Flip Boom All Star Review - Kids Animation Software

The Toon Boom company is well recognised in professional animation circles as the creator of some of the best and most widely used 2d animation software programs on the market today. Their Harmony product is used at illustrious companies like Walt Disney Studios (ever heard of them?) and Nickelodeon, as well as countless independent freelancers and professionals worldwide.

However, these programs are notoriously expensive and with a learning curve that would tax a NASA employee (well, maybe not THAT hard), they are often seen as an "elite" tool, that is out of reach of most folk, especially young children.

So what can you do if you want a high quality animation software for your child that is accessible, inexpensive and quick to produce good results?

Well, Toon Boom has answered this by releasing their Flip Boom All Star program. It claims to provide high quality animation tools at a child's learning level and for less than the price of your average video game.

Does it do this? Let's find out in this review...

Main Features of The Software

As a parent, the biggest issue you have is how quickly your child will be able to use the software. After all, a steep learning curve requiring extensive manuals and complicated menus is a surefire way to kill any creative spark and have the program gathering dust on the hard drive.

Thankfully, Toon Boom have done a great job of simplifying the interface and making it fun for children. All the buttons are image based and have little tool tips that appear when you hover the mouse over them.

The set up is based on their high end software, but is much more child-friendly and not cluttered at all. This is a great bonus since it makes it easier for your child to move on to the more complicated softwares later on if they wish as they'll have a solid grounding here.

The drawing tools are good and allow for varying line thickness, which can add an extra quality to the work., and allows your child to do traditional drawn animation, or work on top of photos or other images they have imported.

(While it is best to use a stylus and drawing tablet it is not necessary...a normal mouse is fine.)

They also have the ability to import sounds and music files to add directly to their cartoons in the program, allowing them to do some simple talking characters or lip sync.

Exporting their work is real easy too, and they can do it in a variety of formats like Quicktime, Flash, and AVI, as well as direct uploads to Facebook and YouTube to share with friends.

Struggling to Get That Creative Feeling?

If they're having a slow day, your child can use one of the templates that come with the program, and show them examples of what can be achieved.

There's also a much-publicised Auto-Animate tool which basically takes a character you've created and adds various moves (translate, rotate, spin, twist, squash, etc.) that you designate. Simply click the button and it does it.

While this is a pretty neat tool to see quick results, those results can be quite hard to control and a little arbitrary. I can see a child getting bored with that tool pretty quickly...much more fun to create your own stuff.

Negatives

The biggest negative I found with the software was in the installation, since it requires an internet connection in order to register and open the software. It would be much easier to just have a serial code, since some folks don't always have an internet connection at home when installing.

I'd also prefer to see some more templates coming with the software as standard. It's always to good to have a little library of ideas when starting a cartoon or animation project.

Overall the Flip Boom All Star software is a great piece of animation software designed for children and beginners, that provides a good learning base which youngsters can build on later if they want to progress and continuing animating through their teens, college years and beyond.

See all our animation software reviews here ==> http://www.animationsoftwareforkids.net

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