Hello everyone, I’ve put together a helpful guide to help anyone who wants to be an animator or who already is one but wants to get better or learn more about animating.

Programs

The first thing you want to do is find an animation program that suits you and your prefered style. So here is a list of animation programs to get you started.

Stickfigure Based Animation Programs

Pivot 2.2.5: Download, Website

Pivot 3 Beta: Download

Pivot HotKeys: Download, Thread

Pivot 3 ‘hacked’: Download

Stykz: Website

Drawing Based Animation Programs

Flash CS4 Professional Trial: Website

Easytoon Build 3: Download, Website

Pencil: Website

Other Types of Animation Programs

Tisfat: Download, Website

Endorphin Learning Edition: Website

Blender: Website

Special Effect Programs

Benton Movie Gif: Website

GifWorks.com: Website

Learning

Now, the next thing you need to do is learn how to animate with your particular program, the best way to learn is with some people guiding you through it, so it’s a good idea to join an animation based forum and posting your animations in the correct section, people will then (hopefuly) tell you what they liked about it and also tell you what you need to focus on, but don’t feel bad when they say you did bad in an area, because that is called Constructive Criticism (‘CC’ for short), just work on what they have told you you’re doing badly in and post the result and they will then give you more CC and it goes on from there untill you get good or great.

The following is a list of helpful animation based sites for you to check out, I urge you to join them and start learning how to animate.


Droidz


A helpful and easy to get along with community who will help you with all your animation related problems or troubles.

DarkDemon


Similar to Droidz but it’s a much larger community and isn’t focused on animation as much, it may also seem like a ‘hostile’ place to some people.

Stykz


A small but slowly growing community, it’s mainly based around helping with the development of the program called ‘Stykz’ but it has a nice community that will help you with your animations.

Tutorials

Another great way of learning how to animate is by following tutorials (or ‘tuts’ as some like to call it), they are a good way to practice by yourself and pick up some new tricks you didn’t know or just an easy way to get used to the program.

The following is a list of helpful tutorials for you to try out and learn from.


Baha’s Tutorial

Probably one of the most well-known and best stickfigure based animation program tutorial ever, it was created for Pivot users but the same rules in it apply for programs like ‘Stykz’.


PRM’s Run Tutorial

A great and well explained running tutorial.


Fraz and Nev’s Tutorials

A great list of tutorials made by Fraz and Nev.

Ranks

If you’re going to be on a forum you should know the ranks, so here is a ranking guide I made a little while ago on the stykz.net forums: http://www.stykz.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1066

It can also help you self-asses yourself too by helping you understand what it takes to get each rank.

Inspiration

Not all animators can think of something to animate on the spot, some times you need a little encouragement or an idea to get you motivated or thinking in the right mind-set. So I recommend you try this Animation Combo Generator or go to the Elite animators threads on either darkdemon or droidz and you should be full of inspiration and loads of ideas for animations.

Well that raps up my Animator’s Guide, I hope you learned something and now know what it takes to be an animator. Good luck with your future animations!