A recent survey of 323 animators shows that when it comes to animation tools, 90.7% prefer animBot above any other available animation toolset, including in-house tools.
A recent survey of 323 animators shows that when it comes to animation tools, 90.7% prefer animBot above any other available animation toolset, including in-house tools.
Survey also shows that on average an animator saves 1 hour and 14 minutes of work every day when using animBot. That is the equivalent of 320 hours per animator each year or an increase of 15.37% in production time. In other words, 100 animators using animBot produces the same footage as 115 animators that don’t.
When questioned about how animBot affects the final quality of delivered work, 50.5% affirm that “Substantially, I’m not only faster but there are certain workflows that only animBot enables me that directly improve the quality of my work significantly”, 24.1% affirm that “A lot, the fact that I’m faster, especially working on tasks that would require a very high technical knowledge to accomplish without animBot, allows me to take more risks during the planning stage and I have more freedom to pick acting choices that are more entertaining regardless of how difficult they are to execute”, 20.7% “A little, I’m just faster but the quality gets improved since in a production I usually have not enough time to finesse my work otherwise.” and only 1% replied “Not much, I can get to the same animation quality within the same time using animBot or not”. The remaining was a mix of responses, mostly from users that haven’t fully experienced animBot yet.
On a Xmas I asked for Ratatouille, but instead my dad bought me “Ratatoing”, since both films star a rat chef and looked the same to him . Do you want to make your team happy and productive? Are you going to give them exactly what they want?
At first it might make sense to develop a similar in-house toolset so a company can have full control and ownership. Developing such a tool from scratch however is very risky. It would demand a lot of resources, a team of high end TDs experienced in animation production dedicated fulltime for a very long time, years of beta-testing and frustration from animators, lots of money spent in training and lots of money spent in inefficiency overhead while the tools are being developed.
Due to its clean look and simplicity to use, animBot may seem like a very simple tool, however under the surface it is extremely complex and refined. There are more than 150 tools within it (watch this 3 min video for a super fast overview). These tools started being developed in 2013, since then many animators around the globe, including myself, have been using animBot and helping polish it. In a best case scenario it will take at least 3 years to get to something close, 3 years is a very, very long time in terms of software, by then it will already be outdated and lagging behind your competitors, as animBot’s development is going to continue at a fast pace and will be a much better tool 3 years from now. AnimBot will continue to keep up with the growing efficiency and quality that the industry demands.
An interesting thing that happened with aTools, which is already happening with animBot, is that many animators use it regardless of the in-house tools provided. The reason for this is that animBot is a much more appealing tool to an animator than any in-house tool could ever be because of the simple fact that the artist is able to use it anywhere and can safely “depend” on it. It’s a fact that animBot will end up in a studio either by it providing the license and having access to full support or animators using their own, however with no support.
Making a UI with a button that “does the job” is only 10% the way to get optimal user experience and efficiency, but that’s usually where the cost-benefit breaking point live for in-house tools. Because there are thousands of users and the development cost can be diluted among them, animBot’s cost-benefit breaking point is way higher on that scale. The higher cost for this product is related to support, so it’s much cheaper to invest more time in optimizing the user experience, bullet proofing it and making it a self-service tool rather than making it so simple to the point one-to-one training and support needed to be provided to everyone.
Opting for animBot you get a much better and polished tool that you would ever want to invest into making your own, while only paying for a fraction of its development cost. It’s a win-win situation. Your animators will work much happier as well as your TDs, who will be able to focus on developing and supporting other tools more specific to your pipeline and processes.
The first reaction to a third party tool is that it will interfere with the pipeline, however it’s not the case with animBot. It inherits the same design mindset as aTools which has been used by many studios around the globe for years. It works within its own namespace, it doesn’t affect rigs, doesn’t create permanent custom nodes in the scene, it’s not required to open a Maya file which will always remain safe and healthy to go down the pipe. In a nutshell, from a pipeline perspective animBot is a tool that helps the animator to shape animation curves, downstream departments won’t even notice it was used and won’t be required to have it installed.
More details here: https://animbot.ca/home/things-for-pipeline-to-know/
Internet access is disabled by default for Enterprise Edition. You can still optionally enable it if you would like to contribute with submitting issue reports.
I am providing one-to-one support exclusively for companies, so although animBot requires minimum support, I’ll be there to help you when you need.
