# What is the best animation program out there?



## Translucentbill (Dec 12, 2008)

Im thinking on making a little animated short, but i want to be able to add audio and make it look smoothly done, not choppy.

What would be the best program for this... price doesn't exactly matter :]


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## Zenith94 (Dec 12, 2008)

ummm adobe flash cs4


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## Edgedancer (Dec 12, 2008)

I cant think of any great free ones but if you are rich or a pirate then use adobe flash cs4.


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## FAST6191 (Dec 12, 2008)

What do you want to do? For what it is worth you can dub something with audiodub on avisynth ( http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page ) which is free and I can assure you that will work. It also has some features useful for animation.

On the other hand
do you want to make little animated GIF files?
I got used to Beneton Movie GIF: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/benetonmovie.html in that case

Do you want to do "machinima"?
In this case get a copy of fraps (not free but very good) or Taksi (free but lacks audio support last I checked) and a game or three of your choosing.

Do you want custom 3d stuff?
I suggest modding/hacking a game and going the machinima route first but X3D/vrml with a backend using something like terragen http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/ is also possible. Good news is frame rates need not be that high (you can do a demo run) and you can get away with a relatively low end machine.

Do you want stop-motion?
Can be made using a variety of sources but some of the more advanced filters for avisynth (mvtools is what I am looking at but some of the inpainting stuff is well worth a look).

Do you want 2d stuff?
I am not so familiar with this and there are hundreds of variants (how many cartoons have you seen?) but you can use some of the tools already mentioned. You can sometimes butcher a 3d tool into a 2d one as well which makes for some interesting viewing (especially for comedy).

Either way though I suggest you get mightly good at video editing, avisynth (linked above) is my tool of choice and is probably the most powerful non linear editor going.


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## Translucentbill (Dec 12, 2008)

I was flanning to do a frame by frame type deal, like a cartoon animation. Adobe flash CS4 is amazing, the bone tool makes animating about 500% easier 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			







			
				Edgedancer said:
			
		

> I cant think of any great free ones but if you are rich or a *pirate* then use adobe flash cs4.



Why yes i am :]


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## GamerzInc (Dec 13, 2008)

Toon Boom Digital Pro


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## Ducky (Dec 13, 2008)

IMAGE READY!


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## Waddle Dee (Jan 4, 2009)

... Flash, best for animating. Personally, I love the Machinima route, but it's your choice.

*Posts merged*

... Flash, best for animating. Personally, I love the Machinima route, but it's your choice.


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