Animation software

Mr. Cool · Post by **Mr. Cool** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 11:52 am

Does anyone know of any good shareware or freeware to make cartoons? I want to make a short 2d animated movie.

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:14 pm

Microsoft GIF animator, the GIMP, Jasc Animation Studio, Microsoft Movie Maker, Quicktime Pro...

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:28 pm

Using the google hack, everything is "shareware"

. I use Adobe ImageReady. Not great, but it works.

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:32 pm

I got fed up with GIF animators and moved to Flash. (ripped it off from school!

)

Mr. Cool · Post by **Mr. Cool** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:54 pm

Thanx.

Whats the "google hack". Where/how do I get/do it

Mr. Cool · Post by **Mr. Cool** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:57 pm

Sorry about the double post, but I had another question. Whats the difference between GIF and Flash, and which one do you think I should use.

Post by **bicostp** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:03 pm

GIF (Compuserve Image Format, don't ask) files are the basic animations you see online, like my or Doofus's avatars. They are non-interactive, and have a limited color pallette of 256 colors. They are pixel-based, so the computer has to know what pixel is what color when, creating relatively large files. Each frame has to be rendered individually, making them time consuming to make.

Flash (Macromedia Flash, to be exact) are vector based, interactive movies. (Much like Adult Swim's Attack of the Feverheads.) They use mathematical equations to tell the image processor where things are and how big they are. They can be scaled infinitely without loss of quality, unlike GIFS which look like crap when blown up to about 400 percent original size. Flash can do motion tweening (short for "in-betweening"). In other words, you can tell it to have one object in one place at one time, a different place at a later time, and Flash will fill in the rest for you.

If you have multiple hundreds of dollars to dump on one program, go with Flash. If you are on a tight budget, download a GIF animator, but don't expect interactivity or easy animating.

Mr. Cool · Post by **Mr. Cool** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 6:58 pm

Thanx bicostp
Now I get it. I downloaded a lot of shareware and demos, and they're pretty good. Some are really complicated though.

Post by **bicostp** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:04 pm

MS GIF animator isn't too difficult to use... just make individual GIF images in Paint and import them into GIF animator. The hardest part is trying to locate it, because it was some kind of obscure program they made in the mid-nineties.

goodie · Post by **goodie** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:12 pm

Mr. Cool wrote:Thanx. Whats the "google hack". Where/how do I get/do it

I believe this is the hack they are referring to:
http://benheck.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/vi ... php?t=2953

jaytee · Post by **jaytee** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:35 pm

bicostp wrote:...Flash (Macromedia Flash, to be exact)...

adobe flash now, heh

soundwave · Post by **soundwave** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:36 pm

My friend is experimenting with Flash, what filetype should the clip be saved as so that it can be viewed on another computer?

Nevermind, he got it.

Post by **bicostp** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:37 pm

SWF. hat's what all the files online are.