Efficient 2D Animation Software?

jack hunter asks: "I just found out about MOHO, a software that minimizes frame-by-frame tweening in 2D animation via the usage of a 3D concept --- bones (among other things). Believe it or not, prior to this, I thought Macradobe Flash was the only affordable animation software, and I was prepared to do frame-by-frame grit-work for my budget-wise animations. Anyway, I've learned my lesson: there are more powerful pieces software out there, and there are those who know of them. What do you use to animate? If you use Flash, do you use any add-ons/components or special techniques to make things more efficient?"

Toon Boom

Try Toon Boom Studio. Cheap, free trial available.

Synfig

I haven't used it, but Synfig [synfig.com]'s capabilities look similar to Moho. Synfig is Free software.

LiveMotion

It's difficult to get a copy these days but if you can you won't be disappointed. Adobe buying Macromedia is, IMHO, one of the best things that could have happened to Macromedia and their software. Flash will improve by the merging of LiveMotion. LM is like AfterEffects for .swf files and is a much better tool for animators because it animates property attributes seperate from one another where as Flash animates object properties all at once when you set a keyframe.

2D animation software

Most of my 2D animation has been done either with Flash or Adobe After Effects [adobe.com].

After Effects is an industry standard package, and it costs about the same as Flash, last I checked. One of it's most powerful features is the scripting language. It helps to create procedural animations which can be difficult to do by hand.

You also might want to consider doing 2D animation with a 3D package. Most of my time 3D time was spent learning Maya [autodesk.com]. The strength that 3D animation packages have, is that they get used more often for character animation than the 2D packages, therefore they have a lot more tools forcharacter animators such as bone structures and deformations. A lot of them have physics packages that can help automate certain types of animation. Most 3D packages also come with built in scripting languages for procedural animation.

The down side to 3D packages is the intense learning curve. At last count, I heard that Maya had over 80,000 commands. These are huge and complex software packages. The proprietary ones also tend to cost quite a bit, although Blender [blender.org] is free as well as open source.

A lot of what software to use depends on what kind of animation you want to do. Are you doing short character animations? Are you doing experimental stuff? Are you Rotoscoping? If you tell us a bit more about the type of animation you want to do, we could be a bit more specific in recommending specific packages.

Other thoughts:
--I know that Photoshop and ImageReady can be used to animate between layers ( but involves a bit of hackery to get it to work well).
--The integration between Photoshop and After Effects is really nice. It's one of the reasons AFX is used so much in television.
--FilmGimp/Cinepaint [cinepaint.org] has been used for wire removal and image clean up for a while in the FX industry, I have no experience with it.
--I know that there are also some animation plugins [google.com] for the Gimp [gimp.org] that have been written. Again, I have no experience with these.

Regardless of the tools, there is always a steep learning curve, and there's always seems to be a lot of work coaxing the software program to do what you want it to do. If it's not coming easily, it's because we still have a lot of work to do in developing great animation software.

Good luck, and have fun.

What to use? Use moho!

I've been using moho for a couple of years now. The features can't be beat:

- runs on linux
- scriptable with lua
- great forum
- particles
- bones (inverse kinematics) as you noticed
- batch rendering
- 2.5d (move camera and 2d objects around in 3d space)
- import 3d objects

It's a great program, I use it every day for animation, for creating DVD menus, for creating swf files, just about everything.

After Effects

After Effects, hands down. It's worth every penny.
I could ramble on about how I've been an professional animator for years and how AE has ever feature an animator could ask for, but the bottom line is this: if you're outputting to video, read up on After Effects.

Toon Boom / Opus

Toon Boom [toonboom.com] / Opus [toonboom.com] (for groups) costs a little bit, but its the 'standard' for a reason (from what ive heard). We use Opus at work, seems to do everything well, and runs on just about everything.

Tweenmaker

I know a guy who made similar software. Not sure how it stacks up to some of the other products mentioned in the thread, although it does have some fairly sophisticated shape blending which minimizes bending energy to produce the morphs. Has bones, cross-platform, etc. It's called TweenMaker [elecorn.com].

Synfig is better

Not only do Synfig [synfig.com]'s capabilities match Moho's, but in some areas I actually prefer it over the latter. Plus, Synfig is absolutely free.

PlasticAnimationPaper

Time to pimp MY favorite 2D package..... Being interested in traditionl animation, I found PlasticAnimationPaper http://www.plasticanimationpaper.dk/ [plasticanimationpaper.dk] to be very good. Their product(an advanced virtual lighttable) is available on Linux and they recently reviewed their pricing policy making the entry package very affordable. Of course, you don't get Moho's tweening, but then again, it is a traditional 2D cel animation package... Worth having a look if you are into traditional animation

South Park

South Park uses Maya [wikipedia.org], described as "building a sandcastle with a bulldozer." Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Ktoon

Designed for animators, by animators [toonka.com].

Animo

This is second hand information, but Animo is liked by some animators I know:

http://www.cambridgeanimation.com/products/default .htm [cambridgeanimation.com]

J

What I want to know is when

Is Rotoshop ever going to come out? It was hinted at a future release, but now they seem to have it locked down.

God do I want that one.

