If you've ever had any interest in making your own animation videos, chances are you've seen Plotagon. You may have even tried it. The professionals don't pay it much attention, because they are using more sophisticated animation software. For the amateurs with the ability to tell a good story, Plotagon might appeal to you. Thanks to Plotagon, making animation videos as never been easier.
Plotagon gives you the basic tools you need. It includes a few pre-created characters to start with. When you are just figuring out how to make a movie, being able to put a character into the story without thought of designing that character is a plus. However, you can use the basic character template to create your own. Male or female, long hair or short hair, black or white, eye color, eye brows, makeup, clothing and voice. It's all there.
A creative person with a desire to do so can even generate transgender characters. There are limitations. You might not get the voice you would like, and clothing options are limiting. If you want to record a voice yourself, that is an option you may like. This is where I'll begin to make a case for why this good animation app misses the mark of being a great app. It's limitations may eventually cause you to give up on it.
When you are just getting started, the armature animator may be very impressed. As you get comfortable with the software, you'll explore ways to work around the limitations. After a while, you'll find there is no work around for your idea and eventually give up on it for something else. This will force you to alter stories or maybe abandon them entirely due to the limitations. We'll discuss some of those here.
The character design is limited. They are all the same size. You can't have taller or shorter characters. Body types do not vary from your basic male or female character. If you want to accentuate features on your female characters, you can't. No slightly overweight women, no body adjustments of any kind. Makeup will become restrictive once you desire a look that's not available for your female or trans characters. You'll even get frustrated that the clothing option you desire is not available. The longer you use this app, the more you will discover it's many shortcomings.
Character expressions and certain movements are limiting after a while. It was a great idea to incorporate certain facial and body movements. When you are writing a script, you'll want to start using facial expressions to convey the emotion of the scene. After a while, you'll discover that a particular facial expression has not been created. You'll either compensate by using something close to what you had in mind, or you'll be forced to rewrite the scene. If you're determined to make the app work, you can find solutions to some of its shortcomings, but it will take more time and become more frustrating.
This brings me to the actions one character makes with another. These are important to a story, because you will want to make use of them in your stories. The hand shake is nice. A basic kiss is an option. There's also a slap to the face. You'll likely make use of these three gestures if you spend enough time creating stories with this app. However, you'll end up wanting more, and the absence of some of these options is puzzling. How they can tout the merits of Plotagon and not include these important gestures is simply baffling considering how much they want you to pay them annually to use it.
Let's start with kissing. If you are telling a love story, you'll find the kiss being offered to be about as romantic as a mother kissing her son. Where is the passion? Where is the romantic kiss or the kiss somewhere between the one they give you and a lover's kiss? I understand they want to avoid anything close to adult themed, which is part of the reason they've chosen to omit children's avatars. However, a romantic kiss does not equate to a sexual situation. There's no excuse for not having a few more tasteful gestures between one character and another that would be useful in a love story.
Another issue is the fact that they seem to hint at the idea that you can create stories that may have violence, but that is completely lacking in any significant way. I do understand not wanting any sort of blood, and the creators obviously didn't want to include the ability to have gun fights. This is despite the fact that the scenes they have provided might need that option to make the scenes really work. They have science fiction scenes too, but laser fights are not an option either.
What about the basic fist fight? You will be disappointed. The best you'll get is the slap, the shove and the shake. I've seen people try to make that work for a fight scene, and it's comical at best. They might as well have added slapping somebody in the face with a large trout from Monty Python, because the fight scenes created with this app could be considered comedy. I really don't see why a couple of fist hit animations and the ability to have a character fall from a punch wasn't added. What Plotagon offers people looking for this type of action is severely lacking.
Let's talk about scenes. As this app was growing, they kept adding new scenes. This is where they chose to put their focus. You can get a lot of use from the bar scene or the diner, restaurant or cafe. You have multiple office options, you can drive a car, go to the theater or stage a political debate. There are some good options, but there are limitations as well. You'll eventually want to do a scene that's not available, or you won't be able to do the scene the way you envision it because of camera angles or imitations on where you can put your characters.
