Animation Software

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There are many different ways you can create animations. You can (1) add motion to a presentation, (2) create a stop motion animation, or (3) build an animation like a traditional cartoon. Here are some tools you can use to accomplish these kinds of animation:

Animated Presentations

Prezi. Prezi is an online, flash-based presentation tool which makes use of one large canvas that allows you to pan and zoom to various parts of the canvas and emphasize the ideas presented there. Prezi allows the speaker to navigate amongst data and visuals along a pre-determined “path” telling a compelling story that sticks in the minds of the audience and makes for a more effective presentation.

PowerPoint. You can add movement to PowerPoint to give presentations an animation effect. There are many tutorials on YouTube that walk through how you can animate text or other elements in your presentation. The tutorial below provides a good overview too:

VideoScribe is a video application that allows you to create whiteboard movies using vector graphics. So a hand will physically come onto the screen and pretend to write whatever it is you want in the presentation.

Stop-Motion Animation

Getting Started with Stop Motion Animation is a Lynda.com training video that goes over everything you need to know about how stop motion animation works and gives you ideas about tools and software that could be helpful: http://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/Getting-Started-Stop-Motion-Animation/163241-2.html

Traditional Cartoons

Pencil 2D. This is a free open source, beta software that you can use to draw and animate cartoon images.

CreaToon is another free software, but it was originally built to animate only (meaning you would have to complete illustrations in another program and import them into CreaToon). The newest version has some illustration capabilities so that you can create the illustration directly in the program, but the quality and control is lower than Pencil.

Adobe Flash. Adobe Flash Professional is multimedia authoring program that creates interactive and animated content. This is a professional software, so be prepared for a more complex tool with all of the bells and whistles.

 

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