to examine

[egypturnash]

Links found in the comments on a Slashdot post asking about cartoon software. There were some other programs mentioned too but they didn't look promising.

Tweenmaker - interesting-looking 2D animation package. Its main feature seems to be letting you help it do tweens for you by defining bones in your drawing. Win-only, unfortunately. mac port in progress. Some very full animation in the gallery.

Similarly, Synfig. Open-source, Win/Mac/*nix. Demos are kinda mushy and studenty, but there's some nice effects happening in there.

Moho as some interesting ideas along the 'bones' line as well, but every single piece in the gallery is stiff and puppety.

also, I should ponder tossing a portfolio/reel at Global Mechanic. They're in Boston, they do commercials and series. Hey, why not.

Also AnimSlider is a little Flash editor plugin that looks like it frees me from that shitty, flow-killing "smart" properties inspector panel.

Comments

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Moho is a very odd program. I seem to recall some rather nice-looking pieces in the gallery the couple times I've looked at it, but I can tell the tweening is being done algorithmically; I don't know if that's a limitation of the program or of most of its users.

(I check in on Moho once in a blue moon for purely geek reasons -- I was a BeOS user for a few years, even in their registered developer program, and Moho is one of maybe two or three commercial programs that started on BeOS that's still extant.)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it looks really... computery. There're two or three pieces in the gallery that look good; the very first time I saw it, it had nothing but the art done by the programmer.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

Computer-based tweening fascinates me. How is Flash's?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Pretty much useless for anything but simple geometric things.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Downloooads. (http://www.homestarrunner.com/main15.html)
I am over heeere.
Now I am back over heeere.