Interested in animation? Then here are a few ideas for how to get yourself started quickly and easily.
Why not try Monkey Jam?
Use your webcam or digital camera to create your own animations with the freely downloadable and easy to use Monkey Jam. Try using a scanner to assemble a range of images as separate frames of an animation. I like the idea that it reinforces the concept that animation is actually aseries of single images., which is something I find never fails to fascinate children.
The next version will include onion skinning, a welcome addition for animators.
Finished animations can be exported as avi files for adding to your website, sharing in class or in assemblies.
Pivot Stickfigure Animator is great fun and so easy to use. Once again it reinforces to children the series of still images that create an animation and so is a useful introduction to an animation project. Manipulate stick figure with ease, creating a chain of animation frames. Why settle for one stick figure? Why not create an animation showing two stick figures dancing together? Great fun. You can also optionally set animation size, speed and more. Saved finished animations as an animated GIF. can So easy to use – be ready for lots of laughter when the children get their hands on it.
Easy to use animation software allowing you to bring clay characters to life. It is designed for use with any Windows compatible video capture devices. This software includes onion skinning, allowing the last frame to be superimposed over the model to ensure smooth motion between frames. Very useful! There are lots of useful aspects within this animation software, well worth a little of your time…….and it’s free!
Why not have a look at Mission Impossiball for some ideas about 2D animation?!
Just to finish off there is an excellent article detailing how to approach your first animation lesson in an issue of Sharing good practice on the ictopus website.
October 19, 2009 at 8:06 pm |
This is brilliant! Thank you! We are really hoping to give our staff the motivation to try stop frame with KS1 and KS2 and this perfect as the prospect of the technical issues of Digital Blue just didn’t appeal.