Simple Character Animation for Mac?
June 28, 2015 10:18 AM Subscribe
What Mac or web-based software is available for my 11-year-old daughter to do character animation? She's ready to move on from GoAnimate.
My 11-year-old daughter has been using the GoAnimate website to make 2D animated cartoons for two years. You can customize characters, give them stock animations (walk, dance, shout) and text-to-speech, and Ken Burns the camera. She also likes BuddyPoke. She knows how to use iMovie. She's even got followers. Pretty good for an autistic girl who has trouble talking.
What else is out there? I think adult animation programs like Flash would be too advanced and require too much painstaking patience. She likes the support that Buddypoke and GoAnimate provide. Is there a middle ground? She found Project Spark a bit overwhelming (it's a game, actually) and I found it too greedy for my microtransactions (it's free-to-play, which we totally need a new word for).
Also: She's shown me videos about Vocaloid, Japanese software which lets you generate text-to-speech singing that sounds like autotune, but not on a Mac. I see that GarageBand allows you to autotune your voice to be on pitch, but is there anything that allows you to take unpitched speech and turn it into "singing," YouTube-style?
My 11-year-old daughter has been using the GoAnimate website to make 2D animated cartoons for two years. You can customize characters, give them stock animations (walk, dance, shout) and text-to-speech, and Ken Burns the camera. She also likes BuddyPoke. She knows how to use iMovie. She's even got followers. Pretty good for an autistic girl who has trouble talking.
What else is out there? I think adult animation programs like Flash would be too advanced and require too much painstaking patience. She likes the support that Buddypoke and GoAnimate provide. Is there a middle ground? She found Project Spark a bit overwhelming (it's a game, actually) and I found it too greedy for my microtransactions (it's free-to-play, which we totally need a new word for).
Also: She's shown me videos about Vocaloid, Japanese software which lets you generate text-to-speech singing that sounds like autotune, but not on a Mac. I see that GarageBand allows you to autotune your voice to be on pitch, but is there anything that allows you to take unpitched speech and turn it into "singing," YouTube-style?
If you think there's a chance she's a budding programmer, check out Looking Glass, which describes itself as "...a programming environment for ages 10 and up. With Looking Glass, you can create and share animated stories, simple games, and even virtual pets. ...one of the only programming environments to show increased motivation among girls. "
Here's a video to give you a sense of how it works.
Not sure if Songsmith does autotune, but might be a fun/easy way to get something down.
posted by quinndexter at 11:24 AM on June 28, 2015
Here's a video to give you a sense of how it works.
Not sure if Songsmith does autotune, but might be a fun/easy way to get something down.
posted by quinndexter at 11:24 AM on June 28, 2015
Anime Studio Debut
from the site: "Bone-rigging is a fast and efficient alternative to tedious frame-by-frame animation. Add a skeleton to any image by pointing and clicking to create bones that overlay the parts of your image, to control arms or legs for example. Then bring your image to life by moving any individual bone point to create the pose or motion you want, while keeping your project organized with the sequencer and timeline."
posted by Sophont at 12:44 PM on June 28, 2015
from the site: "Bone-rigging is a fast and efficient alternative to tedious frame-by-frame animation. Add a skeleton to any image by pointing and clicking to create bones that overlay the parts of your image, to control arms or legs for example. Then bring your image to life by moving any individual bone point to create the pose or motion you want, while keeping your project organized with the sequencer and timeline."
posted by Sophont at 12:44 PM on June 28, 2015
I have found Muvizu to be fun to tinker around with but you have to take extra steps to get it up and running on a Mac.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:30 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:30 PM on June 28, 2015
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posted by Huck500 at 10:30 AM on June 28, 2015