Photoshop and ImageReady are not for animations, they supposed to be for 2D graphics designing, an old school was trying to use photoshop for 3D, but which program can beat 3D Max or Maya in that field?, they are the best in that field, you have a lot of options, modules and meshes rendering, i made a movie for Sep.11 using 3D Max that shows people on the plane and in the twins tower, thier feelings before the crash, it's not a long movie, but my friends said it's good, i will post a link to it later when i put it online as i still can't do that.
3D Max is so good, but Maya is the program king if we can say that

Clear a few things up. If you want to learn 3d animation, download blender. It is free, but has a learning curve . At the same time it's also starting to rivial some commerical packages. At least with Blender you can learn the bare basics that then can applied to Lightwave, 3D Max, or whatever.


Now someone mentioned Pixar's Renderman. Renderman is NOT a 3d Animation package. Renderman is a 3d Rendering Standard, more like set of programming instructions. Two of the best free Renderman compliant renders are PIXIE and AQUIS.

You can model and set up your animations in Blender, and then with the Blenderman export script save the file as a .RIB (renderman complient file spec) and then render with PIXIE or some other Renderman render. Same with Max or Lightwave or XSI.

For the Money, I like Lightwave. Lightwave now runs for under $1000 for a full commerical license. While the internal rendering engine is showing its age, it is still the only package the is capable of Broadcast quality renders out of the box. If you want to take a look at what Lightwave can do, watch footage from the new Battlestar Galactica series. That is some of the best Lightwave work around.

Definitely Macromedia Flash all the way. I've been using it for a long time and it's such a great program that's so easy to learn. You can create practically any animation in such a short time, I love the fact that there are so many features and shortcuts that make animation so quick and easy.

Sure it may cost a bit but the money is definitely worth it, you wont find anything better on the market.

Excuse me.............. ................ 'Sorrry to interrupt'... ... but is there any kind of program that allows you

to make your own flash or flash movie? Please reply, I need ALL this information to build up and add

features to my new website and make it much better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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What is really the best free 2d animator
What Are The Best Animation Programs Out There ?

Ok,
I'm looking for the best 2D FREE animator
It needs to be good at stickmen animation
It needs good effects
It needs to have ABSOLUTELY NO SPY-WARE
It needs to be easy to use
Has anyone got an idea of what I should use
Please reply


-Sam Endean

Are you trying to do a movie or game?

Can anyone point me to a very good graphic editor.

You can also try macromedia flash 8 if your creative enough then you can create tremendous works..

Haha few this saved me not having to right this question thanks everyone that replied.

I need a program for animations at the moment i have fire works 8 im not sure if its an animation program or not Lol is some one could plz tell me if it is i would be greatful also dose any one know how much photo shop costs as well as image ready thanks alot