4 Free Animation Software For Mac

4 Free Animation Software For Mac

Animation software isn't cheap if you are planning to learn it. However, you can always practice with some free software that comes with drawing and animating capability. I've searched on the internet for free software for Mac's Maverick OS that you can consider if you wish to learn to create your own cartoon video.   Free And Usable 2D Software Digicel Flipbook is absolutely free for you to download and usable on Mac OS Maverick. It is easy to get started on animation and the interface is simple. I can start to draw on the canvas and use the Xsheet panel for frame selection. Flipbook comes with a light box function which I fin helpful in the animation process. This is similar to the traditional development where the artist uses light box to see through tracing paper for drawing reference. The final animation video will have a Digicel logo watermark for this trial version until you buy the full version at USD$58.   Free 2D Software But For Trial Period Animation-ish is not a free animation software, but it has a 15-day free trial for you to explore. Its interface is filled with hand drawn graphic, giving a fun cartoon atmosphere and generally easy to learn. This software makes use of the traditional frame by frame approach to create animation digitally. It guides you on drawing and tracing and create interesting animation using the timeline. This software comes with pre-drawn animation which you can easily insert into your canvas and learn from them. If you like to draw and learn animation, Animation-ish could be great affordable animation software to...

Animator’s Starter Kit – Ebook progress

It’s been sometime since I last posted and yes, I was busy. I’m busy writing out a e-book, titled Animators Starter Kit Learn to Animate with Observation. The name is not confirmed yet but feel free to give suggestion if you have a better name! I’ve given a lot of thoughts for this book as I really want to share my ten years experience in becoming an animator from scratch.   This ebook is going out to help friends or animators wannabes who wish to learn and create their own animation from the fundamentals. This is the juice of the book but that is easily available on the net! Thus, I’ve also included topics that even animators themselves sometimes do not learn in school. Ten years back in school, I wish I had learn all these topics in school on top of learning digital animation in softwares. Topics such as observation skills, self assessment, motivation, etc.   From what I can recall from memory, my teachers basically teach us how to draw in Photoshop or Flash without basic understanding of drawing. Worst, we were not taught how to generate concepts for our topics and our assignment grades us on our creativity. Is this still happening to you? I certainly hope not but for some unfortunate students who has this experience, I really hope to give you more insights and depth to your animation and the creativity within.   For a start, here are the contents I’ve included in my e-book and it is still under construction. Much of the contents has been written and is still undergoing polishing. What...
Low cost 2D Animation Software for Beginners

Low cost 2D Animation Software for Beginners

Learning digital animation requires both animation and software skills. When we choose our animation software, specially when we are beginners, we do have some factors to consider before deciding on where to start. Almost anything in our life is possible until we start to talk about money & cents, and time. I’m sure some of you who are now reading this articles are as poor as me when I started learning animation, so money and time is definitely one of the many factors. I would wish to invest my hard earned money and precious time on things that are worthwhile. So here’s my two cents worth of recommendation on how to start your 2D animation at low cost AND create quality animation using relevant industry software, just in case you decide to switch your career.   Adobe Flash Adobe Flash is my recommended 2D animation software because it has a good range of drawing and animation tools.  You are able to draw simple images similar to South Park characters even if you haven’t hold a pencil for decades. When I started learning Adobe Flash, I am able to draw with a mouse! Adobe Flash also gives you some preset motions to create animation. These presets can be very useful as an add on to improve your animation very easily.   Unfortunately, Adobe Flash is not free. You can choose to download Adobe Flash for a trial period of 30 days to test out the software before paying about USD$800+ for it. If you have friends who have this software, do test drive the software from them to get the...
Learn to create bouncing ball flash animation for beginners!

Learn to create bouncing ball flash animation for beginners!

If you are new to learning animation, this is the best tutorial to get you started! Every animator starts to learn animation by creating a bouncing ball animation. In this video tutorial, I'll guide you to use an animation software called Adobe Flash (version CS4 and above) from creating the file all the way to finishing your bouncing ball Flash animation. So what are you waiting for? Start up your Adobe Flash and lets get started! Learn Flash Animation Basics The videos are created in high definition (HD) format so you can view exactly how I created the animation. I have split this tutorial into 4 videos. At any point of time, if you have already learn how to do certain steps, feel free to skip to the next video. Nevertheless, I still encourage you to watch it because sometimes I'll include some very "tiny mini" tips for animation production which are common industry practices that schools don't teach! #1/4 Draw circle in Flash for bouncing ball tutorial (4:50min)   #2/4 Learn to convert shapes into symbols and usage of symbols in Flash (4:55min)   #3/4 Learn to create motion tween and key frames for Flash Animation (4:04min)   #4/4 Learn to create Bouncing effect using Motion Editor in Flash (7:36min) The tutorial videos include short cut keys mainly for Mac O/S users. I'm not bias but based on my current class, 7 out of 8 students are using Macbook Pro. This is why I put more emphasis on Mac shortcuts. If you are a Windows O/S user, fear not! When you see Cmd (command) keys, it is equivalent to...
Learn how to move entire Flash animation on the stage

Learn how to move entire Flash animation on the stage

Now that I've created my Flash animation on the timeline, I realized that I need to edit my animation by shifting the animation's position. The problem here is that when I move the first keyframe, the rest of the animation did not move together. It will be very tedious and time consuming to move the entire key frames manually one by one. This tutorial will share with you how to move, scale and rotate your entire animation as one object in Adobe Flash (Works on almost all Flash versions).   Step One: Selection First, select the entire animation on the timeline. If you have multiple layers of animation that should move as one object, select them too. You can do so by Left-clicking the first top left frame, hold down shift, and click on the last frame. When all the cells are highlighted in blue, it means you have selected these cells. Step Two: Copy Frames With the cells selected, right click above the selected cells to bring out the options. Click on the Copy frames. You can also press the short cut keys, Command + Alt + C to copy frames.    Step Three: Create a new symbol Create a new empty symbol by clicking on the new symbol icon in library panel's bottom menu.  You can choose graphic symbol or movie symbol, depending on the usage of symbols. Give it an appropriate name that your can understand. I normally name it by giving its name, followed by its action, e.g, greenBall_bouncing or rightHand_swing. Noticed that if your object name has two words, the second word's first letter...

Need help in animation?

Step By Step Checklist To Realistic Animation (Printable Version)

Use this cheat sheet to help you monitor your animation progress. I've also included check points to help you apply principle of animation which will make your animation looks realistic.

Need help in animation?

Step By Step Checklist To Realistic Animation (Printable Version)

Use this cheat sheet to help you monitor your animation progress. I've also included check points to help you apply principle of animation which will make your animation looks realistic.