I've been tasked with creating a simple animation. To be a little more specific, an opening animation for a youtube channel. He has given me a basic idea, but what program(s) does everyone recommend? I'm looking for either free software, or something in the Adobe Creative Suite.
What say you?
Just a little bump out of desperation.
Is it a 3D animation you are trying to do? I think Blender would be the best free program for that. I personally haven't used it, but I know that there's a ton of tutorials on how to use it for animation on YouTube.
Also should also check out Adobe After Effects and Adobe Animate. These are more for visual effects and 2D animation respectively.
It's possible to use AE (AfterEffects) to animate (or Apple's Motion, if you- like me- are using a Mac), but it heavily depends on what you're trying to do whether it's worth it or if you need something specialized.
If you're trying to do character animation? Yes, it's possible with the more traditional motion graphics programs like AE, but it's going to be a LOT of work since they're generally not designed for that. For animating characters, I'd look into a program specifically intended for that.
If all you're trying to do is have logos, pictures, shapes, text, etc. and such flying around the screen, changing shape, and things like that- AE/Motion will have you covered quite handily.
AE is unfortunatley not cheap, though it's generally only available these days as a subscription- and if you're only going to need to use it once you may be able to just start a free trial and do it quickly. I'm not really aware of truly free or really cheap motion graphics programs... it's something that is generally not used by the general public so there's not a lot of cheap/free options (unlike Photoshop/gIMP). If you have a Mac and can use Motion, it's only about $50.
Adobe does have Animate (!), which used to be called Flash. I would not call it super approachable for a beginner though. As mentioned, there is After Effects, which can be SUPER intimidating if you don't know what you are getting into. There are plenty of YouTube tutorials on both, so you could browse those.
AE is more of a title / special effects video editor. Animate is a (generally) vector (as apposed to bit mapped) based editor and does export to video I believe.
If you want super simple, you can even export video from a PowerPoint (wmv format). You could actually do something that looks pretty slick if you do it right (you will need to get very familiar with the animation pain).
DrBoost I have an example to show you my son made on Adobe Animate CC. I can't seem to post it here but can email it to you if you like?
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