How To Animate Over Video

hi, i'm mark zamora, animation expert, herefor about.com and in this screen cast, i'm going to walk you through some of the bestsoftware for those looking to get into animation!â â  now, depending on what kind of animation you'relooking to get into, you'll need different pieces of software so we'll start off withbasic 2d animation.â one of the most popular ways to create 2d animation is with adobe'sflash. it presents the work area with a canvas,

How To Animate Over Video, tools and a frame based timeline. if you startoff basic, it's a lot like making a flip book. as you learn more and more about the toolsavailable to you, you can create some great animations.â more popular programs for creating 2d animation are the toon boom series â - which is whatmany professional studios use to create their

animations like the simpsons, disney movieslike the lion king and much more. it provides the professional tools you need to createthe best animations - including the ability to create cartoon puppets which make animatingsome characters so much easier, and lip sync tools to animate speech easier. of course,the basic concept is the same. adjust movement along a timeline to animate your objects andcharacters.â â  of course, both of these products can be quitecostly, so if you're looking to start 2d animation but have a smaller budget, then you'll wantto check out pencil. it's very similar to flash and toonboom but has some limitations.i know many people who use it for practice and the best part is that it's free!â that covers 2d animation, but if you're a

fan of movies like toy story or shrek, thenyou might be more interested in 3d animation. this is where software like maya or 3d studiomax come in. they are both from autodesk and are slowly becoming more and more similarso it's really about personal preference at this point. 3d software and animation likethis can get pretty complicated because of all the steps involved, from the creationof the 3d characters, or modelling - to the actual animation itself.maya and 3ds max provide tools for both of these processes but the general idea is thesame as with the 2d animation software from earlier. use the frames and keyframes downhere on the timeline to create your animation! autodesk provides their software for freeif you have an educational email ending with

a .edu, so if you're in school and you'relooking to learn - they make it very easy!â  if you're not in school but are still lookingto animate on a budget then check out anim8or. it's a free software that provides all ofthe basic tools so you can get to learn how to 3d model and animate with ease. â it doesntget much more simple than this.â that covers it! of course, software is only half the battle!practice makes perfect!â  for more on animation, be sure to visit compute.about.com.thanks for watching!â