Description
Anime Studio Debut 5.5 (recently version 6 has been released) is an inexpensive program that does animation.
Assessment/Opinion/Experience
My experience with this product is a couple of weeks of study and prototyping. The tutorials are helpful but are confusing as it describes features that are included in a more expensive PRO version.
This product will require dedicated study.
A strong feature is the ability to turn fonts into vector fonts that can be manipulated and animated.
Another feature is to synchronize the animation with a sound file.
See the "Amazon.com Ad Contest" entry for an example of syncing sound to animation. This is a very rough prototype and represents about 80 hours of learning a new product and creating the contest entry.
Recommendation
You will invest a lot of time learning this product and should have a background in animation. Most likely you will want to invest in the PRO version of the product. If your time and budget are limited, your investment might be better utilized by learning Adobe Flash.
Computers Supported
Macintosh
Windows
Reference/Links
Smith Micro
Discussion Forum for Anime Studio
Wikipedia entry for Anime Studio