You’re new to animation or want to learn the latest software. Good thing the internet has tons of useful resources for beginners and experienced animators alike. You can find a variety of free open source animation tools online that you can download for free and use to create your own animations.
Want to learn about free open source animation software download? Or about best free open source animation software? Check out these free open source animation software. You can find the list of best open source animation software on this website.
Blender
Blender is so good, so good to the level that people have been wondering how can it be open source and free? And the first one that comes to mind when talking about open source 3D modeling tools.
It is a fully-fledged 3D modeling and animation software that supports almost anything any animator can think of:
- Texture mapping.
- Raster graphics editing and creation.
- Rigging and skinning of objects.
- Fluid and smoke control systems already built-in.
- Particle simulation and control.
- Visual effects composition.
- Objects sculpting from defined materials.
- Rendering in different supported engines.
- Motion graphics capture and creation.
For rendering, Blender supports NVIDIA CUDA technology for NVIDIA graphics cards, and supports OpenCL rendering for Intel IRS and AMD graphics cards. Version 3.0 of the software is expected to land soon with tons of new improvement.
Blender was released back in 1994, making it one of the oldest open source software available in the world. It is licensed under the GPL license, and written in C, C++ and Python programming language.
Pencil
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux
When it comes to free and open-source 2D animation programs, Pencil is by far the most well-rounded and comes with a surprising number of features given that it comes with no charge.
Although it looks simple from the clean interface, it is packed with all the main tools you’ll find in some of the Pencil’s paid counterparts. It supports both vector and bitmap images, multiple layers and has its own in-built illustration tools (so you can either import graphics or create them right there and then before animating them).
Synfig Studios
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux
Right up there with Pencil, Synfig is very similar in design but arguably comes with a steeper learning curve; reason being, it throws in even more advanced features, and the results which can be achieved once you master them border on the professional level.
Stykz
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux
Given the above two open-source suites which offer an impressive level functionality, why are we featuring a simple stickman animation tool?
Simply put, Stykz has got a lot of use for anyone who likes to draft things out before getting down to fully-fledged artwork and animating. It’s completely free with no strings attached, works on any platform and can produce fluid .GIFs incredibly quickly (which will no doubt lead on to bigger things).
One particularly neat feature is that it also integrates with Pivot, another node-based (and free) animation tool.
OpenToonz
Opentoonz is one of the best free animation software for beginners. It helps coming animators to create beautiful 2D animations and sketches. It also provides many other plugins for to apply different effects such as SDK that allow animators to completely alter animations, tweak color, distortion and more. It is open source and free to download used for both small projects and commercial films. Opentoonz is also compatible with different operating systems including Windows and Mac OS, system requirements are mentioned below. Following are some standout features of OpenToonz:
- Create animations with multiple effects
- Allows you to change the incident light on your animations
- Create a wavy distortion animation for a more detailed 2D animation
- It allows you to create new function to meet the on-site demands of any commercial project
K-3D
K-3D is an intuitive animation software which both new users and professionals will find easy to navigate and use. It is a completely free and one of the best 3d animation software that is released under the GNU public license, and is written completely in C++ keeping in mind that it can be used on multiple platforms. As a 3D animation and modelling application, K-3D is quite powerful while providing versatile and basic animation features. Not only can you use this free 3d modeling software on a Windows operating system, but K-3D is compatible with Mac OS, FreeBSD, Linux/GNU, and other platforms as well. K-3D isn’t only versatile but extremely flexible as it allows users to create complex workflows combining different animation models, mirroring different sides, or applying changes to the entire workflow and watch as all the changes are applied automatically. Following are some standout features of K-3D:
- Has many interactive tutorials and macros available
- Allows playback animation at any time during the modelling
- Provides many viewing angles that let you pan, tilt, zoom in or out
- Rendering is pretty powerful for K-3D
- Create 2D compositions instead of 3D animation
CreaToon
OS: Windows
An entry-level animation program, CreaToon is cut-out based (all graphics are imported) that takes a lot of the headache out of creating cartoon-esque animation. While it isn’t quite as polished as some of the other names on this list, the real-time editing, auto in-frame filling and versatile file format support are real pulls.
Ajax Animator
OS: Windows, Mac, iPad
Not to be confused with the coding language, Ajax started life back in 2006 and was developed by a 6th grader as a replacement to Adobe’s expensive Flash MX. From such auspicious beginnings emerged a robust and fully functional animator that is well worth checking out despite its primitive look, especially if you’re an iPad user.
Maefloresta Tupitube
It features Rotoscoping, Stop Motion, Frame-by-frame Animation, Cut-out Animation, Hand-Drawn Animation and Virtual Assist. This tool is popular among kids, students, teachers and is good enough for creating simplistic design and UI, cut-out animation, rotoscoping and stop-motion animation.
Adobe Animate
It is a free animation software that helps design interactive vector and bitmap animations. It supports export to HTML5 Canvas, Flash/Adobe WebGL, SVG, and AIR. It has powerful toolset for animation that lets users create apps, multimedia content, and ads. It can be used to build game environments, integrate audio, and design start screens and interfaces. It has a simple frame-by-frame animation, and users can code right inside the projects. It features Asset Sculpting, Layer Control, Auto Lip-Sync, VR Authoring and Publishing. It saves Animate documents (FLAs and XFLs) incrementally. It comes with a quick auto-recovery mode. It helps to export images with the right resolution. It enhances asset warping. It optimizes text atlas outputs, generates multiple bitmaps and retains the audio effects when you split the audio, which is imported. This tool can also be used to create secure AMP-based ads and blend modes applied at the layer or frame level.
Conclusion:
Anyone can make a cartoon, regardless of whether you’re a student, teacher, stay-at-home parent, or somewhere else on the world. There are open source animation software out there that allow you to create cartoons. You don’t need to be a professional animator; you don’t even need to be very artistic. It’s pretty easy to do.