2D Animation Software?

If you want to get the best software for animating you should look at what the pros use.

Professional animators at Disney, DreamWorks, Warner Bros. and Universal Studios use DigiCel FlipBook. The teachers at Cal Arts, Sheridan College, Vancouver Film School, SCAD and the Art Institutes, just to name a few, also use FlipBook.

But you should also keep in mind that the Pros and the schools all draw on paper - not on the computer. And the current version of FlipBook is designed around drawing on paper and scanning or shooting your drawings into the computer. The next release of FlipBook will have much better drawing capabilities.

Hello.

I finally get two chances to exclaim how wonderful FLIPBOOK is to use and how well it works- it is amazing...and inexpensive and easy to use.

I justed finished a film with it and I am using it for my next film.

Kent Braun helped me endlessly with any questions I had and was great helping me to overcome any phobias I had re: digital ink and paint software.

Believe me this is so easy to use.

Thanks.
:D

Your advice is really helpful.
I haven't heard of Flipbook before.
But I find it nice now

Well depends on what your budget is. Some high end programs with built in pipelines, compositing and some other goodies are

US ANIMATION - OPUS, CONCERTO
to a lower extent an excellent compositing and colouring avenue is Animo.
last i checked Concerto with us animation ran into about $15,000.

for a much smaller Mirage like budget there is Toon Boom Studio and Toon Boom Express.

Flash is my weapon of choice.

http://fuggyfuggy.com/

Have you tried Plastic Animation Paper? It's great for frame by frame animation and comes in three flavours and prices; shareware (free if you don't register but with added sound if you do), broadcast and film. It's great to use with a graphics tablet (although I struggle with my A5 one as there is no zoom in the shareware edition). It's pixel-based rather than vector-based and you are limited to grayscale as it's intended that you put your animations out to jpeg frames to be painted in Photoshop (or Animo if you are a pro and can afford it) and recompiled in an editing package such as Premiere. It's relatively easy to use and has an interface similar to Alias Sketchbook with the floating menus. I expect it would be great to use with a tablet PC.

If you want to stick to paper animation I had a go of Digicel Flipbook scanning in my drawings to output avis and that was a joy to use.

All the best,
Claire.

If you have a lot of money to spend and want to work in vector, then go with Toon Boom SOLO (not Studio). It's the equivelant of Opus/Harmony but designed for a single user instead of a team.

If you can't afford the 3K US, or you want to work in raster graphics, then go with Mirage, it's lovely, I'm using it for my projects.

If you've got less than $100 and just want something better than Flash MX that still uses Vector, go with Toon Boom Studio - though I'd say it's a pretty tough choice between that and Flash 8, due to the new features/effects.

I love Flash and I find it very versital, but if you don't like it, I think you should check out DigiCel FlipBook. You should be able to download a trial version to test. It's pretty similar to PAP but I think the interface is alittle more intuitive.

Aloha,
the Ape

Back in the day I used Corel Draw for the Amiga. Compute's Gazzette even has animation contests every month for Corel Animations.. Unfortunatly Corel has changed into something that doesn't even resemble the Amiga versions. I can't seem to find anything that was easy to use.

I tried Mirage and it is a nightmare. Can anyone offer me software suggestions that are extremely easy and fun to use?

Thanks

Corel Draw for the Amiga ?
I used Amigas for over 10 years and never heard of it.
Perhaps you are referring to Electrobic Arts' Deluxe Paint ?
That would explain Corel Draw doesn't resemble your Amiga paint program :)

Geert