i've only ever made one animation (this) a few years ago, and all i rly used was paint tool sai as i don't have any animation programs and it's the only drawing program i know how to use i just put all the frames together in filmora
Just curious about everyone's choice in animation software and why.
I personally use pencil 2d, it's cool because it's free and open source. Unfortunately, it doesn't have many of the features I would like it to have (like opacity for layers and different brushes rip). I'm okay with getting around these limitations though and have been able to produce animations that I'm fairly happy with.
Edit: I might write all these down since they could be a good reference.
Animation Software: WIP
Free:
Fire alpaca: (better for beginners)
Pros: Completely free, available for both Mac and Windows, lots of tools, can create gifs, multiple languages.
Cons: Can only really create gifs, mainly aimed at creating art not animation
Opentoonz: (better for more experienced animators)
Pros: Opensource software, available for both Mac and Windows, dedicated animation software, lots of tools and effects
Cons: A little more on the complex side
Pencil2d:
Krita:
Flipaclip: (app!)
Paid:
Adobe animate:
Adobe After Effects:
Clip studio Paint:
Photoshop:
Toon Boom:
Editing software: (for putting together individual drawings and animating them that way)
Hitfilm express:
Filmora:
FireAlpaca has animation tools, and they're certainly not professional level but you still get all of FireAlpaca's art features except now you can make gifs and stuff! You can also probably import the frames into other animation programs, but I've never tried
(Oh, and it's free!)
I use Clip Studio Paint EX :) its both a drawing and animation program so its fairly easy to use. It's not free but it's really worth it, some time they go on sale for 50% off, you can do so much with it my proudest one is this
I used to use flash! I loveeeee how simple and clean vector graphics look =w= out of everything it's definitely the most appealing to me!
Too bad hardly anyone uses it now tho T^T
Adobe After Affects, FlashCS6 (sometimes), I tried live2d until the free edition gave me intense limitations, Adobe Animate CC but barely, and Firealpaca. If anyone is curious on how to use any of them i'm glad to inform you!
Aseprite for pixel art and sometimes other stuff! Sometimes FireAlpaca too, and I'd like to use CSP but idk how it works in animations
I use flipaclip on ipad, though it’s for casual use. I’m shook no one said krita yet? Definitely a better option than firealpaca if your computer can run it, it’s free and it’s great. It has a few letdowns like having pixelly borders if the background is transparent, butyou can do professional looking animations no problem
So I've been in the animation business for a while and most of the professionals use either Toon Boom because of the easy acces library and switch between vector and bitmap animation.
Or TVpaint for better brushes, effects and easy work flow. Now these are both pretty expensive programs, I myself kinda move more towards TVpaint because it's a bit easier for me and i've been taught in it.
I used to animate in photoshop which is fine for like small animation like characters blinking or smiling or what not, but yeah after I got the hang of tvpaint most of my bulk work is in that program.
I've used krita all most of my life
Krita keeps all the abilities you can use when drawing even when you switch to animation mode, and if you change your mind halfway and decide you want it to be a drawing and not a animation(or vise versa) you can just change modes and it doesn't affect its quality! but there is a possible downside, when i export it to an mp4, the quality diminishes greatly(gifs look great though!), I'm not sure if this is actually a problem with krita itself or if I'm doing something wrong, but thats just something I've observed