Hey y'all. I'm interested in making a frame by frame animation, and I would like to know what others here use, what you think of your software, and what you recommend I do.

I tried making each frame in SAI and turning it into a gif using an internet-based program but it was incredibly tedious to have to save each frame as its individual picture, and now that I need to edit it it's going to be even more difficult.

I saw some software after a quick google search such as "Pencil" and "Plastic Animation Paper", and for the time being I'm just gonna fiddle around with one of these, but I wanted to come to the artists here to see what you use first. Thanks!

use flash

Pencil is a nice starting point! The landscape of animation software has changed a bit since I last had a look at it, and as far as I know pencil doesn't get updated these days, but it couldn't hurt.

http://my.smithmicro.com/anime-studio-debut-trial.html

Has 30-day trial

I've used Greenfish Icon Editor Pro (it's free, despite the PRO). Also, while it also can work with icons you can set it to open large images (I have mine set to crop images above 5000x5000px).

I have no idea if it has tablet support but you can create the images individually on other program and add them later to GFIE and compile a GIF

Misappropriated said:
Pencil is a nice starting point! The landscape of animation software has changed a bit since I last had a look at it, and as far as I know pencil doesn't get updated these days, but it couldn't hurt.

It does, actually. http://www.maefloresta.com/portal/
<- Tupi is a fork of Pencil which is updated.

What you should use depends a lot on your needs.
If you just want to draw a handful of frames and throw them together into an animation, anything will do really; personally in that case of 'simple handful of frames', GIMP's built in animation (which uses one layer per frame) might suit your needs, if SAI can save as PSD.

If things needed to be more sophisticated, I would use one of:

• ✓GIMP-GAP (for complex raster/pixel art animations)
• Flash (for complex vector animations)
• ✓GrafX2 (for pixel art animations)
• MTPaint (for complex pixel art animations)
• SynFig (for complex vector animations)

I might also use any of

• ✓MyPaint (CG mostly; touchup; pixel art roughs)
• ✓Inkscape (Vectors / silhouettes)
• Krita (CG, Pixel art)
• GIMP (CG / touchup)
• ✓Blender (anything I can get away with 3d-rendering, especially with use of FreeStyle)

to complete rendering individual frames.

(items marked ✓ are the ones I consider most usable)

Animation support in Krita is currently under development, but not available yet.

There are other programs too of course. Being more specific about exactly what you want will enable people to give you better advice.

savageorange said:
It does, actually. http://www.maefloresta.com/portal/
<- Tupi is a fork of Pencil which is updated.

What you should use depends a lot on your needs.
If you just want to draw a handful of frames and throw them together into an animation, anything will do really; personally in that case of 'simple handful of frames', GIMP's built in animation (which uses one layer per frame) might suit your needs, if SAI can save as PSD.

If things needed to be more sophisticated, I would use one of:

• ✓GIMP-GAP (for complex raster/pixel art animations)
• Flash (for complex vector animations)
• ✓GrafX2 (for pixel art animations)
• MTPaint (for complex pixel art animations)
• SynFig (for complex vector animations)

I might also use any of

• ✓MyPaint (CG mostly; touchup; pixel art roughs)
• ✓Inkscape (Vectors / silhouettes)
• Krita (CG, Pixel art)
• GIMP (CG / touchup)
• ✓Blender (anything I can get away with 3d-rendering, especially with use of FreeStyle)

to complete rendering individual frames.

(items marked ✓ are the ones I consider most usable)

Animation support in Krita is currently under development, but not available yet.

There are other programs too of course. Being more specific about exactly what you want will enable people to give you better advice.

Thank you for your thorough response and all of you for your quick replies.

Right now, I am using SAI to make my static art. I tried making an animation with it, and it was difficult to do due to the fact that SAI, to my knowledge, does not have the ability to export files in animated formats with the layers as frames like GIMP does. This animation is a really rough "sketch" made by saving each frame as an individual picture and throwing them together in an internet based gif making program. http://makeagif.com/31Jb_f

The problem I'm having with this method is that it's incredibly difficult to make quick edits to this without going through the entire process again and again.

Essentially, I want to be able to create lineart-y animations much like one would make a static image in SAI. In all truth I have no animation experience but I think I understand the basic method, and want to test the waters and see how far I can make it. I'm thinking I will be making both short loops and longer animations, but I'm still really new to this whole field.

I really appreciate any advice and help, and I apologize if my noobishness is an inconvenience here.

Helium2 said:
Thank you for your thorough response and all of you for your quick replies.

Right now, I am using SAI to make my static art. I tried making an animation with it, and it was difficult to do due to the fact that SAI, to my knowledge, does not have the ability to export files in animated formats with the layers as frames like GIMP does. This animation is a really rough "sketch" made by saving each frame as an individual picture and throwing them together in an internet based gif making program. http://makeagif.com/31Jb_f

Okay, now that I have more specifics on your situation, I can be clear that online gif compilers will never cut it.

However, I'd like to also point out that what you want isn't a gif, just an animation. Like.. when you're happy with the animation, you might export it as a gif, but while you're polishing it, you just need to be able to -play it back-. Many programs above include this capability. GIF is a detail you only need to care about when you're ready to stick it in a website.

Essentially, I want to be able to create lineart-y animations much like one would make a static image in SAI. In all truth I have no animation experience but I think I understand the basic method, and want to test the waters and see how far I can make it. I'm thinking I will be making both short loops and longer animations, but I'm still really new to this whole field.

IMO, at this stage in your animation learning process, using GIMP's built in animation system is probably going to work fine for you. Later, when you have more specific needs (like multiple layers per frame), you could consider GIMP-GAP or something else.
SAI definitely has nicer brush rendering and some other stuff, but since you don't seem to be using that aspect of it much, I figure that GIMP will do just as well.

With GIMP, the animation system either uses default timing (100ms/frame), or it uses information in your layers to determine how long each frame is displayed -- eg if your layer name contains (500ms), then that frame is displayed for 500ms (ie. half a second).
You can assign a keyboard shortcut to Filters->Animation->Playback , and press it whenever you want to see the animation playing. The Playback function includes a time-zoom option that lets you speed up or slow down the playback of your animation.

You can try loading a short GIF animation you like into GIMP, and progressively changing the layer names, playing it back each time, to get a grip on how it works.

I can't comment too much on Pencil or TUPI as I have tried them but was unable to get them to do what I wanted. TUPI may have improved since then.