What software do people use to make animated videos these days?

October 4, 2013 6:17 PM

The Internet! Full of fun, narrated explainer videos that usually involve some kind of simple 2D animation (sometimes hand-drawn, sometimes cobbled together from other images) with a voice-over. But how are people making them? If Flash is in terminal decline, as I keep hearing, what are the most popular software tools for piecing together 2D online animation?
posted by bicyclefish to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

I didn't watch all those videos, but the bits that I did watch could have been done with Powerpoint and screencasted. I have created several "animated" videos in this manner (using Camtasia, because these are videos for my company's software) and they came out nicely, much to my surprise. It's amazing what you can do with Powerpoint animations!
posted by radioamy at 6:52 PM on October 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

I use a combination of Adobe After Effects and Camtasia to do similar things as CGP Grey and Crash Course. Here's a graphic I did in the style of Crash Course thought bubble quotes. This was my first project with After Effects, so please forgive the imperfections.
posted by guster4lovers at 7:18 PM on October 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

A lot of those things would be easy to make with After Effects alone. ("Easy" being a relative term, of course.) Most people who make animations use a combination of programs - I tend to work on images and components in Photoshop or Illustrator before importing them into After Effects, but everyone comes up with their own preferred workflow.

I've used both Flash and After Effects, and have found the latter much more intuitive and responsive. I don't make the sort of educational videos you're talking about, but the elements are there to move objects and texts easily.
posted by louche mustachio at 2:19 AM on October 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

I tend to think of this animation style as "Kinetic Typography" and as others have said After Effects is the most common program used for it.
posted by DaddyNewt at 6:20 PM on October 5, 2013

I'm working on two right now. I'm using After Effects and Photoshop. These will have walking and talking cartoon characters as well.
posted by lpsguy at 8:48 PM on October 5, 2013