One of my frustrations is the house scene. I don't like the fact that the daytime bed scene has an open suitcase on the bed. If you're having your couple conversing in the bedroom and not planning a vacation, why the suitcase? Also, it's distracting if you want the scene to be at night, but you can only stage it with daylight peaking through the windows. It's the same with the motel room, despite the fact that the biggest reason most people would use a motel room would be to have it at night.
I think part of the reason for this is because the designers wanted to avoid anything that could be construed as being in the "adult" category. Hence, you have no animation for two people laying in bed. You can't even have that little conversation before your couple drifts off to sleep. You can't have two people simply sitting on a bed together. What would be the harm of them sitting there and kissing? A simple scene like that conveys the love and romance you may be going for without taking it too far.
A good script writer can compensate for the limitations I've described here by writing good dialogue. Things can be implied through conversation or by using different camera angles and making use of the black text box. However, you shouldn't have to compensate as much as you do in order to make Plotagon work for the stories you are telling. It will get old after a while, and people won't want to spend the money on the subscription. They originally had a PC model where you could use the app with some basic scenes included. If you wanted more, you could pay for those specific scenes. I'm sure they lost support when they moved away from that and forced PC users onto a subscription plan if they wanted to keep using the app.
People were clamoring for the walking animation, and they finally got it. They also asked for more than two people in a scene. What if you have a gathering of three or four friends? Movies and TV shows have that. While they didn't really give people what they asked for, they did design certain scenes where you can make it look like three or four people are having a conversation. In order to make that work, however, you'll be taking more time to pull it off.
One of the things I've noticed in the gaming community is the ability for the people to make mods that enhance their enjoyment of the game. The Sims and The Movies are two games that have been used to make actual story based movies. Neither sim was made for that, but content creators liked these program's animation enough that the idea became appealing to them. Games that are modded allow users to do things with their avatars that may not have been originally intended. Modders of these games have made props and settings as well.
Unfortunately, this is not an option for Plotagon. You get what you buy from them. If they give you nothing new to work with for a year, so be it. What companies that do this don't understand is a healthy modding community can extend the life of a game. Inevitably, modders keep a game going after the company gives up on it. Plotagon has no such community, meaning you won't see user created scenes, props, character enhancements and gestures or other effects. You won't get user created music or sound effects to include with the ones being officially offered.
When Plotagon started, they had their own online infrastructure. They may have been thinking that they would be to animation what Twitter and Facebook are to social media. Within Plotagon's old platform, you could share your stories with other content creators in whatever genre. You could use hashtags and easily find the newest and latest trending videos. It helped you find content that inter rested you and connected you with those who shared your interest. You could easily find some truly amazing videos. Plotagon eliminated that in a series of disappointing moves. You can find videos made by others on YouTube, but it's not what it used to be.
If this review makes it sound like I hate Plotagon, let me assure you that I don't. It's still the best thing out there for my animating skill level. That level is basically 0, and Plotagon is the best opinion out there for people like me. The videos still look nice, and being able to write scripts that are spoken by the voices they offer is a plus for somebody who doesn't have voice actors. You can create something simple in a matter ogf minutes, or do a fairly good 5-7 minute story in a few hours with what they give you to work with. It's a good app, but the limitations I describe are what keep it from being the great app that it could have been
They have three subscription options for the PC user, and you can also use the app on your smart phone or tablet. They give the biggest break for educational purposes. That's one of the biggest positives of Plotagon. Educators use this app as a teaching tool. They also encourage students to explore their creative side via this app. It's opening up young minds, and I can't find anything wrong with that. I praise Plotagon for making that possible.
The subscription fee itself will be a negative for those who don't have the disposable income or young creators who will never have the allowance to spend on it. To those who do, it will be fun exploring all of the possibilities at first. If you are a casual user, it might still seem fresh to you for a while. However, if you devour what's there and use it to the best of your ability, you will find the lack of updates or needed improvements to the issues I've discusses here to be disappointing.
Find The App here https://www.plotagon.com/ or via Google Play or the apple store.
