# What do you use to animate?



## Imirah (Apr 11, 2012)

Hi there! I'd really like to start trying to animate a few little things, but I have no idea what programs to use. What is everyone's personal prefrence? Thank you in advance.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 11, 2012)

Well my sister uses photoshop/flash. Neither are free, so If you don't have that option, you might want to look for something else.


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## LemonJayde (Apr 11, 2012)

Microsoft paint or GIMP and Windows movie maker. All are free and nice simple programs


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## I Am That Is (Apr 11, 2012)

Ah, forgot about GIMP. After owning the CS5 complete suite, you forget about all the good other free programs out there.

Yay! 100 posts. in... three... days.

I need a life :V


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 11, 2012)

http://www.pencil-animation.org/


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## Viridis (Apr 11, 2012)

Whenever I do animation, I require vast amounts of electricity.  Usually a lightning bolt works well, but you have to get the timing right.

You'll also need a really big place for your equipment.  It needs to be relatively tall with plenty of space inside, but with very few windows; a castle is preferable.

Graves are usually the best places to get your components, it's pretty easy to tell which ones will work because they're already dated for you.

A word of warning though, make sure that whatever you're animating is calm and relaxed.  If it gets angry, you could become infamous for it.


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## SiLJinned (Apr 12, 2012)

For the love of god, don't use Paint for animating. It's possible, but impractical. Why? The fact you can't see previous frames/ or frames ahead while you draw on top, also that there is only one layer, making it hard to add backgrounds properly. You can't pan either, which is used in animating.

I haven't experimented with animation programs, but I'd say it depends what type of animation you want to go for. Do you want to go with the old fashioned draw frame-by-frame method, or work with a skeleton and move/tween parts around. Are you interested in doing 3D? With 2D I'd go with the more old fashioned way, sure it takes longer to get a fluid looking result, but it's looks more organic, more intuitive and easier to exaggerate details (expressions in paricular). But then I'm kind of biased since I haven't done the move parts around method before.

There's a useful page here which has a list of art programs along with some animation programs (some are free). Haven't tried them out but you can always take a look.

http://www.furryteens.org/forum/index.php?topic=10481.0


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## LizardKing (Apr 12, 2012)

Depending on what you mean by "animate", either Flash, Lightwave, or an ancient (c.2000) copy of Jasc Animation Shop.


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## I Am That Is (Apr 12, 2012)

Ooh, you use Lightwave 3d?
Version 9 or 10?


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## LizardKing (Apr 12, 2012)

I Am That Is said:


> Ooh, you use Lightwave 3d?
> Version 9 or 10?



9


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## Kailombax (Apr 12, 2012)

The only kind of animating I have done is blinking pictures where the character I draw blinks. I use Photoshop for it and it's pretty easy to do. Other than that, I don't know about other programs as I don't do full on animation...


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## Catilda Lily (Apr 12, 2012)

I use photoshop and GIMP. So far they work well for me.


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## maxman87 (Apr 29, 2012)

Just to throw it out there, Plastic Animation Paper. It has loads of features, it's free, it was specifically designed to mimic the hand-drawn animators' workflow, and the online tutorial is fairly comprehensive.


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## Reiko93 (May 2, 2012)

Viridis said:


> Whenever I do animation, I require vast amounts of electricity. Usually a lightning bolt works well, but you have to get the timing right.
> 
> You'll also need a really big place for your equipment. It needs to be relatively tall with plenty of space inside, but with very few windows; a castle is preferable.
> 
> ...



But you don't want to frankenstein it XD.... that was a bad pun.


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