Software Research

When I was in my teens and the Nintendo 3DS had just come out, by brother bought one and let me play with it. There was an animation application he had on it that absolutely fascinated me-Flipnote Studio. I spent hours making animations of eggs frying and rain falling and people blinking with that program. I didn't realize it at the time, but what I was creating was very amateur hand-drawn animation.

For my capstone animation, I've really had to think about how I want to produce the artwork. I've never had an actual animation class, but I've had a good amount of experience with art, design, and film. However, not having a class in animation means that I don't know what software is or isn't effective. With art production begining in the coming week, I've had to do some research about animation software (specifically for 2D).

The two professional level software that continuously came up in my research as being reliable and trusted by professional companies and individual animators were Toon Boom Harmony and DigiCel FlipBook. (Another one that came up a lot was Anime Studio Pro, but that program does not let you animate frame-by-frame which is what I am doing with my animation.) Comparing the two programs, for 2D animation they both seem to be able to work effectively and do basically the same things. Both have a free trial as well, and I am considering trying both in the coming week to compare the work flow and see if I could use one for my own animation. 

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More about Harmony
More about FlipBook