Products: Toon Boom Animation and Cambridge Animation Systems

Cambridge Animation Systems (CAS) made its presence known as the animator's choice in nearly 60 countries throughout Europe and Asia, but it wasn't enough to keep it going. As the highly competitive animation-apps industry continues to face an ever more grim economic downturn, CAS gave up the ghost. Montreal-based Toon Boom Animation announced in January that it had closed a definitive agreement to acquire the IP of CAS and the Animo product line.

The buyout furthers market consolidation, as Toon Boom points out, and works toward its future plans in digital pipelines, media convergence, and 2D/3D integration, according to President and CEO Joan Vogelsang. The recently released Toon Boom Animate delivers advanced tools for creating cutout and digital Flash animation, with multiplane camera, inverse kinematics, graph editor, and morphing.