After animating his viral hit "Alien Song" in Animation Master, Victor Navone landed a job at Pixar. © 1999 Victor Navone

Computer animation is all the rage these days. Since Pixar popularized the format, more and more 3D animated films have been released every year. When you wake up in the middle of the night with the next Toy Story in your head, what are you to do? How are you going to make your masterpiece?

Your first option is the Big Boys: the Mayas of the world. They are the industry go-to software for these kinds of things. For these you can expect to pay the price of a Detroit city block—several thousands of dollars. While wonderful software, it is complex and not very fresh as far as the spatial metaphor goes, and perhaps overkill for most users’ needs.

Another option is to go free—how indie of you. Blender is one well-known free option. But have you ever tried to use Blender? My gosh. I know a little something about computer animation, and to me Blender’s interface looks like the Starship Enterprise’s debug panel. It would probably be easier to hand-code your animation in Wordpad.

Just when it seemed time to toss your steno pad into the trash, you kept reading this review, only to discover Animation Master from Hash, Inc. Mac and PC compatible, this package is a great option to consider for all your tri-dimensional needs. It is start-to-finish software, in which you can model, texture, rig, animate, create effects, and assemble your scene in separate “modes.”

Animation Master’s unique modeling method sets it apart. Most 3D software uses polygons for modeling, either directly or by using smooth NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) to control the underlying polygons. Polygons are flat surfaces, so it takes many of them to make organic shapes. 3D models may have tens of thousands of facets or more.

Instead of this madness, Hash invented the “Hash patch”—which is a true curved surface instead of an approximation—created with three, four, or five splines connected together. (Hash splines are what NURBS splines want to be when they grow up.) A 1000-polygon sphere might be accomplished in Animation Master with as few as 8 patches. So what, you ask? This means you can model more detail with less nonsense. It is viable to work with your actual models instead of using proxies (think editing with 4K footage instead of DV-quality proxy files), though you can use proxies if you so desire.

Choreography View

Animation Master’s “modal” assembly line interface also sets it above some of the Big Boys. In other software, all your work takes place in one window, from modeling to rigging to animation. That is like storyboarding, set building, shooting, and editing all in the same room—sure you can do it, but why not tailor the room to your needs?

Animation Master breaks these processes into separate sections. You can save models, animations (“actions”), scenes (“choreographies”), and even lights as separate files, allowing you to pull resources together into different projects. Animate one walk cycle and reuse it in different projects—even with different characters!

Animation Master also supports third-party plugins, such as motion tracking software, shaders (“materials”), and 3D painting software.

Perhaps the greatest thing of all is the price. Animation Master costs only $79.99 for a one-year subscription to the downloadable version, or $299 for the time-unlimited disc version. There is a great and very helpful online community at hash.com where all your questions can be answered.

Well enough of that. You’d better get to it. That film isn’t going to animate itself.