Where can I find freeware/cheap animation software for my mac?

Question

Hi there,

I'm trying to find some freeware OR cheap animation software to create 3D animations on my mac, I'm wanting it to make movies for the web, I'd be curious to know what was used to create the "Foamy" episodes because that's the sort of thing I'm after.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

That's a little bit of a strange question because you're asking for 3D software when Foamy is 2D animation. Foamy most likely uses Adoby Flash.

Blender is probably the most popular free CGI program out there right now, and it does have a Mac OS build.

http://www.blender.org/download/get-blen...

But if you want to do 2D animation, you might find all it's features and interface both overwhelming and overkill for what you want to achieve.

Some of the better commercial 2D animation programs such as Digicel Flipbook, Toon Boom, TVPaint, TAB, and PAP, have Student or Express versions that are fairly inexpensive. However, you might be disappointed by how crippled these stripped down programs are compared to their more expensive Pro versions. But if you look hard enough you should be able to find them cracked online (rapidshare, bittorrent). There is a free alternative.

If you're on a Mac, use Pencil.

http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil...

Here are some online resources about the basic principles of animation.

http://www.idleworm.com/how/index.shtml

http://www.awn.com/tooninstitute/lessonp...

http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/...

http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05/...

http://www.karmatoons.com/drawing/1a.htm

http://w ww.animationarena.com/principles-of-anim...

http://w ww.animationmeat.com/notes/notes.html