In a program like Toon Boom or Anime Pro, do you have to draw ‘all frames’, or do you just create the key frames only? I would, of course, prefer to buy a 2D software that only require me to draw the key frames if possible. I don’t have to setup every frame, or 24 frames per sec. In my 3d program (Lightwave), I only have to, create or setup, the key frames, and Lightwave generates the frames ‘between’ these key frames. It was discussing the use of onionskin in making these drawings. I was reading a book on anime 2D animation last night, and it was saying that the animator has to hand draw ‘all frames’ for each second of the animation (16 drawings per sec). You may find especially in community colleges that some teachers will have open lab hours and as long as you ask for permission, they will allow you to sit in and ask questions.I am new to 2D animation. If you're not a student you might want to visit your local colleges and ask about the softwares they have, and whether or not you can try it out without being enrolled. If you're a student, don't forget that there are educational prices that are much more affordable. If you're persistent, someone will hire you and pay for you to use these softwares. There is also a free version of 3d maya (PLE) for those people just using it to learn from. I seriously recommend you spend the money on a more robust program like Adobe's Photoshop, ImageReady, & Flash, or if you're not all that serious about animation, then focus on making movies with a digital camera or scanner and editting those frames together with whatever editing program you have.Īs for free image software, I like Gimp and Picasa's got a great organizational uploading tool.
The problem with using free software is that there isn't enough support which means when you come up to a problem, you often have to scour every FAQ or bulletin board that a very select few other animators have found. When working on a computer, there are basically two types of animation files that will show up on a webpage aside from movies (quicktimes or avi-s). And then there is the question of whether you want to learn to do stop motion, 3d computer graphics, or 2d hand drawn type animation. Animation is not something you can learn without learning how to draw and how to program, use a scanner, or shoot a camera. Here are some online resources about the basic principles of animation. They're not Flash, but they also do vector based symbol oriented If you want to do Flash animation like the stuff on, either break down and buy Adobe Flash or you can try Creatoon or Synfig, which are free. If you're on a Mac, use Pencil(there's PC and Linux versions as well). If you're doing old school drawn on paper frame by frame stuff or stop-motion or 2D, I'd suggest MonkeyJam. But if you look hard enough you should be able to find them cracked online (rapidshare, bittorrent).
However, you might be disappointed by how crippled these stripped down programs are compared to their more expensive Pro versions. Some of the better commercial 2D animation programs such as Digicel Flipbook, Toon Boom, TVPaint, TAB, and PAP, have Student or Express versions that are fairly inexpensive.