Manga Studio, Why Hath Thou Forsaken Me?
Well, let me preface this post by admitting a sad fact from the start. There’s going to be a lot of whining.
You see, about a year and a half or so ago I purchased Manga Studio EX 3.0. In Japan it is just called Comic Studio. Oddly, were it named Comic Studio here, I think it would sell a lot better. Or, hell, even calling it Better Brush Algorithms than Photoshop would be a better title. It takes a leap of faith from a professed Manga skeptic like me to give the software a shot.
CelSys is the name of the company that sells Manga Studio in Japan. In Japan, version 4 has been available for quite a long spell. Those of us who don’t speak Japanese, or use Macs, have to wait till it is localized and ported.
Up until a few months ago, it was eFrontier who sold the software stateside and who ported it for the Mac, though not as a Universal Binary. Recently, Smith Micro bought Poser, Manga Studio, and Anime Studio from eFrontier at a time which just about coincided with the release of Mac OSX Leopard.
Herein lies the crux of the matter. Read about the problems this causes and my proposed solution after the jump.
Manga Studio EX is broken on Leopard. Not only does it run slower than dog manure because it isn’t a Universal Binary (which was a problem I dealt with in Tiger, too), but it simply won’t work. The only fix relies upon Smith Micro picking up where eFrontier left off. They would need to localize Manga Studio 4.0 and then port it to the Mac.
Despite Japan having released a number of updates to version 3 that we haven’t seen AND releasing version 4, those of us who use Leopard are left out in the cold. The buzz around the Content Paradise forums, a gathering place of Manga Studio users, is that it might be a gooooood long spell before, or even if, either of those two things happen. Smith Micro doesn’t seem too interested in dealing with the growing throngs of unhappy users.
I tried to fix the problem myself. After reading up, I determined that my best option was to create a Boot Camp install and drop Manga Studio and XP onto it. Needless to say, with Manga Studio being a dominant facet of my production pipeline, I started to spend my whole computing life in XP. I had to forget about my iTunes library on my Mac install, my favorite programs that were Mac only, and even had to deal with XP’s inability to read all my RAM and a host of other problems.
I thought I might install Vista x64 to solve the latter issue, but apparently Manga Studio EX doesn’t work on Vista either. Lots of people buying Manga Studio are unable to use it in nearly any capacity! Excellent.
After a really long period of using a nearly decade old OS to pander to the Manga Studio gods, I’ve had enough.
I’m ditching Manga Studio for my first love, Painter. I’ve started to export all my old files as PSDs and am not looking back. MS does one thing really well. Lineart. It does almost everything else very, very poorly. Unhitching my wagon from the burning viking effigy that was Manga Studio felt really cathartic. I’m happy to be able to use a modern operating system and leave XP behind, too.
The worst part is, I’ve personally evangelized to hundreds of illustrators, in person, about how great Manga Studio was for lineart. I’ve produced videos that have cumulatively been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. I feel like a straight up patsy. So, long story short, adios Manga Studio, hello Painter.
For comparison’s sake, here’s some pencil work from Manga Studio I did for a client recently:
This is some of my first pencil work in Painter from earlier this week:
Apr 23rd, 2008 #
Today I downloaded the trial version of MS.. hehe… oh irony.. :)
hope you can solve this issue :)
Apr 23rd, 2008 #
One word of warning - images made in the trial cannot be used in the full version!
Apr 24th, 2008 #
Right on Ray! Back when E-frontier first announced Manga Studio, I complained and got to beta test a copy of it. I won the E-F RuntimeDNA Manga Studio contest (First and Third Place).
Then in 06 I found out that E-F was preparing to get the English version of MS 4.0 from CelSys by late summer.
It would be nice if S-M would at least communicate with us lowly users :P
Looking forward to your new painterly work ;D
Apr 24th, 2008 #
Painter-ly, har!
Apr 24th, 2008 #
Pun aside, it really is quite frustrating to be championing the features of a product while twisting in the wind.
Apr 24th, 2008 #
Anyone have any good tutorial resources for Painter? I’ve got the program but always found a bit overwhelming, and I’ve yet to find tutorials that weren’t aimed at people with an already established level of painter competence.
