Animation for kids

[INFRATOM]

My son wants to make animation movies, he is 12. Any suggestions or ready packages out there. I tried to show him how to do with camera and editing forgot he was 12. Appreciate your opinion on the subject. May come useful to some hobbist too. Thanks

[reboot]

Paintshop Pro. Comes with Animation shop.
Make any image (or 2 or 3) in Paint (or PSP/other) load them up, select delay, transitions, background, export as animated .gif or .avi
Simple to use, but not the most powerful.

[ROF]

Disney's Magic Artist Studio is perfect for kids. You may even find yourself playing with the software.

[INFRATOM]

Thanks for quick reply, I will look into those SW but he wants to animate his action figures so it involves webcam type of camera , pictures , shortclips and some sort of editing SW. His friend brought something from France like a web cam that does this here I couldn't find it sofar and his friend bought this couple of years ago too.

[reboot]

Kodak also put out software at one time.
If you have a webcam, just record a whole bunch of short clips, each one with the figure in a slightly different position.
Import them all into something like VCDEasy, and make mpeg's from each still, then join them.
You could just as easily import each still into PSP or Magic Artist, and create the ani
For editing, you're only doing stills, not movies, so any graphics editor will work, Gimp is free.
Once you have the pictures all sorted, then something to turn stills to mpg or avi is all you need.
I think even virtualdubmod may do it.

[ROF]

Thanks for quick reply, I will look into those SW but he wants to animate his action figures so it involves webcam type of camera , pictures , shortclips and some sort of editing SW. His friend brought something from France like a web cam that does this here I couldn't find it sofar and his friend bought this couple of years ago too.

The disney package does all of this. You can even import hand drawn images via a scanner. I bought it for my nephew, but I've used it more then he has.