Many new-hires will come already trained with animBot. The ones that don’t, can rely on the integrated easily accessible tool tips to give them a very good kick off. There is also further tutorials on Youtube and a community where animators share workflows. In addition to that, I’m available for on-site extended training and workshops, please contact me for inquiries.
“It’s a great tool. It’s a must for animation in maya” – Andrew Gordon
“Hate the fact that we can’t use animBot at work“ – Joseph Holmark
“At the last studio I worked (a big one) we waited the entire production for a simple mirror tool because they wanted to make sure that all their tools were made using om2 commands. Animators had to use aTools instead for mirroring, (along with its other features). The tool never got made. Was a bit sad, but the point is a lot of the time TDs are so swamped with support during production that they don’t have time for tools, and one production rolls onto the next. A standardized set of tools, that is supported, across studios seems like the way to go and pipelines would be better off catering to it rather than trying to write alternatives inbetween support tickets.” – John Turello
“If I work for you I have to have it.” – Jason Campbell
“Creative problem solving is about half of what we do with our day as digital artists, especially working in new delivery platforms like VR. Getting consistent quality animation fast is so important when creative time is limited. AnimBot speeds up a team’s workflow and provides easy solutions to time consuming processes. All of this affords is time to be better creative problem solvers, and saves valuable man hours.” – Ken Fountain
“animBot is a must for an animator. I’ve been using it for years (since atools). It saves lots of time (and work, thanks to anim recovery) and makes animating more enjoyable.” – Umit Calik
“This is a simple and friendly way to have a animation tools package that already works, and a lot of animators in world use because is really good and easy to use” – Oscar Burgos
“Minimizes the need for proprietary/internal solutions” – Chris Bancroft
“animBot is the most powerful tool for animators and it’s been used studio wide (as atools) saving us tons of time and helping us to be faster and create better animation. Not having this tool would be a huge step back in our studio.” – Andre Sterchille
“The very responsive tween tool and arc tracker alone make this tool a must have for me. The rest of the tools are convenient as well but used less frequently. First step at a new studio has consistently been installing aTools and now animBot.” – Evan McGowan
“animBot has replaced nearly every other script that I use, but that’s just the beginning. My workflow has evolved dramatically as I adapt to all the new intuitive tools at my disposal. animBot is the next big thing in CG, as long as we’re using Maya I consider it a necessity.” – Nicholas Nostbakken
“Every Vfx company should buy this for their Animators to speed up lot of processes.” – Ümit Dönmez
“Our whole team uses some form or aTools or animBot, and if someone new joins, we recommend they install it immediately.” – Will Kistler
“A studio can develop these tool themselves, but it takes time, knowledge and a team to integrate, especially into something like Maya. Tools are speed. Tools are efficiency. Maya often feels like a pencil, but with the right tools it becomes Photoshop. An animator can make art with it as-is. However, not only is the art done faster with the right tools, it also allows for the art to improve as it becomes less painful to create.” – Kevin Chesnos
“If you want animation completed faster and more efficiently, animBot is absolutely necessary. It performs functions that are so ingrained in our animation workflow now, that the only way to maintain current productivity is to create in house tools that mimic the functionality of animBot. AnimBot is also very easy to learn and integrate into animating workflow. In short, it’s indispensable. For animators that have used animBot, animating in Maya without it now feels impossible. An animation studio that doesn’t have or allow animBot will feel a palpable frustration and sluggishness in the animation department.” – Melik Malkasian
“This is one of the best tool sets available for professional animators. If any company decides to invest in this tool set you will make the money back many times over based on the amount of time your animators will save when animating. I highly recommend this for any animation studio out there.” – David Shepstone
“AnimBot has far superior animation tools than I have seen in all the companies I have worked so far. It is definitely worth the cost.” – Darren Rea
“By equipping their animators with this power set of tools, any production would see an increase (or maintenance if all the animators already use the beta) in productivity and quality.” – Jason Lindsay
“These tools are made the way Animators want them to work not the way developers think we should be working or in a way that makes it easier for the developer.” – Andy Finlayson
“It is necessary on my workflow today.” – Kaire Montenegro
“This is such a great tool – the crash recovery tool is worth it alone and has saved me countless hours due to maya / pipeline crashes.” – Mike Dugard
The plans are extremely flexible to fit your needs, please contact me at alan@animbot.ca for inquiries.