BEST ANIMATION DESIGN SOFTWARE

If you have a certain passion for animations and you grew up watching cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Anime, South Park and Disney, you must have asked yourself questions like “How do they do that?” and “Can I do that, too?” Yes, even if you are not a top class animation professional, you can create these cartoons with essential animation design software, and more importantly, how. The first steps are to recognize that it will take a lot of time and practice to become good at creating animations. Many students think that having a degree or a diploma in animation may land you in the animation market. It is partly true but most important is to have the right kind of education and gain the right skills.  If you want to make a career out of it, you need to have a great creative mind. In fact, you need to be awesome. Even professional artists begin by figuring out what are the best essential animation design software and tools to use.There is several animation design software available that you can learn to animate. Some animation development software’s are free and others come with a monthly subscription.  There are animation design programs that will give you a taste of what professionals’ animators do, and how to deal with those kinds of software that the animation industry depends on.  All animation design software has their strengths and weakness.So where do you start?  Here is a list of some of the best essential animation design software that will give you the tools to create 2D animations, 3D animation, concept art, models, render and more!

Best Animation Design Software for Digital Painting:

These animation design programs mainly focus to create concept art, digital paintings and textures. Their strength is not 2D Animation, but these tools are essential in your animation toolkit to produce high quality work.Photoshop: Photoshop is the most common software. Almost everyone uses it starting from students to animation artists to photographers. This is the animation design software that every company and freelance artist are familiar with.  Photoshop is the paint program that has a smooth pipeline with almost every program out there including Maya and zBrush. This does come with a monthly subscription.Gimp: This is a cross-platform image editor. Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done. The best part, it’s free!

Best 2D Animation Design Software:

2D animation is the traditional animation design method that focuses on creating movement frame by putting the frames together. Put these frames together and you have a character that comes to life! Below are some of the best 2D animation design software to create your animated projects.ToonBoom: ToonBoom is a fantastic animation design tool for 2d animation work. Toon Boom Studio 8 is used by animation movie makers and it is used a lot in the entertainment industry. Incredibly, hundreds of top shows and movies have used Toon Boom Studio 8 to create their 2D animations. It is one of the best 2D animation software for movies and shows, which can also be transferred to games. This does come with a price, but there is an essential student version that is significantly less than the professional edition.GoAnimate:  It is an easy to use design software that creates 2D Animations.  It has a wide range of features that even beginners will be able to produce some advance animations. Some features include automatic lip-sync, plug and play characters, and pre-keyed animations. It work free for 14 days.

Best 3D Animation Design Software:

3D animation is the process of creating three-dimensional moving images in a digital environment. They are computer-generated images that create animated sequences. Compared to 2D animation, 3D can have more depth and look more realistic.  Below is a list of the best 3D animation design software used by students, freelancers and pros!Autodesk Maya: Similar to Photoshop, Maya is one of the most common software, used by everyone.  If your goal is to be the world’s greatest 3D animator, then there is only one tool out there that you need to use. Autodesk Maya. Over the years, they have pushed the limits of 3D animation, so if you want to learn all there is about this art form then this is the program for you. For students, this is free!Blender:  This is the animation design software that you will need to start learning how to create an animation in 3D space.  It is great for the starter level animator and has all the essential features and tools which one would find in a more advanced software.  There is also a lot of online tutorials in YouTube to get you started. Best part is Blender is free!Zbrush: This particular animation design program excels in modeling and texturing 3D models. You won’t be able to produce the quality of work by any other program. Almost every company and freelancer has this program in their toolbox. This program does come with a price, but students get a discount.