Animation Software?
 

Anyone recommend some type of animation software? its for a family friend who wants to make these short "cartoon" like clips.

She has scans of these characters and when you click on them, she wants them to talk, move their hands, walk around, etc. I looked around online but before telling her to spend $200 to $500, wanted to see what someone recommends here.

Thx

I used this software when it was called MoHo years ago. It's pretty solid, but as with anything else, she's not going to be mastering it in one night.

http://anime.smithmicro.com/index_pro.html

It takes all the great things from 3d packages, and uses it for 2d.

Looks pretty good! do you know if it has clickable actions? meaning, if you want someone to talk, you click on them and they will start ranting?

No there's actual worked involved. Now i'm starting to wonder what planet you're living on.

You can use this website if you want click and create stuff. Fun site.

http://www.xtranormal.com/

adobe flash? get the 30 day trial version and play around with it...

Flash is good for this. it's one of the things it used to be known for before they went the OOP route

Good luck

Flash would suffice.

I'm just visiting this planet earth, then back to my home land of Jupiter next month

So here is what she (my family friend) trying to do...

She wants to create these characters that when you click on them, they will then act out a scene. Nothing will be automatic until someone actually causes the action to take place. Ideally, she would like to be able to move the characters around by click + hold on them and move them on the screen.

If anyone knows anything or even wants to help out in this, let me know. She is trying to do this for her school to teach kids about certain topics.

I use poser and have had great success with it for 3D animations. 3DS Studio Max is another I use for scene animations and now Unity 3D allows you to create animations within the scenes themselves.

all these are good - flash of course and you can alter your cartoons from illustrator or fireworks. Also 3d Max and Poser can make perspective easier but there are learning curves. You can pick up quickly though if you get the basic tutorial books and then get on line with the tutorial sites. Animation is very time consuming, even with these programs.

I'm looking for a voice changer program that works right so I can be a one man show.

I was really hoping there would be another option besides flash. Once we get into that, then it becomes a pain in the ass since the designer will then try to hold the flash file and only deliver the animation... plus if she wants to make any types of changes down the road it will be difficult unless using the same designer.

I'm sure there is something else out there that lets you create animations in 2D and when you click on the character, they talk or move.

Oh.. you should take a look at iClone. It does almost exactly what you're saying, but its 3d characters. You can't make 2d stuff without some work.

I don't think there are many push button solutions that will substitute experience cultivated over many years -- like in my case.

Surprised no ones posted this yet:-

http://www.toonboom.com/products/animationish/

Thats the simple version. Only $60.

The entry level package is called ToonBoom Studio:-

http://www.toonboom.com/products/toonBoomStudio/

$320

For interactivity like that it will need to be Flash.

Oh yeah if you want interactivity you can use this:- http://www.swishzone.com/index.php?a...oduct=max_mini

Its a simpler version of Flash. You may get away with just using this if you know how to animate the buttons correctly.

If it's a 2d/cartoon there really isn't anything on earth better than flash (except of course proprietary software created by production companies for their own productions - South Park uses 3d software i think believe it or not).

The beauty of flash is, it doesn't use link files. All files get imported and libraried into flash so if you just ask for the main file you have everything.

yeah, they simulate the cardboard cutout animation with flat 3d objects. I'm not even kidding.