PD Pro (project dogwaffle)

It all depends on what featurs you are looking for but PD Pro [squirreldome.com] is dirt cheap and not only does animation very well, it has "Painter" like abilities. I would sayt that this software is the closest I have found to the old Deluxe Paint from the Amiga days.

Also, CreaToon and The Tab

While I've jumped into 2D animating by purchasing an older version of Flash (4) and a graphics tablet, I did come across other software solutions in the course of my investigations:

CreaToon - a "cut out" approach to animation. I enjoyed the demo, but not the price tag. There is a free (Windows) trial at www.creatoon.com/ [creatoon.com]

The Tab - vector with very interesting drawing tools, but an odd timeline manager (and a one year license bothers me). There is a free (Windows/Mac) trial at www.the-tab.com/ [the-tab.com]

3D Packages

I have a friend who swears by ToonBoom, but I haven't done much with it myself.

I'm just finishing up some cutout animation (Monty Python-style) for a science museum. I considered Flash, but ultimately went with Animation:Master [hash.com]. A:M is actually a full-featured 3D character animation package, with a price closer to Flash. The advantages on this project were an excellent animation interface, forward and inverse kinematics with bones, rigging, smooth interpolation with many options, motion blur, and glow effects. On the flip side, building a character by applying texture maps to a bunch of parallel planes tends to take a while (about an hour per character, plus the time to cut them into pieces with Photoshop), A:M can be unstable, and animating with line art would be a whole different process -- although I'd be curious to see what someone could do using the .ai importer. Since I'm basically rendering a bunch of planes, with no lights or shadows, the final render took only a few second per frame.

If you're comfortable with a 3D package that's geared toward character animation, there are advantages to using it for 2D animation. If not, the learning curve is probably not worth climbing unless you're looking to branch out into 3D.

Longing for Fantavision

I'm still looking for an equivalent to the old Amiga "Fantavision" program. Drop dead simple, basically a 'paint' program with built-in tweening. While its selection of drawing primatives was limited to 'polygon', its user interface was great and it was fun for doing abstract stuff.

Is there anything out there for purely amateur purposes?

Flash and After Effects

I use a combination of Flash and After Effects the most frequently. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. Flash is fast and easy, but not aprticularly full featured. But it's hard to underestimate how helpful it can be to just hit 'play' and see an immediate playback without any rendering times. After Effects is way more powerful. It makes hard things easy, but it also makes easy things hard. It offers a lot of control over so many differnt aspects, which you need to do complex things, but can be a hindrance if you just need to knock out some shit real fast. Flash has basic drawing tools, which are mediocre but functional. After Effects offers klunky painting tools. Flash is great with vector based artwork but quickly bogs down and gets buggy with raster graphics. AE loves raster graphics and allows you to layer up lots of cool (suprise) effects and such. Flash isn't very precise when it comes to synching audio. Animations slowly fall out of synch becuse Flash screws up the audio. At 24 FPS, synch will slip about 1 second for every three minutes. So if I don't have to deliver a SWF, I will work in Flash on a scene by scene basis and then import those scenes into AE to make my final composite. It's also nice to be able to change frame rates in AE, which you can't easily do in Flash mid-project. In my projects, I usually start in Flash, setting up the layouts and doing the character animation. Then I'll bring it into AE to composite the shots, handle camera moves and effects. I love the 2.5-D camera. I don't generally handle much audio so I'll bring in an already mixed down track. Final output is handle by AE. Of course, this technique is particular to my style of animaiton, and may not work for you. I wouldn't recommend Flash for anything close to feature film quality animation. There have been some very good TV shows done using Flash (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, the Venture Bros.) but honestly, it's not a professional quality animation program on it's own. It still even in version 8, has too many quirky bugs and limitations. It's very difficult to do resource management. There is no way to make global changes (like changing a character's skin tone)- it doesn't even have a way to select all of a particular color on a frame. You have to manually go through and select every area.. these are basic tools that have exsisted for decades in Adobe's products. I am extremely excited that Adobe bough Macromedia because I have felt that, as far as design and animation goes, the program has offered no substantial new features since it was called Futuresplash. Anyway, I am ranting.. I still use Flash every day and deal with it. At it's core its a great program. AE too.

Mirage

I use Bauhaus Software [bauhaussoftware.com]'s Mirage. I use it mostly for compositing, although it is designed as a raster animation app.

Server downtime!

My server has gone down! Bastards! They must be rebooting it or something, because I can take a Slashdot comment PNG link like it was nothing.

Re:We don't care for pirates here

We prefer to be called "Buccaneer-Americans".

Thank you

What are you talking about?

Piracy is a great way to try multiple applications before purchasing. It also helps expand the marketshare of companies who might otherwise be too expensive for some individuals to purchase. It also helps those who want to learn the software, and be familiar with it before entering the workforce (where their studio or employer will be responsible for purchasing the legitimate license).

So don't poop on piracy man. You're just being a tool of blind-faith for corporate greed.

Re:TweenMaker is where it's at

what exactly do you mean that it draws the tweens for you? suppose you were to animate a 2-D character walking -- can it do that automatically? i find that the best way is with bones, but does tweenmaker support them?