There are a few other free software apps that may be helpful in your animation journey. Take Inkscape, for example, which is an open-source illustration application. It allows you to create vector graphics, which can be ideal for animated character designs. Inkscape is a perfect tool when creating character designs for animation. Animaker is one of the easiest video editing software in the world. It is suitable for new creators who want to produce animated videos, video infographics and series of animated presentations. Pre-designed templates to support all industries such as education, corporate training, business, entertaining and so on. Check out some of the best 2D animation software below: You can start by trying the free tools like Pencil 2D, Synfig Studio, Creatoon, Toon Boom, Blender, etc. If you can't find any suitable 2D animation software, you can try online tools, which are easy to use and don't require design skills or technical knowledge. Create 2D Animation Online. This animation software is suitable for beginners as well as for professionals. With the help of Blender, you can develop animations, games, animated models, renders, and other types of 3D projects. It is available on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Blender is a pretty good animation software when it comes to the features it offers. The Best 2D Animation Software. There are plenty of 2D animation software on the market currently but there are quite a few that stand out from the rest and some of these include: 1. Anime Studio is the winner when it comes to 2D animation software. Pretty much all the features are just spot on for creating 2D animations.
Learn
Animation.
Animate with exclusive Animation Mentor rigs in a proven curriculum to help you become industry ready.
Polish
Your Skills.
Focus your efforts on developing the artistic and technical skills that will transform you into the best animator you can be.
Build
Your Demo Reel.
Develop world-class, animated shots that will make your demo reel stand out from the crowd.
Character Animation Courses
Course 01: Animation Basics
Learn to walk before you run. If you are new to animation, this first course will help you learn the core essence of animation based on the 12 basic principles of animation developed by Disney's Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. You'll learn animation concepts and techniques to build a solid foundation as you start your animation journey.
Course Length: 12 weeks
Upcoming Term: Spring 2021
Start Date: Week of March 29, 2021
Application Due: March 5, 2021
Registration Opens: January 25, 2021 – March 28, 2021
Price Per Course: $2,499 *
* Includes a $100 non-refundable registration fee
In Animation Basics, you'll go beyond software to learn how to realistically convey weight, motion and follow through – critical skills on your journey to become a character animator. You'll start the course by learning how to animate a bouncing ball, and then evolve that bouncing ball through the creation of both 'vanilla' and 'personality' walk cycles.
Learn How to:
- Understand critical principles of animation like weight and overlapping action
- Convey emotions like joy, devastation and concern through sketchbook and posing exercises with our Stu rig
- Go beyond the bouncing ball by learning to express different weights
- Understand overlapping action by animating motion and follow through using Squirrels, Monster Ball or Bird Ball
- Animate a simple and straightforward 'vanilla' walk cycle
- Create a stylized walk cycle to showcase personality and emotion
Why it's right for you:
- Learn from Animation Mentor's proven, trusted Character Animation curriculum – the same curriculum taught to top animators working at studios like Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Industrial Light & Magic, WETA Digital and Blue Sky Studios
- Learn from the best mentors, at the world's first and most respected online animation school
- Level up basic 3D animation software experience, and go beyond software tutorials to truly understand the art and craft of animation
- Work with industry-quality characters and assets
- Create a kick-ass demo reel full of your best animation and prepare yourself to apply for a job as a character animator
What You Get:
- Access to the Animation Mentor community of over 5,500 students and alumni in more than 105 countries around the world
- Instruction from top-quality mentors from the world's leading animation studios
- Over 12 hours of pre-recorded lecture material, made available to watch on-demand each week
- A weekly eCritique of your assignment from your mentor
- A weekly live Q&A with your mentor and classmates
- Access to the Animation Mentor resource library with guest lectures, additional Q&As, and weekly video news
- Ongoing access to all characters and rigs from this course, including Tailor, Ballie, Stu, Squirrels, Monster Ball, Bird Ball and the pendulum
Requirements
- Apply and be accepted into Animation Mentor. Apply Now!
