My 2d movie...Which program?

I need help... K, lets say i have this comic n i want to make it into a 2d movie... So, which program should i use? Well, lets just say i need a simple easy to learn program... Which is free... but not too simple, juz enough to make it look interesting... Is there any program??? Pls send reply,i need to finish it asap....

Let's see: "simple, easy to learn " and "free" . That shouldn't be too difficult to find ... ;)

Seriously, there's not much that meets that criteria , especially the "free" part. And beware of anyone who tells you there is a program that will make animation simple and easy. There's not such thing.

I don't know what style of animation you want to do , but for a "relatively" simple and easy to use program check out Anime Studio (aka "Moho") . But it's not Free.

If you want something that's more like traditional hand-drawn animation (where you're drawing a new drawing every frame or every other frame) then you could try Pencil . Pencil is freeware , but still in beta form , still has some kinks in it . (IMO) . But it's usable and shows a lot of potential . And it's free. The simple , easy-to-use part will have a lot to do with how strong your drawing and animation skills are . Pencil is a what-you-see(draw)-is-what-you-get program. No shortcuts in animating, it just allows you to draw directly into the computer using a Wacom tablet , rather than have to scan your pencil drawings.

If you draw it old school with pencil on paper you will still need a scanner or digital camera/copystand set-up to capture your images . And paper and pencils are not free, either. There are a few free pencil test/line test programs out there: One free pencil test program) is MonkeyJam . Another free pencil test program is FrameThief . There are no free ink & paint programs that I know of , so for doing anything other than simple scans of black and white line art you will have to pay for some sort of program to color your images. ToonBoom Studio is relatively inexpensive . The basic version of Digicel Flipbook is also pretty reasonable , but again, not free.

My recommendation for doing 2D animation is TVPaint . It's not super difficult to learn , but there is a learning curve and will take some work to get comfortable with it , so I would not call it simple and easy . (and it is not free) Again, for the basic drawing/animating part it depends on your present skill level. The other parts of learning the TVPaint software are relatively easy, but like most advanced software just takes some dedicated time to learn.

EustaceScrubb list is about all I have found when I looked but I have seen in the Apple store two or three titles that are very basic and cheap. I think that Anime Studio is one of them and the price was 50 (fifty) or 100 (one hundred) dollars. Not sure.

There is always the paper and pencil program. It's pretty easy to learn, and while not free, it's pretty cheep. You can buy a box a pencils for under a buck. :D

Aloha,
the Ape

There is always the paper and pencil program.

I hear it's a very stable , very well-tested program .

I hear it's a very stable .

That depends on how well built your desk is. :p

Aloha,
the Ape

The stability of pencil and paper is over-rated. Look at what happened to me the other day.

I've dabbled in Plastic Animation Paper in the past. Very nice program and great if you have a graphics tablet!

Oly

I've dabbled in Plastic Animation Paper in the past. Very nice program and great if you have a graphics tablet!

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that one . There is not currently a Mac version (but one "coming soon" is promised), so I've never tried the full version of PAP , other than a stripped down beta version for Mac which was so buggy I couldn't use it very well and ended up throwing it out . I'll be interested to try PAP again when they get the final Mac version working, although as I've said, I'm very happy with TVPaint which has become my paperless application of choice. And of course, my old Pencil&Paper program is still working very well as noted earlier.

I noticed that they offer a free version of PAP , which has less features than the full version.

The stability of pencil and paper is over-rated. Look at what happened to me the other day.

HAHAHahahahahahaha!

Building on the pencil and paper idea - you could always make a series of flipbooks. VERY cheap and it will actually teach you drawing skills.

Or there's the new digital online version: Flipbook

I would suggest Toon Boom Studio. Yes it's not free but it's worth the money. About two years ago I was also looking to make a short animation and like yourself I wanted to find a free program. That's when I stumbled upon Toon Boom Studio which of course was not free but was obviously what I needed.

The basic version of Digicel Flipbook is also pretty reasonable , but again, not free.

I actually would not recommend Flipbook, especially if you think you'll eventually need a full workflow (ink + paint). I really wanted to like this program (and some people do seem to really like it), but it didn't jive with me at all. I thought that the interface, although simple, was clunky + unintuitive. The number of supported video formats was also a little disappointing. My other gripe was the support- although it was present when needed, the answers I was given more often than not had a slightly smarmy "you should've known that" overtone. None of these complaints by themselves were deal breakers, but when I added them all up it really soured me on the program. That's all just my opinion/experience, though- ymmv.

Just looked at the digicel site... looks like there haven't been any revisions in a while (afaict), and the support boards seem to have been down for a good bit. Not a good sign.

-cook

Meant to post this earlier , but couldn't find it . Just saw it posted on another forum . This still makes me smile ----