Manga Studio

[Jim_Campbell]

Manga Studio EX 4 -- Half Price

Coming via PJ, and originally from Sean Phillips, I believe -- the full version of Manga Studio is being offered as a download at half price for the rest of this month:

http://www.contentparadise.com/productdetails.aspx?id=13231&sgid=193

That's cheaper than the upgrade from the 4.0 Debut version, at $199, and works out £99 at today's exchange rate. It's a big download (2x .dmg files, one at 742Mb and one at 89Mb), but I'm all over this one like a rash.

Cheers!

Jim

Emp edit: Making the subject more general

[Jim_Campbell]

IMPORTANT: My download refuses to launch without an installation CD in the CD drive, making it useless. I have a query in with ContentParadise's technical support and will report back, but I'd hold off purchasing for now ...

[Jim_Campbell]

UPDATE: They got back to me with a fix which also doesn't work. Awaiting further developments ...

[Jim_Campbell]

UPDATE 2: Another fix. Another non-starter. They're on Pacific Time, so I don't expect to hear from them again until this evening, but if the third time's a bust, it's either a refund or I'm on the phone to the credit people to do a chargeback. We're now approaching the point where the amount of time I've wasted f*cking about with this cancels out the discount in lost working hours.

Balls.

Jim

[James]

Scale of pissedoffness?

Out of 10?

11 I reckon.

[Jim_Campbell]

Scale of pissedoffness?

Out of 10?

11 I reckon.

I'm not best pleased, I'll say that much.

Bah!

Jim

[dyl]

Annoying. I bought it fullprice about a year ago online. It worked fine but I do seem to remember there was quite a specific way to install it. I opted for the cd's to be sent as well, they just looked like dvd r when I got them, they worked though as I had to re install everything a while back. What was annoying was that the day after I bought it they had a 40% off sale. I emailed to see if I could have a refund but they offered nothing, bastards! It's a cracking program though.

[James]

I'd love to get to know it, but with any new software there's a learning curve which I get impatient with.

[Jim_Campbell]

Annoying. I bought it fullprice about a year ago online.

TBH, I fully anticipate that there's a major 4.5 or 5.0 update coming down the line, and they're just trying to drum up some sales beforehand. However, I've been using the Debut version for almost a year now and I feel my artwork has come on in leaps and bounds during that time and I'm starting to bump up against some of the limitations of the cut down version.

Hence my frustration!

Are you using it regularly, Mr Teague? I have to confess that I couldn't tell, which is high praise for your skill with it if you are!

Cheers

Jim

[Matt Timson]

I really like the brushes in MS and would make more use of it if I was able to move between MS, PS and Painter, in the same way that I move files between PS and Painter at the moment.  It's the only stumbling block to making MS my main drawing tool, to be honest.

What OS are you guys running?  I'm still running Tiger and had no trouble at all- but I've heard reports of some problems for people running Leopard.

[dyl]

There probably isn't a big update coming it's not that old. They do just seem to have these massive reductions from time to time.

I tend not to use it for finished stuff I still find I prefer inking with a brush I'm faster that way too. It does have the best inking tools of any program though and I have used it in places and I use it for corrections and things that would be a pain to ink by hand.

I mainly use it for roughs and this is where I find it absolutely brilliant. I love the panel cutter tool but best of all is the perspective ruler. I rough in a panel and then fix the perspective points and draw on a grid. I then print this out light blue and draw on top of it. It's great because you don't have to mess around with real perspective points and all the fuss that involves.

Matt I know what you mean about moving files from it, it's fine taking stuff into ps as you can keep all the layers, it's not so good if you want to go back into MS though. I'm running it on a PC and it seems fine.

[Jim_Campbell]

I mainly use it for roughs and this is where I find it absolutely brilliant. I love the panel cutter tool but best of all is the perspective ruler. I rough in a panel and then fix the perspective points and draw on a grid. I then print this out light blue and draw on top of it. It's great because you don't have to mess around with real perspective points and all the fuss that involves.

I know exactly what you mean -- if you actually know how to build a perspective (seemingly a lost art if many of the pages I'm lettering are anything to go by), MS really breaks the back of all that tedious construction for you.

Cheers!

Jim

[Matt Timson]

Matt I know what you mean about moving files from it, it's fine taking stuff into ps as you can keep all the layers, it's not so good if you want to go back into MS though. I'm running it on a PC and it seems fine.

Yeah- it's the not being able to go back into MS again that's the bind- otherwise, it's lovely to work with.

[mygrimmbrother]

I'd love to get to know it, but with any new software there's a learning curve which I get impatient with.

I hear you James! Still putting off getting to grips with Illustrator, never mind Manga Studio (although I do have a copy now, sitting unused on my desktop..)

[Jim_Campbell]

RESULT: They sent me a new serial number (pretty bleeding obvious that the previous one was for a physical CD, but never mind) and we're in business. Good stuff!