Have you ever wondered how to make a photo animation, such as the ones you see on TV commercials and music videos? This can be surprisingly difficult to find out. Since I discovered free software for photo animation, I’ve been creating my own for fun and, more recently, small business.
The computer animation industry is worth billions of dollars. It’s big business. At the same time, this is a hobby that anyone can pick up. Maybe you’d like to try out animation, but don’t know how to start . This article will explain in detail how to use free software for photo animation. There are many different types available, depending on the amount of power you need your computer to provide whilst running the graphics card.
Best for Making Stop Motion Videos: Dragonframe
Dragonframe remains one of the best stop motion software solutions for mac today. It’s one of the top choices for many of the world’s largest studios like Laika and Aardman. It can produce high-quality masterpieces in stop motion animation and it is a perfectly suited set of professional tools. The program allows for easy capture of a number of precise movements and you can also compose in light various angles using the camera controls on board. Editing images as well as performing advanced image review techniques can all be done through the program as well.
The process of inserting and editing audio can be done according to a characters needs and based off of the animation that you want to create. The advantage to using some of the precise movements and controls in this program is that you can have a wide array of improvements at your fingertips for professional products.
Best Motion Graphic Animation Software for Mac: After Effects
With a number of motion graphic animation software programs available for Mac, after effects sets itself apart.
Adobe After Effects is truly one of the most masterful programs for any motion graphic artist. Of course many of the features of aftereffects can be found in other Adobe programs, but there is no other piece of software that can be so versatile for the creation of motion graphics. The way to the menus are set up and the way that the program behaves makes it an intuitive leap for 3-D modeling and 2.5 D animation.
The whole goal of aftereffects is to help you produce almost any type of animation that you may want without having to involve 3-D modeling. After effects remains one of the primary pieces of software for motion graphic work in storyboards, motion comics and more. There are elements in this program that are close to Photoshop and illustrator but they have been optimized for the purpose of creating motion graphics here.
With a number of motion graphic animation software programs available for Mac, after effects sets itself apart.
Adobe After Effects is truly one of the most masterful programs for any motion graphic artist. Of course many of the features of aftereffects can be found in other Adobe programs, but there is no other piece of software that can be so versatile for the creation of motion graphics. The way to the menus are set up and the way that the program behaves makes it an intuitive leap for 3-D modeling and 2.5 D animation.
The whole goal of aftereffects is to help you produce almost any type of animation that you may want without having to involve 3-D modeling. After effects remains one of the primary pieces of software for motion graphic work in storyboards, motion comics and more. There are elements in this program that are close to Photoshop and illustrator but they have been optimized for the purpose of creating motion graphics here.
Synfig Studio
Synfig Studio is an open source and a multi-platform free software that allows you to create animations in 2D and its design is quite close to that of Pencil. However, the major difference among the two is the fact that Synfig comes with a sharp learning curve due to its avant-garde features and amazing results which you can definitely achieve once you have mastered using its tools at a professional grade.
The interface of the program is segregated into four separate windows that are, tools window, editing window, navigator window, and parameters window. Once you attain the skills of using the features efficiently, you can create superior quality cartoons, animations, and movies. It is based on vector and bitmap technique.
Since most of its elements are based on vector and all slabs are developed parametrically, only pixelation will appear in the imported raster pictures and not the inherent items when modifying the target result of the project. The keyframes of the animation are automatically appended by the PC which leads to a steady motion.
The artwork will be able to comprehend a far wider variety of pixel glow using the “High-Dynamic Range Imaging” or HDRI which uses the mathematics of floating-point in the image computation, thereby leading to improved lighting effects and color formation. The best part is that the sketching tool already scans the pressure receptiveness route off your favored tablets that helps in natural line weighting and more.
Synfig offers complete support for gradient routes that enables the animator to insert soft shading to his drawing effortlessly without the need of sketching the animation on each frame separately. It also offers a host of layers that includes gradients, transformations, fractal, geometric, etc. Apart from Linux and Mac OS X, Synfig Studio also works with Windows and is available to download for free.
Blender: Best free 3D animation software for beginners
Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux
Blender is a free animation software that experts, scientists, video game developers, studio artists and other professionals in the industry use around the world. This open-source, free 3D animation app has been around for quite some time and has evolved into a sophisticated application.
There is a learning curve involved; beginners may find the free animation app a little unintuitive and it could take you some time to understand all its features and capabilities. However once you get the hang of things, you will find building projects with Blender to be a fun and effortless process.
This free animation software offers tools for modeling, lighting, video operations after conversion, other animation tools and much more. Blender also works across all major platforms and operating systems, making this free 3D animation software perfect for anyone who wants to put in the effort to learn it.
But if you have support for OpenGL, you’ll enjoy smoother workflow and performance.
Pros: Big community; lots of tutorials
Cons: Slow; steep learning curve
What users are saying:
“Go with blender. It’s as powerful, always evolving, and the comminuty is alot bigger. If you need a tutorial for blender it is out there.” – u/theboeboe, Reddit
“…it also is just .. really slow, it doesn’t handle millions of polygons very well, or transforming them. for light weight work it’s fine, but heavy scenes forget it…” – u/Aniso3d, Reddit
Conclusion
Free software – This is a list of freeware and free computer software tools that can be used to create photo animations or slide shows. Many of these tools were created by amateurs and hobbyists with the purpose of creating fun photo slideshows for friends and family for free.