First of all, it’s important to understand what the difference is between using free editing software for animation and premium editing software. Free editing software is great for beginners who are starting out their animation journey, while the other tools are intended for more experienced animators.
There are many animation software for Windows available on the market today. More and more high quality, lengthy, effects-filled animation movies are being produced by budding animators. However, not everyone can afford the high cost of the above mentioned software. While there are free animation software available on the web, not all of them are professional ones.
Stykz: Best free 2D animation software for stick figures
Platforms: Windows and Mac
As the name suggests, StyStykzkz is the perfect free animation software for stick figures, letting you manipulate vector figures into 2D animation. It works well as a planning tool for your animation. Like most free animation apps on this list, Stykz is cross-platform, running on both Windows and Mac only (but not Linux).
Stykz borrows features from the freeware application PivotStickFigure, including support for STK files. If you’ve already worked on files downloaded in STK format, you can import them into the software. Stykz also lets you work with frames and uses onion-skinning to make them transition naturally.
If you love stick figures, this free 2D animation software is your jam!
Pros: Kid-friendly; powerful for what it does
Cons: Limited to stick figures and very basic shapes
What users are saying:
“Some of my 7th grade students worked on stick animations this last quarter using the #stykz program.” – @npover, Twitter
“excellent software for beginners… thanks” – Kevin Cmaker, Software Informer
“If you feel you like Pivot but want more features then there is Stykz It can actually import projects make in Pivot and be used to make even more advanced videos.” – u/OgdruJahad, Reddit
Pencil
Pencil is a free open-source software that helps you create 2D animation effortlessly. It is easily the most versatile animation program in the 2D category and offers some of the stunning features all for no charges attached. It allows you to bring out your creativity with this simple yet innovative tool through colorful 2D graphics.
Even though its interface looks extremely simple and immaculate, it comes stuffed with all the important tools that are offered by some of the paid programs in the category. While it aids both the bitmap and vector images, it also supports multiple slabs and owns an inherent set of illustration tools that helps you to bring in graphic pictures or draw them on the spot prior to the animation part.
Some of the other features offered by Pencil includes determining the frame rate, sound and image import, adding colors and more. As an added bonus, this program also helps you to export your graphics too .FLV, Flash Video (SWF), Movie and to many other formats.
Plastic Animation Paper
One of the best 2D animation software around, Plastic Animation Paper offers you uncomplicated and powerful tools to convert your ideas into beautiful cartoons and animation in 2D for no charge. This program is created for those expert animators who need a quick and compelling solution, apart from being instinctive and extremely easy to work with.
Plastic Animation Paper manages your swift sketching movements, your process of rough sketches and space where you animate. It provides you real-time suggestions and an easy process that helps you to analyze your concepts for a particular movement quickly, a specific character or your upcoming action sequence and helps you to easily create it with your hand.
Among its key features is the sketching space, adding color to the sketch, setting the frame speed, zooming in and out, insert music and more. Once you are finished drawing you can save them in different formats, viz. AVI, PNG, TGA, GIF and other formats. While this software is available for Mac OS X and as an iPad app, it is also available for download for Windows PC absolutely free of cost.
Blender
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux
Use Blender if you’re looking for the best video animation software for pro editors and creators. The free open-source 3D animation tool supports the “modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing, and 2D animation pipeline.” The platform is a public project, and creatives from all over the world contribute to its ongoing maintenance.
Let’s talk features.
- Rendering: Cycles is Blender’s ray-trace based production render engine, FreeStyle is an edge- and line-based non-photorealistic (NPR) rendering engine, and real-time feedback speeds up the editing process.
- Modeling: Blender’s modeling tools include sculpting, retopology, modeling, curves, and more to help with editing models.
- Sculpting: Digital sculpting tools flexible for each stage of the digital production pipeline.
- Animation and rigging: These tools include a character animation pose editor, Non Linear Animation (NLA) for independent movements, IK forward/inverse kinematics for fast poses, and sound synchronization.
- Grease pencil: Draw directly in 3D and combine 2D/3D art.
- VFX: From camera and object motion tracking to masking and compositing, there are lots of fixes you can make in post-prod.
- Simulation: Create simulations for fog, smoke, rain, fire, liquid, and more.
- Pipeline: Choose from a long list of import/export options.
- Video editing: A built-in video editor allows for basic actions like video cuts and splicing and more complex tasks like video masking or color grading.
Yeah, that’s a lot. Blender is a comprehensive tool. And it’s all free.
Editor’s note: We also review Blender, along with 21 other video-editing tools, in this review.
OpenToonz
Platforms: Windows, Mac, and Linux
OpenToonz is one of the top free animation software for 2D videos. The open-source software is free for both commercial and non-commercial use, so you can use it to create marketing videos for your brand.
It’s also packed with features, such as:
- Digital drawing tools: vector and bitmap drawing tools
- Indexed color palettes: quick paint and color changing
- Effects and compositing: animated special effects and composite scenes — choose from blurs, lighting, keys, masks, warps, and more than 100 other effects
- Scripting: automations via ECMA-compatible scripting engine
- Motion tracking: combine your animation with video footage
- Scan and cleanup: create vectors from paper drawings
- Frame-by-frame animation: with configurable onionskin
- Motion tweening: link objects or use motion paths to execute complex movements
- Bones character animation: with IK support and mesh deformations
- Particle systems: for rain, dust, and similar effects
You can make some pretty advanced animations with this tool.
Conclusion
It’s important that you use the software that gives the best product to the work you are doing. When it comes to producing high quality animation, free editing software for animation does not give you that kind of product. You might be forced into using Photoshop or Sketch but this is something that will just ruin what you are doing and get ready for a lot more work than you expected.