software comparising

Since starting the computer animation module at uni i'v had experience in using servral diffrent animation programs for both 2D and 3D animation. these programs have ranged from simple 2d animating programs such as the vector driven program xara which was introduced to us a the start of 1st year this program was farily simple to use. Xara X is drawing and illustration software, used by world leading artists. The next step was to familarlise ourselves with macromedia/adobe flash and toonboom studio these 2 program these programs both focused more primary on the animation aspect although they were used for diffrent types of multimedia work.
flash
Flash offers a wide selection of manipulating vector graphics and interactivity as well as its web authoring capabilities. Although flash does not have the same drawing capabilities as toonboom i find in my opinion that the quality of animation you can produce is high quality and is made easier with the tweening and keyframe techniques. The drawaing tools in flash are more suited to those users who lack the talant in freehand drawing such as myself ifound it was easier to to manipulate shapes and lines to the way i wantimg them as well as beeing able to group multiple objects together and found the hud easier to navigate when using the layer syestem from which i created diffrent drawings which could be moved around the scene without affecting other objects. another tool i found very useful in flash when crating animations was the onion skin tool here i was able to crate one drawing then move onto the next frame while keeping an outline of the previous frame i found this helped in the manipulation of movement for characterssuch as walk cycles etc.
Toonboom studio
Toonboom studio on the other hand is a far more specialized 2d animating package its tools and interface mirror that of flash it still makes ue of the frames and onion skin tools but i feel whenever i use toonboom i cannot produce the same detailed drawings as in flash due to the lack of manipulating tools found in flash. This is why i decided to to my final animation in 1st year in flash as i felt more confident using this program but for then final group animatic i will choose to use toonboom as the final iwould liked to have produed an animation in both programs before i move onto the world of 3D animating.