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New Animator Looking For Some Advice

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New Animator Looking For Some Advice

Hi im looking to create a simple five minute animated cartoon and im pretty new to animation what would be the best software or general method to use

Five minutes is pretty ambitious for someone who's new to animation. You might want to tackle something shorter in order to get your feet wet and find out where the "gotchas" are.

There really is no "best" method - it all depends on what you want to accomplish. You'll have to be more specific in your goals in order to get useful suggestions. 2D? 3D? Web distribution? Video? Film? What's your budget? What's your production timeline?

And - what do you already know, and what will you have to learn? Do you draw? Know Flash? Maya? Final Cut? If you can fill in some of the blanks, we'll be able to make more intelligent suggestions.

well 5 minute would be the ultimate goal i would of course make shorter ones to experiment etc, i would like to be able to post it on the internet, iv looked at toon boom and flash, and they look pretty difficult i hav some artisic ability drawing, what software or program do you think is the easiest for a beginner to learn on and also if you know of any help manuals or books that'd be good too.

well 5 minute would be the ultimate goal i would of course make shorter ones to experiment etc, i would like to be able to post it on the internet, iv looked at toon boom and flash, and they look pretty difficult i hav some artisic ability drawing, what software or program do you think is the easiest for a beginner to learn on and also if you know of any help manuals or books that'd be good too.

Easiest to learn on is pencil and paper on a simple drafting table and animation disc (plexiglass disc with tape-down peg bar).

Here's something I read today on the Thinking Animation blog that pertains directly to what you're asking. The book recommendations they give on Thinking Animation are the same that I'd give . Take a look:

http://thinkinganimationbook.blogspot.com/2006/11/letter-to-mom-of-aspiring-animator.html

If you want to animate directly into computer using a Wacom tablet I'd say the best software to facilitate that is Mirage or TVPaint. (these are essentially the same thing , though the latest release of TVPaint has some features that Mirage does not have .)

http://www.tvpaint.com/

http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/products_LP.php

Also take a look at Moho/Anime studio:

http://www.lostmarble.com/

http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1913/1/793?sbss=793

"EustaceScrubb" has left the building

thanks alot

Like any new software package, Toon Boom and Flash both have considerable learning curves for the novice, but once you know what you're doing they are fairly easy to work with.

There are scads of Flash tutorials on the web, free for the downloading, and you can even get a 30-day trial version of the software from Adobe, again a free download. Set aside some time, get to downloadin', and try it out. You'll find out pretty quickly if it's for you or not.

yea iv been working with the toon boom demo and have tried the flash one a little while ago I found them both pretty difficult but i guess its just gonna take practice

I'm biased, but I would say check out TVPaint Animation Pro and see how it works for you.
www.tvpaint.com

k Ill check it out thanks

Check out http://www.freebyte.com. Quite a list of free full-versions and tryouts of graphics and animation applications, plus other nifty software. Also check out http://www.synfig.com, but from the looks of it you may need a techie on board as you traverse the Synfig world.