Anim8or
Quick and Fast: Basic program with essential functions. Good for new animators, but VERY useful for pros who don’t have the money yet.
Where you get it: Anim8or.com
Anim8or is a very good 3D program for being freeware! It doesn’t shove a whole ton of mysterious folders on your hard drive. Even now, I can only find two files, the PDF User’s Manual, and the program itself. You can do most of the basic stuff, but many of the nice little things the big programs have aren’t there. To me, the material textures leave something to be desired. This is probably one thing that would be in the mysterious folders you don’t have.
What else is so great about this program? It can import projects from various Pro 3D software: Lightwave 3D and 3Ds Max included. If your mainstay 3D software is sick for a few days, you can simply import your project into Anim8or and keep going. What an asset!
Tutorials: I HIGHLY recommend doing the first three tutorials on the website: How to Make an Eggplant, Modeling a Hand and A Simple Walk. Go to http://www.anim8or.com/main/index.html
Also watch the Easy Eyes movie on the movie page and skim through the other tutorials. Go to http://www.anim8or.com/main/index.html
Don’t forget to download the PDF User’s Manual on the Downloads page. It helps a lot! http://www.anim8or.com/main/index.html
License and Use: You own anything you make in Anim8or. To view the license, go to About > License in the program.
Demo: This is a video of the Alien Ships from my latest short film, Earthling (coming out sometime soon, I hope). I rendered an AVI using 75% compression, and the animation is a little off, but that’s me, not the program.
The starry background comes from http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/, which has free website graphics.
