Bamboo tablets.

Latest Developments

Most recently the technology has been adapted to work on the iPhone and iPad in the form of an application called Sock Puppets. While the functionality is similar in that the objects on screen can lip-synch and can be animated through changes in screen position and resizing, the core of the Anime Studio functionality i.e. the "Bones" is not implemented. This is however an expansion of the application into yet more areas and styles of animation.

Anime Studio 9 launched September 2012.