# Are animators using Shockwave now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 24, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551 "2008-12-24T15:42:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/1 "2008-12-24T15:42:31Z")
My kids are in the other room watching some dreck with little ninjas on it. I’ve seen “Foster’s Home”, too. These, and others, have distinct “shockwave” look to them. In my day, I’d call these “sprites” but I’m not sure that’s current terminology. Pre-drawn characters that are being animated by stretching & by moving other parts “attached” to them - like computer drawn marionettes. Why this look? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/2 "2008-12-24T15:56:59Z")
Cost and speed. Its cheaper and faster to do it this way. IIRC, the first major cartoons to do it this way were _Home Movies_ and _Dr Katz_. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/3 "2008-12-24T16:02:24Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Cost and speed. Its cheaper and faster to do it this way. IIRC, the first major cartoons to do it this way were _Home Movies_ and _Dr Katz_. South Park did this pretty early on, too. The first few episodes were cardboard cutouts, but after they made enough money they went to computer graphics. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/4 "2008-12-24T16:06:49Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > South Park did this pretty early on, too. The first few episodes were cardboard cutouts, but after they made enough money they went to computer graphics. Yeah, but they’re actually using _really expensive_ software to do South Park (Maya, Flame, and Combustion, IIRC.), whereas Shockwave and Flash are relatively inexpensive (at least by comparison). ---
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/5 "2008-12-24T16:10:04Z")
So it is shockwave? I understand “cheaper” - that drives the industry. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/6 "2008-12-24T16:20:46Z")
It could be. I don’t know if Foster’s uses it, nor do I remember any specific cartoons (other than the ones that I’ve already mentioned) which use it, but from what I understand, its fairly common in the industry. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/7 "2008-12-24T16:38:19Z")
I know Copernicus Studios Inc. uses some form of Flash for their work, but I can’t for the life of me find a list of what they’ve done. They have done vids for Nelly Furtado and Spesh K, that’s all I know. ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/8 "2008-12-24T16:56:36Z")
According to The Boy, my resident animation expert, a lot of animated shows are being done in Flash or TuneBoom (a similar piece of software). The company The Boy works for uses Flash primarily for their 2D work… in the 3D department, they’re using programs that are capable of producing photo-real animation - the ones I can recall of the top of my head are Shake, Maya and ZBrush. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/9 "2008-12-24T18:21:06Z")
_Foster’s Home_ is indeed animated in Flash. Cold Hard Flash, a blog devoted to Flash animation, gives a [list](http://coldhardflash.com/series/) of TV series that are animated in Flash (go down to “TV Series.”) A good number of these series you can definitely tell are animated in Flash when you look at them, but some of them are extremely well-done. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/10 "2008-12-24T19:34:45Z")
_Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law_, was traditionally animated its first season, using paint and cels, but the producers switched to Flash for the final three seasons. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-animators-using-shockwave-now/478551/11 "2008-12-24T19:52:09Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Yeah, but they’re actually using _really expensive_ software to do South Park (Maya, Flame, and Combustion, IIRC.), whereas Shockwave and Flash are relatively inexpensive (at least by comparison). The price of the software (probably) isn’t that much of an issue, the enormous savings in animator time is. The difference between flash (a few hundred dollars if you’re only using flash, up to about 2.500 if you need photoshop and related software as well) and maya (about 4000 dollars) is really negligible in the scheme of things. A single 10 minutes animation is probably already going to cost you much more (as in, an order of magnitude more) than that if you’re using traditional animation techniques.