Synfig Animation

As I probably have mentioned before, I would love to go into a career in animation.

Sometime at the end of the school year (I think), I was searching for free, simple animation programs online and I came across this list. I guess I had forgotten about it until now, but I looked at it again and finally downloaded one of them this morning.

The list consisted of 2D, 3D, and photo animation programs. Most on the list are something you have to buy at a store, but a couple are free and you can download them straight from their respective websites. I believe all the 3D programs do cost money (some are relatively cheap) but a three of the 2D programs are free, which is a good thing, considering 2D is probably the simplest, and my preference. 3D is considered mainly for professionals, but I guess a few systems are available to the public. Photo animation.....yeah I've never really thought of that before. Never really heard of it, either. However, some programs are only available to Windows and others to Macintosh, so watch out for that.

According to my dad, animation programs are vector based (also bitmap and stuff) and all sorts of computer words I don't understand. The one I downloaded (Synfig) is probably the most complex out of the three, according to the description, which is why I got it. I read some of the documentation and I had a little trouble finding the tools, but I got as far as drawing two circles and manipulating the radius. It sounds simple, but once you look at the actual program it looks super complicated. I had to stop to read The Crucible (which I finished in a day) but I'll probably take the tutorial and read more of the documentation after I make this post, then fool around with the tools some. Apparently this program is so advanced you can create movie-quality animated shorts (or something longer, if you wanted, I guess). I would put up a short from their website, but I can't even watch it because I don't have Adobe Flash, which stinks.

Oh, and someday, in the way future, I'd love to get one of those pressure-sensitive pens that goes with the tablet that you hook up your computer. Then you can draw on the tablet and it shows up on the computer. That's all I know about it, other than that it's really expensive.

It'll be a long time before I even understand how to use this program.