Cartoon Creating Software

Create a stop-motion cartoon

There is something almost magical about stop-motion animation. From Bagpuss to Wallace and Gromit, the way stop-motion animators create the illusion of movement and life from inanimate objects fascinates many.

But creating stop-motion animations doesn’t require any expensive equipment. Indeed, it’s easy to create your own Chicken Run -style ‘claymations’ at home. Almost any camera will do and the software needed to animate photos is available free online. Beyond that, all you need is modelling clay, imagination and patience.

So whether you want to create a personal project or just keep the kids occupied, read on to find out how to make your own stop-motion masterpiece. The images in this article are from Computeractive's own ‘monster’ video, which can be viewed by clicking here .

In all cases, though, be sure to check that the device has plenty of available storage space, because once the process of capturing the animation has begun, moving the camera to switch memory cards or transfer photos to free up space could ruin hours of effort.

It’s worth ensuring that the camera’s battery is fully charged, too, for the same reason.

Obviously, you will need something to film. Characters crafted from Plasticine are ideal because they can be easily manipulated, or you could use toys or articulated action figures – but this is where the imagination comes in.

More practically, software is needed to edit the photographs once they have been transferred to the PC. Most digital cameras and webcams come with software of some description, but if you don’t already have an image-editing application, download a free program such as Irfanview or Gimp .

Finally, you will need a program that is able to turn still photographs into animations. There are many different programs capable of doing this and, at a pinch, you could even use the Windows Movie Maker program included with most versions of Windows.

Here, though, we will use Virtualdub. This is an easy-to-use video-editing program that affords fine control over animations. Virtualdub can be downloaded free from the Sourceforge website .

Virtualdub doesn’t need installing as such: once the program files are extracted from the compressed ZIP file (just right-click the file and choose Extract All), it can be launched right away by double-clicking the file named Virtualdub.exe.

Cartoon Creator – 3 D Animation Software | Cartoon Films and Animation

Perhaps the old adage where you should never judge a book by its cover is not necessarily relevant when it comes to a Cartoon Creator. Seeing a cartoon in 3D gives a new depth and storyline to the normal viewing parameters of a cartoon. What you see on the outset will set the stage for your viewing pleasure. Perhaps you can judge a book by its cover in this case however, the content of the book itself is not to be overlooked.

Some of the great 3D Cartoon Creator features which have been developed in recent years, is changing the way we view movies. During the golden era of movies there were a lot of experiments being made on the big screen and the introduction of 3D was one of them. It has had a few different renaissance periods but nothing like the past decade have we seen both content and delivery of 3D animation software make it in the mainstream.

Now over the last 10 years in the 3D Cartoon creation genre we have seen more movies made in this fashion than the past 50 years collectively. It was not until this decade that we have had such great hits as The Polar Express (2004), The Nightmare Before Christmas (2006), Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), Up (2009), Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009), Happy Feet (2010), How To Train Your Dragon (2010), Shrek Forever After (2010), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Despicable Me (2010).

With this amount of great film in the recent history of animation shot in 3D style, there is a promise of great movies to come. While only Ice Age: Continental Drift is set to be released in 2012 in animation, there are other highly rated movies being re-released in this format that are creating quite a lot of attention, namely the Star Wars and Avatar movies.

Not just major release movies from a Cartoon Creator are being made in 3D animation . Soon there will be an entire market for 3D televisions and programming to be shot in a variety of formats not limited to 2D or 3D compositions.