Cartoon Animator vs. Corel Painter

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cartoon Animator
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Cartoon Animator 4 (formerly CrazyTalk Animator) is a 2D animation tool designed to allow users to create professional animations easily. Users can apply motion effects to static images, turn videos of human faces into animated avatars, etc.N/A
Painter
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Painter is a digital art and painting application, from Corel Corporation.N/A
Pricing
Cartoon AnimatorCorel Painter
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cartoon AnimatorPainter
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cartoon AnimatorCorel Painter
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Cartoon AnimatorCorel Painter
Small Businesses
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.6 out of 10
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
Canva
Canva
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe PhotoShop
Adobe PhotoShop
Score 9.1 out of 10
Adobe PhotoShop
Adobe PhotoShop
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cartoon AnimatorCorel Painter
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cartoon AnimatorCorel Painter
Likelihood to Recommend
Reallusion
This is a difficult question to answer. This software can be used for a hobbyist or professionals alike. On one hand, you can make fun, simple animations for things like YouTube or Facebook. However, on the other hand, you can use this tool for professional looking animations that can be used in marketing, presentations, etc. I am someone who uses the program for both - as a hobbyist and also professionally. The first time I took it upon myself to make an animation for something job-related, it impressed my colleagues so much that they bought the company their own copy of the software and encouraged me to make more. There have been numerous times where I have used the program to entice new clients. I would even take it a step further by using a potential client's logo or CEO as a character in the animation. In 2015, CrazyTalk Animator (CTA) has even helped me land a new job. I had been laid off and was out of work for a few months. I saw a job opening I was interested but had learned that the position had literally hundreds of potential applicants. Basically, I created a video using CTA of me performing the job as if I already had been offered it. I even included the company logo. In the video, I made an animation explaining why it was a good idea to hire the company. Once I finished the video I included it along with my resume. To make a long story short, I got the job.
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Alludo
Corel Painter does have a lot of great brushes, and they do emulate real art supplies very well. Especially the thick paint is well done. But unfortunately there are so many functional and UX bugs that overall it is just horrible to work with. When contacting customer support about it, they really seem clueless about the seriousness of the situation, and clueless about what proper UX is in general. They have tried to make it work a bit like Photoshop, which is a good move but then some things are absolutely not intuitive at all and they are definitely missing the mark horribly with so many issues. I would highly recommend using Photoshop instead, though you'll have to download them separately; it also offers a lot of great brushes nowadays and works much much smoother without all those aggravating bugs of Painter. The price of Corel Painter is just not at all worth all these horrible bugs.
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Pros
Reallusion
  • The main pro of the entire program is that it makes animation incredibly simple. You are not required to even know how to draw. Once you grasp the gist of the software it is extremely simple to use.
  • Another great aspect of CTA is the online community. There are a vast amount of online tutorials and an online forum for anyone who has questions. They even provide a content store in which users can sell their own content to other users.
  • A recent update has allowed Photoshop integration. This allows even more customization of aspects of the animation you are working with.
  • A characters mouth movements are automatically synced with voiceover audio. I felt this gave me one less thing to animate and has saved me time on more than one occasion.
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Alludo
  • Watercolor Compatible
  • Multiple variety of Brushes and shapes
  • Captured Dab Library
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Cons
Reallusion
  • Other products made by this company (Namely their 3D animation software) have a character creator. I would love to see something like this with CTA.
  • I would like to see a bigger integration with social media. Having the ability to live broadcast a CTA character in real-time (like mo-cap) would be amazing. If this were a possibility you could live stream a video chat or Facebook live portrayed as your CTA character.
  • Allow more in-depth settings for exporting media.
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Alludo
  • Way too many functional bugs, makes it hard to work with
  • Bad UX and usability, too much unintuitive behavior, makes it particularly hard to work with
  • Overall looks and behaves as if it was coded in the '90s, it really needs a complete UX overhaul
  • Did I mention the many bugs yet? Yeah? I'll mention it again because it's bad
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Usability
Reallusion
No answers on this topic
Alludo
If it wasn't quite clear yet, I'll state it again: the usability of Corel Painter is, simply put, horrid. And I am not talking about rendering, lagging, etc., it is not even all that bad there. I am talking about the weird issues like being unable to move a brush into a custom brush palette when you work on a second screen, like being unable to move the software onto the second screen in the first place unless you separate all the palettes and the windows (and if nobody tells you upfront there is no way of knowing because the manual doesn't state this at all), and then having to drag all your separate windows and palettes over one by one every time your computer wakes up again, and they won't really want to move to the other screen but only through a tiny corner of your screen, and the fact that you have to scroll through lists and lists of fonts but can't search and when you apply this font, add another piece of text the font jumps back to the default font of all the text already applied even when you haven't selected any of the text. Just to name a very small few.
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Support Rating
Reallusion
No answers on this topic
Alludo
It was really hard to get them to understand what I was having problems with. It was hard to get the message through that Painter has an unacceptable amount of functional and UX bugs. When I finally talked to someone who was easier to communicate with, he was very stoic about the situation, like they didn't really care about the awful amount of bugs.
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Alternatives Considered
Reallusion
CTA was a program that got me interested in 2D animation. After about a year of using the software, I began looking for other similar products. I had come across a program called Toon Boom. This was another 2D software somewhat similar to CTA. Toon Boom is a fantastic program however the price was higher than CTA. Aside from that, learning how to use Toon Boom had a much higher learning curve. Eventually, I purchased Toon Boom and learned the program. It is definitely a powerful 2D animation platform however I always seemed to bring myself back to CTA. I felt CTA was much more simple to use. It was also easy enough for other people to contribute to my animation projects. Having to reteach my coworkers another program was not going to work for us. Not being solely responsible for animations is a huge relief.
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Alludo
Corel Painter has support to multiple OS and across all the devices. Coloring and multi layer imaging works very well. The new enhanced brush settings and the redesigned brush libraries.
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Return on Investment
Reallusion
  • Since my company discovered that I was an animator, they are constantly wanting me to make videos. If the company were to outsource someone to create animations like the ones I am creating, they would be extremely pricey. CTA was only a one-time purchase. I have even trained several other employees of the company how to use the software. That way, if I ever exit the company they can continue to create marketing animations without me.
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Alludo
  • Customer support could be improved in my opinion.
  • Multiple bugs while working with layered designing.
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ScreenShots