Creating animations?

[Rudyard]

I was wondering if there was any programs that allowed you to create cartoons or animated stories. Im talking dodgy home made stuff for fun not technical lyp synched Disney adventures.

With my DVD burner came some software called Ulead Cool 3d and it says it is for intros and animated titles.

I mucked around for a short time but was curious if that is the sort of program you could use to make little scenes and then import the rendered files into an authoring program to make a little story.

Is this the type of program to use for such a thing? (picture an amature sort of south park, the characters dont have to have proper fluid motions or anything, just shapes to represent that can move).

Or is there a different sort of software to allow simple animation? Or am I in way over my head and there is nothing in way of a 'beginners fun animation program'?

[edDV]

Animation covers alot of territory. This link may help you narrow the field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_animation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_generated_imagery

[guns1inger]

There are a few, but how successful you will be depends on how good an artist you are.

You will have to google for most of these to see if they are what you are after, but a starting list would include

Moho
Project Dogwaffle
Toon Boom
Anim8or
Flash

Try searching for Animation Software i google and you will get pages, from 2d to 3d, tradition cel, stop motion capture etc. Lots out there.

[thecoalman]

You can use Cool 3-D for that. May take a while to learn the intricaies of making it animate properly... and no you're not going to make any walk. Even lip movement although not impossible is tough to achieve. Motion can be very fluid though. One of the keys to using that is grouping objects correctly. Let's say you have a head. You're going to want to groupa all the compnonent together. if you have a lips a subgroup containg the lips.... it's really hard to explain...

This was made using Cool 3-D Production, not sure how it differs from normal Cool 3-d. It's just a first draft for a opening sequence on a DVD. The motion is not completely fluid in some parts but that has been fixed since but I don't have a video of it.

http://www.40lbhead.com/misc/test.wmv

[Rudyard]

Thanks, I will read through the links and information do some experiments and see where It takes me.

[Bjs]

Movies13 by jansoft for gif type creation's
Blender for just about anything .
Wings3d for 3d modeling
Wax2 for more .

Anim8or , been there , done that .

These were available on pc user / apc magazine's a while back in au .

Vue , not free , came out before last month either on pc user or apc magazine .
Amapi 3d , not free , was on a derwent & howard cd issue , dec 2005 (issue 19) .

Which remind's me ... no one talk's about gmax ? , I'll fire it up later now my pc is all cleaned out .

World builder pro was available on pc world magazine nov 2003 .

And I have another 30+ , mostly freeware ..

I once wrote a guide on what each program could write too and read , for those wanting to convert 3d model's ... buried here amongst 100's of disc's .

I'm a mad sports car gt fan from way back ... and the funny thing is this game runs under xp without fault ... pity some of the newer one's dont .

Alway's playing over lan ...

Also look for fly3d ... I was tinkering about in that game engine 3 year's ago and had thing's flying all over the place ...

For an idea : http://hometown.aol.de/HopfHoppel/index.htm
For program : http://fabio.policarpo.nom.br/fly3d/index.htm

I think fly3d will be all you need ... once you get used to it ... that will depend on how much time you have to spend learning it , and from the sample's .

[Rudyard]

Wow, thanks so much Bj's I will give it a try!