- Be 18 years of age or older upon the first day of this course
- Meet the minimum system requirements
- Have intermediate computer software skills. This course requires a basic knowledge of 3D software. If you have little to no experience using 3D animation software like Maya, Blender or 3DS Max, we strongly recommend our Maya Workshop: Animation Basics
- Our rigs and demonstrations use Autodesk Maya. You are welcome to use any other 3D software or rigs if you choose to.
- Have a good understanding of the English language
Harnessing the power of a child's imagination is not always easy. By giving them access to the right tools and skills it is possible for children to use animation software so that they can bring their drawings and doodles to life on a digital format. There are a number of programs that make it easy for kids to understand and develop their imagination/ storytelling skills in drawings and animations.
Many companies now produce versions of their animation software that are designed with menus for kids. This makes it easier for beginners to take some of their first steps into animation without having to deal with the extensive learning curve for a new program.
Video Animation Software
In this article we will go through some of the best animation programs that are designed currently for kids in 2-D animation and 3-D animation. By learning some of these programs as possible for children to harness their creativity and enjoy a greater experience with animating their ideas.
Part1. Top 5 Best 2D Animation Software for Kids
#1. Best Overall: VideoScribe
Videoscribe is a program that is designed to assist with whiteboard animation tasks. It's created by a British company named Sparkol. The program itself is very easy to use and it comes with a series of online image tools where users can get access to royalty free images that they can use for all of their own projects.
Videoscribe is a program that also features an add-on which is called TAWE. This can be especially helpful for children because it's easy to turn any image or photo into a simple presentation solution where you can rotate, zoom and animate an image as well as add voiceovers.
Videoscribe software can be one of the simplest programs to use and it remains one of the most user-friendly solutions available for all levels of experience. Even kids with zero animation skills can quite easily reproduce a number of animated videos and create competitive animation styles in a fraction of the time that it would take to learn other programs.
#2. Runner-up: PowToon
Powtoon represents one of the best online applications for building storytelling animations, infographics and academic presentations. There's a number of animation effects that can be added from a drop-down list and kids love experimenting with this online program.
Powtoon also makes the process of creating presentation files very simple, you can use a number of free templates to create presentations and animations with just a small amount of effort and this can be ideal for kids that are complete beginners with presentations and more.
The quality of the animations are excellent in this program and many of the top Leading brands worldwide use premium Powtoon to create videos for their own company. Kids can use the templates and online or learning strategies to really build up a great quality of work here.
#3. Animatron
Another choice that is perfect for children to learn on is Animatron. This is a free animation software that is perfect for kids to turn their ideas into a selection of cartoons.
The application can be used to animate, narrate and draw a wide range of content that will work on various levels. Parents can use Animatron for building whiteboard style presentations and animations as well. The Lite mode here is what makes it the perfect choice for kids as this is a drag-and-drop solution for harnessing their creativity. The program has integrated this mode to make it safe for kids above eight years to use regularly.
#4. Vyond (Goanimate)
Goanimate remains one of the perfect tools for building attractive animations for students and academic presentations. With corporate professionals and teachers using these tools regularly, the comprehensive online animation and presentation is perfect for building some fantastic experiences. There are some predesigned animations in this program that are perfect for kids of all ages and for individuals in almost every type of industry.
#5. FlipBook
Flipbook remains a program and animation software that can be very simple to use for high-quality 2-D animation tools.
Kids can draw directly on the screen or use a touch display interface to move items around and build animations. It's quite easy to add on soundtracks as well as sync up audio within the program.
Flipbook is a program that's mostly designed for teens and older kids and it is possible to quite easily paint one frame at a time along the program or to generate solutions using some of the templates online.
Part2. Top 3 Best 3D Animation Software for Kids
#6. Best Overall: Muvizu
As an easy and very fun to use animation software, anyone can build some high-quality 3-D scenes with the help of this tool this remains one of our best recommended tools for kids who want to break into 3-D animation.
