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Animation Software

A number of animation software applications have become available over the past few years, each with their own individual strengths. While we are a video magazine that does not even pretend to specialize in animation, we can get you started in the right direction. Let's take a broad look at some of the animation software applications for producing your own animations.

There are a wide variety of animation software applications you can use to create banners, interactive presentations for the Web, animated logos, opening titles for your production or even your own animated short subject. Most are specialized for certain tasks, for example rotoscoping, Web animation or 3D characters.

Rotoscoping is the oldest animation technique that involves drawing individual frames one at a time. Of course the computer has updated the art, and products like Curious Software's gFx have advanced drawing tools like cloning and automation that, in the hands of an artist, do wonderful things.

A number of animation software programs have a feature called "onion skin," duplicating a practice used by traditional animators using onion skin paper. With hand-drawn animation, very thin paper allows the artists to easily compare the frames that they're drawing as they put their objects into motion. The digital equivalent makes one of the images appear subtly in the background of the animation workspace, allowing you to quickly compare frames of animation. In computer animation, an onion skin feature is a real boon, as you'll see if you use Ulead's Video Paint module (included with their Media Studio Pro editing suite). One benefit of animating with a computer is that you can copy and paste elements from one frame to another, which makes the rotoscoping process go significantly faster.

Web animation is a category of animation all by itself, but many of the tools used to create high quality Web animations work very well in the video realm as well. Like video editing applications, animation software generally relies on a timeline metaphor to control the presentation. Some elements of the interface have slightly different names than you may not be familiar with, but it doesn't take too long to adapt to the interfaces of most applications. For example, Macromedia's Director MX has operatic names for different parts of the interface, including "the stage" (the main work or preview area), "cast members" (the various media elements or clips) and "the score" (a.k.a. the timeline). Interestingly, Macromedia's own Flash MX does call this area "the timeline."

Generally, these applications work with vector objects, which are images that are defined by their outside edges. This is in contrast with raster images, which you'd be working with when you draw individual strokes in a rotoscoping application. Vector image animation is very powerful, especially for logos and text.

Tweening (short for "in-betweening") allows you to move objects and control their characteristics automatically over time. Tweening generally involves placing keyframes on the timeline of your project and allowing the software to interpolate the animation between the keyframes. Keyframes can control anything from motion to transparency to the saturation of an object. Keyframe animation is a powerful feature that is well worth learning.

As a subset of 3D animation in general, 3D text is one of the easiest ways to get into animation for your video. Some applications, like Ulead's COOL 3D Production Studio, include tools for building your own 3D objects, such as the lathe tool, which allows you to define the curves of an object along a line of symmetry. COOL 3D also includes a wide selection of backgrounds, textures and particle effects to help get you started.

True 3D animation requires more than just the right software. You need to be talented, motivated and a college degree in 3D graphic arts wouldn't hurt. The software that the professionals use to create feature films is, more or less, available to everyone. You'll need a top tier computer and a lot of time to master this art.

There are some accessible options however. Hash Animation: Master and Curious Labs Poser are two of our favorite character animation packages. Both are affordable and, more importantly, accessible. Don't be fooled, however: these programs are at least as complex as your video editing application and require an equivalent amount of dedication.