Useful Stuff for Animators

What might you need to continue making your own animations? Well, a computer, a camera, a light and things to animate.

Animation Software
At Red Kite Workshops we usually use I Can Animate (PC/Mac) This great program is used by many schools in Scotland and is available for PC or Mac. You can download a trial version and then buy it online. Another brilliant and new program is Zu3D (PC only) You can edit and add music, sound and titles in this great, and cheap program.

iStopMotion is also a great program for Mac only.

There are some great free programs too. A brilliant one for the PC is called Helium Frog, just download it and try. MonkeyJam is another cool program. Both these programs will work with most webcams or a DV Camcorder.

Scratch is a completely free Windows or Mac software you can use to make your own stories, games and animations.

www.yoyogames.com is a great website for making your own games. All the software is provided and if you want to make something truly original, bring in your own artwork for characters and backgrounds.

Another brilliant 2D animation software is Animation-Ish, made by Toon Boom.




Building your own "Cut-Out" characters to animate
Heres a help sheet that we give out at the workshops. It has lots of information on how to design your own characters and what to think about. Click the picture below to bring up the Pop Up window.

Editing your animation
Windows (PC)
Windows Movie Maker is a free video editing program for Windows XP or above. If you animate with MonkeyJam or any other software, you can put clips together with music and sound effects with Movie Maker. If you have Windows XP, you may already have Movie maker installed, as it comes with the operating system. Click here to download.

Mac (OSX)
For Mac OSX users, you can edit video using "iMovie" that comes with the system.