The animation system within the software helps you to build 3-D animations which are customized with animated characters and a number of predefined characteristics. The developers have created this project to make sure that it's suitable for students, educators, professional animators and even individuals who are building the system for business too.
The software is often some of the best for teens and older kids to pick up and use over time. By setting up some of the template solutions and then dragging and dropping elements using the software, kids can build amazing 3d animated solutions.
#7. Runner-up: Blender
This is our second choice for open source 3-D software that doesn't take a steep learning curve to develop.
This is a program for teenagers that is fairly appropriate and simple to use. If you are looking for some 3-D modeling software or simple animation it's tough to find anything that is better than Blender. The program itself was built by a team of extremely dedicated teachers, enthusiasts and artists.
As an open source project there are new add-ons and improvements being added regularly. It is the perfect program to really start wading into the waters of 3-D animation and it can be especially helpful for picking up some of the nuances of animating in 3-D before investing in software.
#8. Harmony
Toonboom is a company that's responsible for creating this animation software. It's perfect for kids to learn on and it's one of the favored choices for graphic artists. If your children do have some experience using animated tools, this is a perfect segue program that they can use to work their way up to a full license program.
Harmony is a program that's really designed for teens and for beginner graphic artists. There's plenty of free videos and webinars that you can use online to make sure that kids can master the software. Some of the courses that are available on Harmony can make sure that kids can learn at their own pace and that they can get a sense of achievement through badges and skills as they work at learning tutorials.
Part3. How to Choose the Right Animation Software for Your Child
Choosing the ideal animation program that you should invest in with your kids does often take a bit of choice and selection. In order to pick out the right animation software for your kids it's important to look through the different techniques and animation styles to choose what they want.
Basic Video Animation Software Downloads
Understand Different Types of Animation
Some kids may want to animate in 3d, others in 2-D and depending on the type of project that they want to build it is important to invest in a program that can give them the tools they need.
2D Animation
With 2-D animation animators can easily draw images on translucent pieces of paper one frame at a time to create a simple sequence of still images that will move over time. Usually animators will work to test animations with rough drawings but this can be done much more simply using programs.
As animators create the rough drawings and the sequence of still images, they can refine each image in its details in the program. Traditional animation today now usually requires a digital tablet and some drawing skills and there's no actual photography that takes place between individual frames. The process of animating is still a fairly lengthy, difficult and costly affair especially if you want to make something professional.
Most 2-D animation todays completed using computer vector animations that can adopt some of the techniques of traditional cell animations but with the ability to manipulate on-screen still images to progress the frame.
3D Animation
A 3-D animation involves creating 3-D models of various objects and characters and then understanding movement and composition. Traditional animation usually involves moving small elements of the image to create fluid movements. 3-D animation is closer to creating 3-D models and then manipulating them like puppets or wireframes to tell a story.
Motion Graphics
Motion graphics are a somewhat different type of animation and they are commonly used for building top bar and side bar ads. Usually we see motion graphics prepared for promotional or commercial purposes but they are becoming increasingly more popular for their ease of sharing too.
Stop Motion
The process of stop motion is done primarily by taking a photo of the object, manipulating it ever so slightly and then taking another photo. Photos are then layered on top of one another to give an illusion of movement in a way that is similar to traditional animations. It uses a series of real-life materials instead of drawings or vectors and it can create some powerful effects with some effort involved from the animators.
Whiteboard / Presentation style
Whiteboard style presentations are a fairly new solution that's become quite popular over a few years with the creation of online marketing videos. The presentation files and whiteboard animations have become a fantastic way to showcase information for an idea or project and it's an excellent way to really keep people engaged for a presentation or sharing ideas.
A Few Other Considerations
Picking out a software that's going to be best for a child to learn on is not always easy. Almost every child is going to be different so it remains very important to consider the way that they learn and to look into the type of projects that they enjoy doing the most. Some of the top considerations that you may want to think of when choosing animation programs include:
- The age of your child and their abilities
- Their patience levels
- How proficient they are with computers.
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