animation tips and tricks

Probably a more recommended route to take forabsolute beginners, since you can start quicker and more on the cheap side.

The two programs I would suggest you start with areFlashorPhotoshop. The reason for that is that they are cheap and accessible. You can get either for $19 a month, including a free trial month

For the more traditional oriented aspiring animators, the Timeline feature in Photoshop allows you to animate frame by frame, and since its Photoshop youre getting one of the best drawing/painting capabilities out there. It has onion skinning settings and could be an awesome tool to start experimenting in 2D animation with.

The good thing about using Flash or Photoshop is that you dont need some crazy monster computer to use them, any modern machine should be able to do the trick.

Ive written aboutthe merits of animating with a tablet, and for 2D animation I cant imagine doing it with a mouse. The price of theIntuos Pro(our tablet of choice) might scare you, but for about $70 you can get theIntuos Penwhich is great for beginners.

If youre looking to get into 3D animation, the road isa bit more complex, but Ill try to help you make sense of the journey ahead of you.

Much more accessible and easy to learn, also cheaper and comes for free with Adobe After Effects (A lite version). Although used mostly for motion graphics, Cinema can be used for other types of animation and is fun to play around with.

Since this is a beginners guide I figured Ill include Blender since its free to download, and there are plenty of tutorials out there so nothing is stopping you from animating right now for free.