Apr 24th, 2008 #
ex, and debut whats the difference
Apr 25th, 2008 #
(I’m responding to this note before I respond to the updated note…)
Right on Ray! I bitched to E-frontier and got stonewalled about problems I had with it not being able to import the work I’d already done on the trial version of the software. Since that time, I’d accepted their lack of interest and disdain for their users as endemic to the company.
(Now back to the present day) Smith Micro appears to at least be responding… Fingers crossed!
Apr 29th, 2008 #
Bummer Ray.
Sorry to read all this. I hope Painter proves to be the fix.
Funny there’s been a lot of these issues involving the Mac users of Zbrush 2 waiting for the long promised upgrade to version 3, while them PC folks are enjoying 3.1. Seems Pixologic has suggested a “fix” like Boot Camp and while a lot of the Mac users have been complaining about the “fix” and the long wait, there’s only been “unofficial” word in the past about when 3 for Mac would be released (one date came and went months ago) and the Zbrush community threads on the subject have been closed…
Interesting parallels…
Apr 29th, 2008 #
I’ve been waiting for Zbrush too. My only assumption is that the market must be so small that Pixologic don’t mind people absconding!
Apr 30th, 2008 #
I bought 2 almost a year ago after I was told that 3 for Mac would be soon coming. There were a ton of assumptions from many Mac users on the user threads… from what Pixologic is saying on their front page they’re at “100,000 users and counting” does that include Mac folks? Dunno, but still waiting… and waiting… and… ;•)
May 5th, 2008 #
Found your website on accident today when I was searching for any updated news about a fix. Good news, man. It’s kind of funny that it showed up right after you went back to Painter.
http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/manga/updates.html
Best of luck.
-Scott Robertson
May 5th, 2008 #
Even better, I just saw your blog post where you were personally notified of the update.
Here I was, hoping to be the herald of good news.
-Scott Robertson
May 6th, 2008 #
I appreciate it, man. I was out of town for a while or I’d have responded sooner.
May 7th, 2008 #
Man, I thought it was just me who had problems with MS and Jag.
I have gone back to photoshop, I may splurge for painter X, I gotta play around with the demo more and see if it’s worth the leap.
And YOU gotta post to LiveJournal more, we all miss you, and your art!
May 7th, 2008 #
Yeah, definitely play with the demo! MS doesn’t lag for me on Winders, just OSX. That’s because it isn’t a Universal Binary.
Maybe I OUGHT to post to LJ. It has been a while. That’d be a long post, heh!
May 11th, 2008 #
I’m using Manga Studio 3.0 on Mac OS 10.4.11 and it seems fine to me…not slow at all. Granted, I haven’t done much with the program, as I’m still learning it, but it has presented me with no problems in any way so far.
I wonder if the updater makes MS as functional on Leopard? As I have a Mac Pro, I probably won’t install Leopard at all until I install another internal hard drive, so I can install it there and keep both Tiger and Leopard functioning so I can avoid such software conflicts with the new OS.
May 13th, 2008 #
Smith-Micro has just issued a
Leopard patch for Mac users.
http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/manga/updates.html
May 13th, 2008 #
Oh, that was already posted, nevermind.
May 18th, 2008 #
Ray,
It’s Hunter, I got a new computer that came w/ windows vista and damn it if I can’t even install manga studio ex 3.0 on the computer. It wont let me!
I’m pissed.
-Hunter.
Jul 1st, 2008 #
Windows Vista SUCKS baddly, is not just MS. Is the OS, Xp is 30 times more better. Nvidia + Vista = Nightmare also, check around all the issues in gaming and 3d with vista you will be surprised on how bad the OS is.
Jul 1st, 2008 #
Agreed, Vista does suck. There are specific problems with Manga Studio EX on Vista, though.
My Cintiq is a slow turd on Vista and zippy as all get-out on Mac, too.
Jul 13th, 2008 #
New Manga studio’s demo works on vista but there is nothings for upgrade oldest to vista ^^”