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Efficient 2D Animation Software?
jack hunter asks: "I just found out about MOHO, a software that minimizes frame-by-frame tweening in 2D animation via the usage of a 3D concept --- bones (among other things).
Believe it or not, prior to this, I thought Macradobe Flash was the only affordable animation software, and I was prepared to do frame-by-frame grit-work for my budget-wise animations. Anyway, I've learned my lesson: there are more powerful pieces software out there, and there are those who know of them. What do you use to animate? If you use Flash, do you use any add-ons/components or special techniques to make things more efficient?"
Try Toon Boom Studio. Cheap, free trial available.
I haven't used it, but Synfig's capabilities look similar to Moho. Synfig is Free software.
The ocean parts and the meteors come down
Laid out in amber, baby.
After Effects, hands down. It's worth every penny.
I could ramble on about how I've been an professional animator for years and how AE has ever feature an animator could ask for, but the bottom line is this: if you're outputting to video, read up on After Effects.
I know a guy who made similar software. Not sure how it stacks up to some of the other products mentioned in the thread, although it does have some fairly sophisticated shape blending which minimizes bending energy to produce the morphs. Has bones, cross-platform, etc. It's called TweenMaker.
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"Moho is a more well-rounded and complete package than Synfig is at this point. While Synfig has been used in production, the animators using it had the benefit of having the primary developer sitting behind them. That counts for a lot. In other words, Synfig still has a long way to go before v1.0."
The author of Synfig said the above: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13241
But does it support inverse kinematics?
I'll second that! Quick link for the lazy
I have a friend who swears by ToonBoom, but I haven't done much with it myself.
I'm just finishing up some cutout animation (Monty Python-style) for a science museum. I considered Flash, but ultimately went with Animation:Master. A:M is actually a full-featured 3D character animation package, with a price closer to Flash. The advantages on this project were an excellent animation interface, forward and inverse kinematics with bones, rigging, smooth interpolation with many options, motion blur, and glow effects. On the flip side, building a character by applying texture maps to a bunch of parallel planes tends to take a while (about an hour per character, plus the time to cut them into pieces with Photoshop), A:M can be unstable, and animating with line art would be a whole different process -- although I'd be curious to see what someone could do using the .ai importer. Since I'm basically rendering a bunch of planes, with no lights or shadows, the final render took only a few second per frame.
If you're comfortable with a 3D package that's geared toward character animation, there are advantages to using it for 2D animation. If not, the learning curve is probably not worth climbing unless you're looking to branch out into 3D.