Beginner Animation Software

[Sandra5F9F]

Hello all,

My daughter is 16 years old and is an amazing sketch artist and has done a few small animations using Flip a Clip but wants to learn more.  What do you all recommend as a beginner software tool to sketch and animate?  Also, are there any classes available that she can take?  Should she use Adobe products or is there an easier/beginner software she should start out with?

Thank you all for your feedbac

[kglad]

if i were her father, i'd start with free software until i was sure this is more than a hobby, The 11 best free-to-download animation programs in 2020 | Freelancer.com

[rayek.elfin]

That is an incredibly outdated list stemming from 2013, only stamp dated to this year to keep traffic to it going.  It does not even include OpenToonz or Tahoma2D, or krita.

I do concur with you that it is best to avoid investing any money in animation software if you are a beginner - and in particular now that professional level open source free 2d alternatives such as OpenToonz and Tahoma2d have become available in the past few years. Krita is also pretty good for frame-by-frame bitmap animation. (Tahoma2d is a simplified version of OpenToonz, btw). Many tutorials to be found on YouTube.

https://tahoma2d.org/

https://opentoonz.github.io/e/

https://krita.org/en/

Blender is also incredibly good at 3d animation (and becoming a 2d animation option as well). But much harder to learn.

[Torkil MB]

If you do pay for Adobe products already and have accses to "Animate" i would recomend using that. i've been using "Animate" for 9 years and still use it to this day (for hobby and mostly work related things now).

i've heard Blender (free software) has become much easier to learn with their new interface and more and more people is using it as a 2D program.

"Krita" (free software) is also a amazing free drawing software i have heard lots of good stuff about.

I use "Clip Studio Paint" myself and it has a one time purches plus it goes on sale very often, i would recomend for drawing and sketching because most people i know use it.

[kglad]

here's a video discussing using animate for animation, (174) Adobe Animate - Is It Right For You? - YouTube